To help showcase this theme, the team developed a fictional story and history for the Big Top Ball to draw in the audience. The premise was that the owners of the circus, Gus and Greta Goodfellow, close their circus down once a year for a show benefitting a charity of their choosing.

This year’s recipient just happens to be Give Kids the World Gala. Guests meet the circus’ eccentric owners, and are treated to an old-fashioned melodrama, where an evil magician double-crosses the owners into signing over the circus unless 1,000 tickets can be sold for that night’s performance.

This both provided an engaging story to weave the night together, but also encouraged guests to donate money and play carnival games in order to save the circus.

From guest arrival to partying at the end of the night, the team engrossed guests into the story.

The event was divided into two spaces, the dining room “big top” inside, and the “midway” outside, which housed the guest arrival experience, silent auction and carnival games.

As guests entered the space, they were greeted by eccentric atmospheric circus characters and soaring balloons. Silent auction boards were made to look like circus side show posters, and carnival games offered guests the opportunity to make smaller donations to the Village in exchange for the chance to play games of skill.

These games served as both decor and revenue generation.

Say hello to the Strong Man.

A guest tries his hand at a show of strength.

More midway fun.

Games served both as decor and revenue-generators, as guests paid to play.

Once inside, guests entered a circus dreamland big top. Since this is still an upscale, black tie event, the team wanted to use a more elegant, turn-of-the-century circus color palate of antique gold, cream and ivory to paint the room, with pops of cherry red.

Around the perimeter, striped panels of gold and ivory drape mimicked the look of a circus tent, with a cherry red ground row of drape covered with oversized stars manipulated the scale of the room to make it appear like a larger tent.

Filament bulbs in red and white cascaded overhead to create the illusion of a peaked tent.

To maximize engagement, the team positioned three circular stages along the middle of the room to recreate the three rings of a circus.

This worked with the theme while ensuring that each guest is at most five rows from the stage.

A dinner table close-up.

Three table designs were created to showcase three iconic circus characters: the ivory and gold carousel horse, the red and white illusionist, and the copper and orange fire thrower.

A long view.

Wooden dance floor bisected the stages and replicated the look of a circus tent floor. On the ends of the two outer edge stages, draped silk provided a tent-shaped décor detail that doubled as a performance silk.

A view of a stage.

The beautiful ceiling.

Another of the "three ring" stages.

The plate-spinning act.

Gymnasts perform.

Aerialists at work.

The entertainment consisted of a five-character melodrama, where Gus and Great Goodfellow, the owners, were tricked by the evil Mortimer Mystere to sell their circus and the contract with star performer and Mortimer’s obsession, Bella Belle, unless they could sell 1,000 tickets.

This story was spread out over three large-scale dance numbers that had circus aerial and hoop work mixed in, and two specialty acts: A Russian Bar act and a plate spinner that introduced the highly-anticipated over-the-top dessert.

The event team wanted the entertainment to happen organically, but due to the size and scale of the event, and the logistics of performers reaching the center stages, the team needed to carefully time the progression of acts with foodservice.

Excitement builds....

And the stunning dessert.

The explosive finale where guests learn that Gus is actually a master illusionist, flooding the stage and audience with confetti and tickets, transitioning the dinner into a dance party that continued until midnight.

Guests take to the floor, and the Village netted its highest revenue from the gala to date.