How To Dress Up Your Next Corporate Event
Planning and launching a corporate event is a complex task. It often means balancing goals, such as integrating marketing and still delivering an experience.
Some events are easier than others. In the case of attending a trade show, you’re only responsible for your company’s booth. The larger scale programming is on the head of the event management.
If the event is entirely in-house, though, you can get pulled in 5 directions by 5 people higher up the corporate ladder. All that noise can drive the visual presentation of the event into the background.
Don’t let that happen to you.
A good event, like a good meal, relies on presentation. Attendees who aren’t impressed by the setting will unconsciously downgrade the importance of what they see and hear.
So let’s explore some of the ways you can dress up your corporate event.
Bring in the Banners
Banners are old school, but they can do a lot for you.
They are one of the few things at your event that you control completely. Everything from the size, graphic design, and colour scheme stays in your hands.
You also enjoy several banner style choices.
Stuck in a featureless building? Use some of the more extreme colours to liven things up. You can throw up banners at the front door to let people know they’re at the right place.
If the event isn’t too formal, a festive banner over a stage can break up a boring colour scheme in a room.
For example, you can use pull up banners outside an auditorium door. S-shaped stretch banners are ideal for easy-to-read product information during a product launch. Standing banners are outstanding attention getters for your outdoor corporate event.
Use Flowers, but with Care
Flowers are a great way to soften the often stark setting of a corporate event, but they can prove tricky.
Allergies top the list of potential problems. Put enough people in a room and you’ll get a few allergy sufferers. Stick with a low-pollen choice, such as tulips, and you’ll minimize the odds of setting off allergies.
Scents affect how things taste. That’s why everything tastes bland when you get a cold. There’s no smell to enhance the flavour.
Avoid flowers with strong odours if you plan on serving food. In fact, you should avoid strong smelling flowers altogether. Not everyone loves floral scents.
Flowers by themselves run the risk of creating a feminine setting. Do pair your flowers with something more masculine, such as smooth river pebbles or branches.
Those pairings give you a more gender-neutral setting that men and women can enjoy.
Seating in the Round
Seating in the round shows up in home decor on a regular basis, but you can adapt it for your corporate event.
The idea is that your speakers will stand on a raised dais in a central location in the room. You set the tables up in a circle around the dais, which gives everyone a good view.
A more practical variation is setting up the tables in a U-shape around the dais. This gives everyone a view without forcing the speakers to constantly turn.
This setup offers a couple of benefits.
It gets speakers closer to the audience. Maintaining focus is easier if audience members aren’t squinting up at a stage.
It also creates a more visually interesting table layout. The U-shape serves as a counterpoint to the square or rectangular shape of the room.
Colour Is Key for Your Corporate Event
Integrating colour is one of the best ways to dress up an event, but it can get expensive. Flowers do the job, but they can bankrupt you in the off-season.
The easier method of using colour is through things you can rent. For example, you can likely find a catering service that offers coloured tablecloths, napkins, or dishes. Use coloured napkins for accenting on tables.
You can also rent coloured lighting for more informal events. Take a cautious hand with coloured lighting. You want to augment the visual appeal of the space, not make it look like a teenage dance party.
Consider using coloured lighting to highlight decorative plants or features around the room. Ice sculptures often benefit from subtle, coloured lighting.
Colour selection depends on two critical areas: formality and audience.
Say you’re planning a year-end party that celebrates beating sales goals. It’s an informal event for employees. You can get away with some very bright colours.
An annual stockholder’s meeting, on the other hand, demands restrained colour selection.
Centrepieces
Centrepieces let you integrate colour and visual texture without overwhelming the room.
You can use the company colours as a base or choose colours that reflect the overall palette. Most centrepieces use a combo of natural and synthetic materials. That means you can get nearly any texture combo you want.
You might choose glass centrepieces to get a sleek visual texture or a mini-disco ball to capture a sense of whimsy. Again, the centrepiece must account for the formality and the audience.
Centrepieces with glitter-covered stars might work fine for a retirement party. They won’t go over at meet-and-greet for the new CEO.
If you want a subtle flower presence at the event, centrepieces are the ideal vehicle for them. You can often get away with a single flower per table if you pair them with something else.
Parting Thoughts
It’s easy for corporate events to end up as nothing more than bored people stuck in a room together. You can avoid that.
A well-organized event engages the eyes before it engages the brain.
Banners can serve not only as signposts at an event but as a way to integrate some extra colour. Flowers can add colour, but use them with some care. Opt for low-pollen, low-odour flowers.
Centrepieces offer you a chance to add colour and texture without overwhelming the room. Seating in the round creates more visual interest and gets speakers closer to the audience.
Always consider the formality and audience when choosing colours and making design choices.
EventDisplay.com.au specializes in event-related products, such as banners, linens, and tents. For more information about our products and services, contact us today.
