Crowquet theme gala ball for Adelaide Crows annual gala dinner fundraiser

June 28, 2019
News Release

Every year the Crows host a fundraising event in support of the Adelaide Crows Children’s Foundation. The event is one of the Club’s largest events of the year.

This year was a visual extravaganza with a croquet theme, a fun play-on-word on the Club’s name, the Adelaide Crows.  As the club’s official audio visual partner, Encore was thrilled to be delivering the event at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre for another year.

The brief was to design an elegant gala event with a croquet club, garden party theme for 1,000 guests. Here is what we delivered.


Crow-quet Garden Party theme for this yea’rs Adelaide Football Club Gala

The size and height of the venue made it possible to design and create an amazing ceiling installation which was created via two giant circular truss hung from the roof. An 8m circle of 50 Scenic Panels framed the installation and encased an inner 6m circle of beautiful foliage. Below this hung beautiful crystal balls which twinkled in the lights. The ceiling feature extended throughout the room with 600m of festoon lighting and 400m of bunting.

The stage comprised of three 16ft tall portrait style screens interspersed with 8 x 7m totem formation of up-lit Scenic Panels matching the ceiling installation and flanked by two giant screens at either side. The stage continued the croquet theme with white picket fencing, green grass carpeting and a lectern complete with croquet hammers and foliage.


Custom stage set designed using Scenic Panels and three, 16ft high screens.

The team delivered a complete event production solution, encompassing all audio, vision, lighting, staging, multimedia creation, styling and production management.

The event theme was brought to life as soon as guests arrived at the venue. An entrance feature and photo opportunity was created comprising light up letters spelling AFC. The area was encased with picket fencing and decorated with on-theme props including a grass carpet, croquet hammers and plants.

MC for the evening was Ryan Fitzgerald (Fitzy), players and past coaches accompanied him on stage and were supported by Nathan Casserly and Alex Ouwens from OC Real Estate as the Auctioneers. Entertainment for the night was provided by Brian Ruiz plus band.


MC for the evening was Ryan Fitzgerald (Fitzy).

Around the room were silent auction areas framed with additional festoon lighting and count-down screens.  A Toyota RAV 4 was the lucky door price for the evening and finalists were invited to come on stage for a croquet challenge, with the winner of the car generously donating the prize back to the charity.

The annual Crows Gala Auction is a hotly anticipated event for the Encore Adelaide team. The event gives us the opportunity to create truly immersive experiences and we love jumping through hoops to deliver something completely different each year and look forward to next year’s creative brief!

Client Testimonial

The Events team here at the Adelaide Football Club look forward to this Annual Event as much as Encore. We have an extremely strong working relationship with Encore which allows us to deliver events such as this. When we met with Encore the theme was decided and we discussed all elements of the event from styling, multimedia requirements and production.

With so many elements involved including a vehicle on stage, MC, a multitude of performers including a five piece band and two Auctioneers, it was smooth sailing from bump in to bump out. Encore handled last minutes run sheet changes during the event without a hitch.

The feedback from our guests and Executive has been overwhelming in relation to the entrance and the room. We believe this set the scene for the night and contributed to our overall result.