End-of-year celebration with a 70s vibe
We’ve worked with this particular client for many years to deliver some amazing events. A leading tech company that specialises in travel, the business has offices in the UK and Europe and at the heart of every event is a desire to bring people together. Our biggest challenge always is to find a stylish London venue that can accommodate 500 guests without spreading the party across multiple rooms.
2023’s end-of-year event was no different. But knowing our client so well we felt confident to include a wildcard in our shortlist of venues – and it just so happened that they loved it! Even better, we all realised just how well the venue and event theme would work.
The Solution
Fabric is one of London’s most famous and iconic nightclubs. Its location in the City of London made it easily accessible and its proximity to Farringdon Station, with trains literally running above the club, couldn’t have been more in keeping with our client’s business!
This annual event normally has a Christmas theme, but our client was keen to try something different and we agreed that 70s disco would work really well, especially when the choice of venue inspired us to inject a bit of disco train into the theme. Central to any disco is the DJ and we took full advantage of the venue’s stage to make the DJ booth the main focal point. We transformed the DJ booth into a train wagon ‘loaded’ with disco balls. Stage lighting was cleverly repurposed to create train tracks so that the wagon appeared to be hurtling towards the guests. Add to that a dynamic and vibrant lighting for maximum impact and the result was a great visual effect that brought together the disco theme, the venue’s location and the nature of our client’s business!
To create some chillout areas, we installed LED cube seating. Along with LED tealights, the splashes of colour helped to brighten the environment, which is normally quite dark. Fabric’s walls feature lots of posters, which aren’t necessarily appropriate for a corporate event, so our clever design team created themed posters, both to disguise the existing posters and to help brand the environment.
Catering is an important element of any event. Feeding 500 guests, without any prior knowledge of dietary requirements, is more of a challenge but we are used to taking care of such logistics. In this instance, we worked with a caterer recommended by the venue. Sustainability is a key value for our client’s business and we were delighted that this particular caterer is focused on sustainability and their kitchen runs exclusively on 100% renewable energy.
To keep the event atmosphere informal, we planned the menu around bowl food. And to ensure that there would be something for everyone we included plenty of options, including vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free – branded menus were on display to help guests choose what they wanted to eat. Mains included spicy harissa and mushroom burgers, mac and cheese, fried chicken brioche burgers and beef brisket barbacoa tacos. Dessert was served canapé-style, bite-sized and delicious salted caramel and dark chocolate truffles, olive oil chocolate mousse and lemon meringue pie.
Throughout the evening, the bar served spirits and mixers, beer, cider, wine and Prosecco, along with a range of non-alcoholic alternatives.
No 70s disco would be complete without disco balls and we went one better with the entertainment. A disco ball head dancer did a meet and greet as guests received their welcome drinks and, later in the evening, our two amazing dancers – who have both appeared in the German production of smash hit Starlight Express – performed a roller disco roaming set, followed by two freestyle sets in the disco ball heads. They couldn’t have created a more authentic 70s vibe with their classic dance moves and they knew just how to get everyone up and partying along with them – and our roaming photographer was there to capture fantastic images of the evening. We also had a 360° photo booth, which was well used and a fun way to create lasting memories of the event.
