venue – Fedra Meetings & Events

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How To Use Lighting Creatively

Posted on 31 Ottobre 201618 Luglio 2017 by Fedra

Lighting is an important element to consider when planning special events and ceremonies.

Lighting can be colorful or white, static or dynamic, focused or fill a room. And it can be serve a host of purposes, such as setting the mood and creating a distinct atmosphere, highlighting event features and culinary displays as well as cuing speakers and presentations.

Colorful Uplighting

Uplighting can add depth and visual interest to any meeting space. Consider using colored uplighting that plays into the event’s theme.

Illuminated Bar

Highlight a beverage display, like this full bar and cocktail lineup, by placing it on LED glass. The lighting draws attention to the display and gives it a unique look.

Dynamic Gobo Lighting

Lighting doesn’t have to be static. Using gobos (precut etched patterns made from glass or metal), you can project dynamic lighting onto the walls of the space to add visual excitement and movement to a celebratory or social gathering.

Logo in Lights

Use a gobo to display the company or event logo. Putting it in lights is a dramatic way to keep the brand top-of-mind throughout the event.

Spotlighting

Shift attendees’ focus to speakers or guests of honor with spotlighting. Spotlights also can be used to light stages, runways and aisles.

Indoor vs Outdoor Venues: Which is More Sustainable?

Posted on 28 Ottobre 201618 Luglio 2017 by Fedra

When you’re planning any kind of event, a big question is always where the venue should be. After all, the venue can have a huge impact on the overall experience of your attendees. The shift from an indoor to an outdoor venue can make all the difference, even when it comes to making your event more sustainable.

Energy Use

You may not often think about how sustainable an event is based on whether it takes place inside or outside but there certainly are some environmental factors to consider. If your event takes place outside during the day, for instance, you can say goodbye to lighting! On a bright day, the sun will provide all the natural light you can ever need. As for heating/cooling, simply dress for the weather!

Of course, energy usage is nullified somewhat if your indoor venue happens to use renewable energy sources such as solar photovoltaic panels. Many indoor venues do focus on being more environmentally conscious and make an effort to reduce their environmental impact.

Transportation

Indoor venues also have the added benefit of being closer to busier urban areas, making access to public transit easier and reducing travel times. Large outdoor venues can often be located much further from urban centres in order to preserve the natural scenery, meaning your attendees are going to have to increase their travel and subsequent carbon footprint in order to get there. As mentioned before, travel often has the largest impact on an event’s carbon footprint. Whether your venue is indoor or outdoor, you can reduce carbon emissions choosing your venue by proximity to public transit.

Waste Management

One major challenge you may face if you choose an outdoor venue is the problem of event waste management. In general, people just seem to be more considerate about not littering when they are indoors.

If you’re planning a large outdoor event – be it a music, food or street festival – you already know how waste management can present a big headache.

For events with restricted access grounds, you have a lot more control on the waste management front. For walk-up events with a security perimeter, for instance, you can prevent certain types of waste (e.g. plastic water bottles) from entering the grounds. The benefit here is that you have a much better grasp on the kind of waste that you’ll be dealing with.

Young women picking up bottles after a festivalhttp://195.154.178.81/DATA/shoots/ic_782678.jpg

Indoor vs. Outdoor Venue

When choosing an indoor or outdoor venue, you are the only one who knows details such as attendance, time of year, and budget. Either way, the choice is yours to make and I hope that you are keeping sustainability in mind as you make that choice.

6 Ways to refresh your annual conference

Posted on 5 Ottobre 201618 Luglio 2017 by Fedra

An annual conference provides the unique opportunity to bond relationships between peers, clients, investors, vendors, and prospective business partners.

It creates a stage where people can come together and reflect on exceptional accomplishments as well as opportunities missed throughout the year, creating a reflective and honest environment.

This atmosphere can act as the perfect catalyst for supercharging your whole company and motivating members to move forward together towards a common objective.

Your annual conference can prove to be productive time well spent if your audience is engaged and people are poised to collaborate. Here are some ways to breathe life into your annual conference:

Change the scenery

Create anticipation for your meeting even before attendees step foot inside the door.

Host your annual conference in a different location from where you do business to give a feeling of a fresh start and unlimited possibilities. For example, if your office setting is typically in an urban industrial area, try hosting your conference at a forested retreat surrounded by wildlife and natural habitat.

A change in scenery can completely alter the way attendees approach issues and transform perceptions.

Plan some functional free time

Try balancing out a lecture-heavy agenda by adding other non-traditional activities to the mix.

