We’re only halfway through the year and the last thing on most people’s mind is Christmas. The many months that separate July and December give the illusion that booking a venue and planning a holiday event is not a pressing matter. You, however, are a savvy event planner, and you know that Christmas venues are already being booked up, and the time for planning a knock-out Christmas party is now. To help you get into the Christmas spirit and holiday party-planning mindset, Staging Connections in South East Queensland has released a selection of Christmas party styling themes so you can start planning a stress-free and beautifully enchanting holiday season event. This year, we’re offering party planners a collection of fresh ideas and some popular revamped classics. Whatever vibe you’re aiming for with your Christmas party, our Christmas themes can help you blow your party’s attendees away. Whether it be a sit down gala dinner, held in combination with your annual awards night or a poolside cocktail party, all of our Christmas party themes can be customized to meet the needs of your Christmas event’s budget, venue and brief. A Fairytale Christmas event theme Fairytales come to life in this beautiful celebration of Christmas. Christmas is a magical time of year surrounded by enchanting tales that warm the hearts of the young and old. This year, we’ll be recreating the magic of these tales in our revamped, “Fairytale Christmas” event styling concept. This theme is all about incorporating rich reds and textured fabrics, like velvet, into your styling and table centrepieces. Add traditional European, medieval-like decorations to your table style to create a luxurious and decadent atmosphere. Ensemble centrepieces of Victorian urns filled with glossy red apples, berries and roses. Bring warmth to the table by adding clusters of red ruby glass candle holders throughout the table. This Christmas styling concept works best on long king tables, which adds a regal atmosphere to the decadent affair. If you’re looking for an enchanting traditional event style for your office Christmas party then this is the perfect concept for you. Glittery Winter Wonderland event styling There is such childlike joy in the thought of snow and we so rarely get to experience its delights here in Southeast Queensland. Whether it be for a festive Christmas event or a stunning gala evening, we can create a magical frozen fantasy to transport your guests to a world of winter white and starry nights. Ethereal snowflakes drift around the room, across sheer chiffon draping in the ceiling and walls of black star-cloth, settling upon a landscape of pristine linens in the purest white. Austere, bare branched centrepieces drip with icy chandelier crystals that twinkle in the light creating a sparkling canopy at every table. With our Winter Wonderland Christmas party theme, your guests will be transported to a world of sparkling white reminiscent of the gleaming north complete with all the enchanting trappings of a white Christmas. Enhance this frosty winter theme with a custom printed Event Backdrop of a Winter Wonderland, or consider projecting snowflakes across your venue walls, or display wintery vistas across a set of digital banners or widescreens. With our range of audio visual technology and lighting systems, we are literally boundless with how we can make your event standout and truly memorable for your guests. Immerse your guests in our 12 Days of Christmas event theme Undeniably a favourite Christmas carol, we’ve brought the ’12 Days of Christmas’ to life as an immersive holiday event theme. With the application of the latest in digital technology, there are limitless ways to make a real impact at your Christmas party with this theme by turning your event into a live countdown to Christmas. Coordinated graphics can be projected onto screens to create a ‘room look’ that changes every half hour to the next day of Christmas, eventually coming to rest at the Twelfth day. This is a contemporary design concept that celebrates an elegant and romantic Christmas tradition. Festive table linens, in shades of Gold, Cardinal Red and Forest Green, create a luxurious atmosphere. 12 different centrepiece designs depicting the 12 days of Christmas coordinate beautifully with the colour palette. This Christmas, create a tonne of excitement at your Christmas party or holiday event with our 12 Days of Christmas party theme. Platinum Colour Pop Add a burst of colour to sophisticated and clean styling with our new Platinum Colour Pop concept. Along crisp white table clothes, silver sequin table runners add sparkle and a sense of luxury to this styled Christmas party look. Our beautiful silver Manzanita trees are decorated with silver baubles all with different finishes and textures, accented with bright pops of colour. Chair covers in silver grey are arranged with coordinating ‘feature chairs’ to match your accent baubles. This holiday theme comes with an entry feature or stage backdrop that includes our lovely and very versatile crystal curtains and spiral chandeliers. To complete your holiday party theme, you can include coloured lighting to match your accent colour in order to create a cohesive and impactful look for your Christmas event. Party in a tropical Calypso Christmas event theme A fun