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In the category "Best Decor: Budget Under $20,000,"
AOO Events helps treat 80 top performers to dinner at a restaurant on the 24th floor of a hotel overlooking the downtown L.A. skyline. To make the most of the view, the event team moved out the existing furniture, replacing it with three 24-foot-long tables with arrangements of red roses down the center.
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Cherry blossom branches attached to chandeliers overhead create a canopy of light and floral thanks to AOO.
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A long view of the spectacular dining room.
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In the same category,
EventWorks creates a "Las Vegas legends" theme with a black, white and red color scheme to make the 186 guests at a final-night awards dinner at a casino resort feel honored.
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The EventWorks team makes the most of a tight budget by draping the room in white velour, flanking the stage with two tall black urns topped with white floral, and lining the walls with oversize images of Las Vegas legends such as entertainer Wayne Newton in big black frames.
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A long view of the EventWorks "Las Vegas Legends" design.
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Also in the "Under $20,000" category,
Wilkinson Rhodes celebrates a Sweet 16 by transforming a hotel ballroom into a Venetian palace.
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At the Wilkinson Rhodes event, the "masquerade" theme includes costumed stilt-walkers serving "Mask-tinis," a pre-function area flanked with topiary trees filled with gold and copper butterflies and gold Venetian masks, and a ballroom festooned with hundreds of yards of dupioni silk and butterfly masks
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A Venetian mask and feathers decorate the cake.
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In the category Best Decor: Budget $20,000 To $49,999, AOO Events salutes designer Salvatore Ferragamo with a dramatic stage in midcentury modern style for a fundraiser-plus-fashion-show.
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At the AOO event, a gleaming white runway changes colors over the course of the show, and two 5-foot-wide, 7-foot-tall red chandeliers complement the red of the Ferragamo logo as well as the red floral and chair accents.
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A closer view of a tabletop at the AOO Ferragamo event.
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In the same category, EventWorks teams up with
Kuoni Destination Management to dream up a surreal "Alice in Wonderland" party for the client's awards ceremony. Here, the "Alice" table.
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From EventWorks and Kuoni, the "Mad Hatter" table complete with hats overhead.
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And the lush "Red Queen" table. The event also includes a chessboard entryway lined with oversize flowers, a "Red Queen" reception area with red velvet couches, and 6-by-8-foot gilded picture frames with images of famous characters from the story, including live "Cheshire Cat" performers.
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Also in the "Decor $20,000 to $49,999" category, a VIP hotel guest is treated to a Moroccan-style birthday bash in a posh nightclub that had been transformed into three distinct experiences: a street bazaar cocktail area, a "sultan's feast" dinner, and a high-energy dance floor placed among billowing nomadic tents thanks to
MGM Resorts Events.
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A beautiful entertainer at the MGM Resorts Events party.
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At the MGM event, decor highlights include rich textiles, detailed ottomans, a hookah lounge, a zigzagging dining table crowned with umbrellas, and the honoree's initials inscribed on the dance floor.
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In the category "Best Decor: Budget $50,000 to $150,000,"
Blueprint Studios helps the San Francisco Symphony celebrate its centennial anniversary by leading 1,800 guests through a progressive event that took them through San Francisco landmarks including the War Memorial Opera House and the City Hall rotunda.
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A closer view of a Blueprint tabletop in City Hall.
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Highlights of the Blueprint event include a walk through a "time tunnel" with a photo montage of the symphony's history, and performances by virtuosos Itzhak Perlman and Lang Lang.
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In the same category, EventWorks creates a special "Food and Wine Experience" showcasing four internationally renowned chefs in the resort's ballroom for 800 top-tier attendees at a multi-day incentive. To give guests the sense that they were visiting four different restaurants, each chef has his own "open-air kitchen" food station in a corner of the ballroom.
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The gorgeous "Chocolate" station from EventWorks.
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At the EventWorks' party, a huge "Bubble" wine and champagne bar is situated in the center of the ballroom.
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In the same category, the deft event team from
Hello Florida! takes only two hours to turn a ballroom and pre-function area used for a general session into a blow-out pirate party for 1,300 insurance brokers and their guests.
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For maximum visual impact, Hello Florida creates each buffet and bar from functional decor items--for instance, a decorated center bar not only dispenses drinks abut also serves as the stage for a sword fight and a dance number.
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A dramatic pirate ship from Hello Florida.
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In the category "Best Decor: Budget Above $150,000," MGM Resorts Events helps techy meet sexy at a New Year's Eve party.
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At the MGM event, guests enter the event space by walking down a hot-pink carpet past oversize graphics of women's eyes and lips, finally coming to the "boudoir ballroom" where 16-foot-diameter video chandeliers and "LED wallpaper" displays video content.
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The entertainment heats up the room at the MGM event.
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In the same category, MGM Resorts Events kicks off the PCMA annual conference with a "Las Vegas Then and Now" party. Some 3,500 guests take a journey from Vegas' rowdy beginnings to its sophisticated style of today.
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At MGM's "Last Vegas Then and Now" party, decor elements include a "wedding chapel" with an "Elvis" officiant,
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A salute to Liberace at the MGM "Las Vegas Then and Now" party.
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In the same category,
Syzygy Event Productions works with National Geographic to honor deep-sea explorers by transforming the cafeteria at the society's headquarters into the sea floor for 400 guests.
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Thanks to thoughtful elements such as 180-foot-long video screens showing undersea life, mirrored tables that bounced light around as though guests were under water, and centerpieces suggesting coral reefs, even veteran undersea explorers were impressed at the Syzygy event.
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A final view of the Syzygy event.
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