Hail Mary

The list of reasons not to hold a benefit on a luxury ocean liner docked in Red Hook, Brooklyn, is very, very long. But when the parent company of the Queen Mary 2 offers up its iconic vessel for a night (along with staff, food, drinks, and more), what are you going to do-say no?

And so, despite many formidable challenges, the New York City Opera and the Brooklyn Academy of Music entered uncharted waters on May 24 with the Britannia Ball, an event that was two years in the making.Eager to connect with a new audience, Queen Mary 2 operator Cunard Line approached the New York City Opera with the idea of hosting a benefit on the ship, a decision that would require taking the ship out of service for a night-an incredibly rare occurrence.

For a partner, the New York City Opera reached out to BAM, an organization which they saw as experts on getting people to make the journey to Brooklyn as well as drawing a glamorous, celeb-filled crowd.

And then, the planning: weekly conference calls among six partners for a year and a half, strategizing how to create a cohesive event on a ship five city blocks long that guests can roam freely, addressing the issue of transportation to and from Brooklyn, and figuring out how to get the personal information required by the Department of Homeland Security and the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey from every single person who hoped to board the ship-two weeks in advance. No exceptions.

"How do you politely get the security information in an age of identity theft? How do you politely ask people their date of birth and country of citizenship, and tell them if they don't bring their ID with them to the event they're not going to be able to board the ship?" asked Sarah Denton, the opera's director of special events. (The answer: dedicate an entire page to the subject in the RSVP card, end every interaction with guests by telling them to bring their IDs, and provide reminders via email, fax, and follow-up calls. "By [Wednesday], people were saying, 'Yeah, yeah, I know. Bring my ID,'" Denton said the night of the event.)

Solutions to the other issues? Provide a fleet of four buses to bring guests to Brooklyn and seven to deliver them home to Manhattan or within the host borough. Hire musicians of varying styles to create different experiences in several spaces throughout the venue, from a bluegrass band to a classic jazz sextet to a harpist and a string quartet. And make sure the staff outnumber the guests. (Cunard donated the work of 1,200 employees to tend to the crowd of 800.)

Staging a massive, cooperative event on the Queen Mary 2 does eliminate one major element from the litany of standard planning considerations: decor. "The idea is to show off the ship," said Edward McKeaney, BAM's special events manager. "The venue speaks for itself."