tropical style, the Calypso Christmas party theme is perfect for Queensland’s hot Christmas celebrations. Featuring a riot of bright colours in chair covers and chevron print table runners, you can utilize different elements of this holiday party theme to coordinate or clash to give your tables individual flair. Our pair of pineapple centrepieces in Pink, Lime, Yellow and Teal are the perfect centrepiece for a Queensland Christmas! For an authentic Aussie Christmas feel, you can add our beautiful floating LED orbs in and around a pool area if you have one available, or you can place them on your stage to add a lovely illuminated element to the décor of your holiday event. Christmas Party Styling Top Tips: Event Backdrop – An event backdrop adds a degree of versatility to your Christmas party. Using our range of Event backdrops is a great way to tie your Christmas party theme together while still highlighting your brand. You can use an event backdrop as a stage background, a media wall or as a photo wall. Event Feed – A sure fire way to plan a standout Christmas party is to engage your attendees with a live social media feed. Our Event Feed platform software will pull social media posts with your event’s dedicated hashtag and display them on a feed. When it comes to adding drama to your Christmas party, lighting is your best friend. We offer a range of sophisticated event lighting options to ensure your party shines bright. From branded or themed roving gobos, uplights along the venue walls, to moving pin-spot lighting to make your tables come alive. Change up your seating style – consider ditching the traditional banquet rounds for long king tables, or create a lounge zone at the back of the room, use a mixture of seating options for an eclectic look. In addition to our beautiful and highly customizable Christmas party themes, Staging Connections offer you more than 30 years of event planning experience. We have an event production team that can help you plan and seamlessly execute a Christmas party or holiday event that leaves attendees breathless with enchantment. If you would like to know more about our Christmas party themes, get in touch by calling 1800 209 099 or by sending an online enquiry. Why you should partner with Staging Connections for your office Christmas party The Staging Connections South East Queensland team have delivered countless Christmas parties and end of year office functions for over 30 years. We understand that when it comes to putting on a good show, you need creativity, innovative AV solutions and reliable equipment. Backed by Australia’s largest range of event services, you can count on us to make your Christmas party a truly memorable one. We would also like to welcome the newest team member, Pat O’Hara, who is now heading up Event Design at Staging Connections’ South East Queensland. Pat O’Hara is one of Australia’s premier event specialists, highly regarded for producing business events of distinction for clients such as Qantas, Emirates, Citrix & Oracle to name a few. He has cemented a reputation for exceptional attention to detail, showcraft, reliability and client service. Specialties and passions include Design, Production Management, & Show Direction. Whilst holding various roles over the years, his connection to Staging Connections goes back to the mid 1990’s. Now as Creative Services Manager, replacing Sean Sturges who has left the business for personal reasons, Pat and his talented team oversee the creative offerings and event design in the South East Queensland region. Sales Manager for South East Queensland, Susan Hamilton, is excited about what the future holds for Staging Connections’ styling services with Pat at the helm. “We are thrilled to welcome Pat back to the Staging team! His expertise in production management and creative services, along with his passion for the industry, means he is the perfect fit for our business, and our customers will continue to receive the latest products and event services technology for their conferences and events. Watch this space …” … Read More
How to deliver an action-packed, Australiana themed event for 1000+ international VIPs on Sydney’s harbour
Mar 19 2018
Amway is a world-leading company in beauty, lifestyle and homecare. Every year, they reward their top distributors with immersive events around the world. This year Amway Taiwan chose Sydney as their destination and flew over 1150 guests for week of learning, networking and of course celebrating. They came to us with a proposal – they wanted a big, extravagant event. Exactly the sort of job that excites us. Whilst these big event briefs are exciting to work on, they’re also laden with logistical challenges to overcome. As an experienced AV company, we wanted to share some tips for delivering large, high profile events of this kind, in the hope it will aid event planners facing similar challenges. Watch the video
See below our top tips for delivering an Australiana-themed event for 1000+ VIPs. 1. Choose an iconic Australian location Amway Taiwan chose Sydney for a specific reason – they wanted to surprise and delight their guests with a truly once-in-a-lifetime experience and where better than Sydney. For an event of such size and spectacle, we needed the right venue. It needed to be large enough to accommodate the guests with enough access points for crew and audio visual installations but also offer an exclusive feeling, fitting for such a prestigious event. That’s why the client loved the Cutaway at The Barangaroo Reserve Headland Park. Located on the shores of Sydney’s harbour, the Cutaway is one of Sydney’s most anticipated venues, only opening in August last year. Flanked entirely on one side with a sheer, 18-metre high sandstone wall, this unique layout rendered the venue the perfect candidate for projection mapping. Our multimedia team created content that captivated the audience, branded the space, and supported the live performances. 2. Entertain the crowd with a host of recognisable Australian acts and performances. From the moment guests arrived, they were met with performers – stilt walkers dressed as iconic Australian buildings, bouncing kangaroos and caricatures of Aussie lifesavers, plus Australian animal petting areas. Guests were then surprised by five flag-bearing water skis passing the cove, and watched a spectacular aerial acrobatics show by Strange Fruit. Soul Mystique also mesmerised crowds with their innovative dance and magical costume transformation routine. As the entertainment continued through the night, guests were witness to a 40-strong cast from Decendance and the NSW Aboriginal Dance Company, a custom choreographed aerial show and an incredible performance by New Zealand (which is close to Australia!) opera singer Hayley Westenra. 3. Use projection mapping to turn a large venue into a themed experience Projection mapping is a clever way to turn an inanimate backdrop into a dynamic visual journey. The magnificent sandstone wall lining the Cutaway made the perfect, albeit rugged, canvas for us to project onto. Our in-house design team produced a stunning multimedia sequence showcasing iconic Australian buildings, animals and landscapes. We projection mapped this onto the rock wall, turning it into a talking point of the night. It is a clever way to keep guests entertained, theme a relatively bare venue and provide a beautiful backdrop for the on-stage performances and presentations. 4. Use simple, yet clever table styling that captures the Aussie spirit While the dazzling performances were crucial, we couldn’t forget that our guests would be sitting down to gala dinner. Our event stylists were tasked with the challenge of creating stunning centrepieces and tablescapes, and then replicating it for the 100+ tables. No mere feat. Each table featured incredible native Australian floral table arrangements with tiny LED lights that made them glow, casting a warm light around the venue. In true extravagant style, we even had custom-made embroidered Amway napkins and rings designed for this special occasion. 5. Surprise and delight with big, extravagant acts When you need to keep over 1000 guests entertained over a long period of time, you’ll want to consider using big, flashy acts interspersed throughout the event. They’re fantastic for getting the crowd excited, which is great for a fresh injection of energy. They’re also handy at creating a diversion, for when you need to draw your guests’ attention away so your events team can bump-in or out any changes to the event. For our Australiana themed event, our Event Directors covered all bases – flashy cars, water acts and a mesmerising fireworks display. Amway Taiwan asked for a grand entrance for their awards winners. We used seven vintage 1969 Mustang convertibles to give the Amway winners’ procession a red carpet arrival, driving them right onto the stage. During the day, we hosted all the guests on the water’s edge, entertaining them with a water-skiing stunt show. After such an action-packed day, we needed to end the night with a bang. We organised a magnificent fireworks display over Sydney’s harbour, with the entire show running 5 minutes longer than Sydney’s coveted New Year’s Eve fireworks! Staged from two barges on the water, and six positions around Nawi Cove, the shards of coloured lights lit up the harbour, casting a beautiful glow over the venue and a dazzling end to the event. 6. Partner with an experienced Audio Visual company With big, extravagant events come higher stakes. As all of your most important stakeholders are in the room and with so many individual elements, you’ll need an experienced AV and event company you can rely on. Staging Connections has been the name behind some of the largest and most technically demanding live events to hit Australian soil. Having been in the events business for over 30 years, our experienced team of technicians and event directors understand what it takes to deliver to this scale and profile. We only use brands we trust; we take a tailored approach to every brief using everything from the latest in AV, lighting and staging through to event styling and engaging digital media; and we work with you every step of the way so there’s no surprises. If you’re interesting in finding out what Staging Connections can do for your event, get in touch with us today by calling 1800 209 099 or by completing our event quote form. See all the action of Amway Taiwan 2016 Amway Taiwan Incentive Event 2016 from Staging Connections on Vimeo. Business Events Sydney on the Chinese Incentive Market from Staging Connections on Vimeo. ... Read More