Building excursions, recreation opportunities and friendly competitions into the schedule provides an outlet for creative thinking, thus giving attendees the chance to regroup and fully engage during traditional work sessions.

Sample activities can be as simple as furnishing a bike for each attendee to explore a nearby trail system, or simply providing interactive maps for attendees to discover must-see places throughout the host city.

Get to know your peers

With so many great minds in one place, try to make it easier for people to reach out to one another and start meaningful conversations. Ask attendees to fill out a “nametag” that includes not only a name but also lists the one accomplishment he or she is most proud of for the year, or a question he or she is hoping to have answered by the end of the conference.

This is a great way to get individuals interacting to share similar accomplishments and goals.

Break from the classic break

Sitting stationary for long periods of time is not good for the mind or the body.

Intermittent breaks allow attendees to move around and shake off stiff limbs, clear heads, and seek refuge after a morning filled with strong coffee and bran muffins. Take coveted break time to a whole new level by inviting in special relaxation and movement experts to help loosen the tension.

A few easy yoga moves in the fresh air will get people bending and stretching to increase blood flow and brain function, while a visiting chair massage specialist can ease the aches of sitting all day and give attendees a chance to temporarily zone out so they are less likely to do so in the middle of the session.

Interactive food fare

Food relaxes the atmosphere and helps sustain positive energy levels throughout a conference. Instead of opting for the regular ol’ soda and sandwiches theme, change it up a bit for a new spin on snacking.

Rather than one generic buffet, offer diverse lunch stations with different types of cuisine available in each area. There can be an Italian-themed create-your-own-pasta station, a sushi rolling area, or a station offering food distinct to the area in which you are hosting your conference.

Change the furniture

At one time, banquet chairs in meeting rooms were replaced by ergonomic seating. Now ergonomic seating is being replaced by bean bag chairs, overstuffed couches and “living room” areas where groups can meet and talk in a less formal and more comfortable venue.

Whether it’s incorporating aromas to energize the room, or requesting fitness balls and free weights for breaks at association events, the smallest ideas can breathe life into your traditional conference.

Utilize some of these tricks during your next conference for a brand-new approach to the old way of doing business. They will help foster great ideas to propel your business into the future.

6 best practices for green events

Posted on 21 Settembre 201618 Luglio 2017 by Fedra

Green events are now a hot trend, but environmentally sustainable events must become a standard requirement moving forward if we as an industry are to do our part in addressing this huge issue.

The greening of events can’t and must not simply be a trend; it must become a standard practice.

So instead of repeating what has already been said in many other places, let’s focus on six best practices for green events that you may not yet be familiar with but that will make a huge impact on reducing the carbon footprint of your events.

Add the purchase carbon offset credits to your budget

So what are carbon offsets? Basically, they are reductions in greenhouse gas emissions (namely CO2) taking place somewhere in the world that are subsequently translated into credits that can be purchased. One example of such a reduction would be the renewable energy generated by a wind farm that replaces energy generated by a coal-burning plant.

Such reductions are called carbon offsets, and these are quantified and sold in metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents. So if you purchase 1 ton of carbon offset credits, you will have reduced 1 ton of CO2 emissions from being released into the environment. The money you spend on these credits essentially goes towards these carbon-reducing projects and programs and speeds our progress in permanently reducing carbon emissions.

You have a couple of options here. You can choose to offset the carbon footprint for your on-site event itself, or you can offset the carbon footprint of your on-site event as well as for the travel of each of your guests/attendees. The latter will be more costly, as guest/attendee travel has by far the biggest carbon impact of any event-related activity, so you may want to offset for your on-site event activities/practices and ask your guests/attendees to purchase their own carbon offset credits to help reduce their travel footprints.

Reduce or eliminate animal meats and proteins from your menus

Did you know that meat production generates 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions every year? In simpler terms, a half-pound hamburger that cooks down to a patty the size of two decks of cards releases as much CO2 as driving a 3000 pound vehicle almost 10 miles.

By reducing the meat portions in your event menus or altogether eliminating meat and substituting other protein options (like tofu, beans/lentils, seitan, etc.), you can considerably reduce your event’s carbon footprint and green up your event even more.

Granted, eliminating meat from menus may not be feasible for some events (especially if you are holding an event for the beef or pork industry), so in those cases you should seek out in-season, locally sourced meats and produce. This will reduce the transportation costs of these foods.

In addition, you can seek out food providers that package their foods with environmentally friendly and recyclable or reusable materials, and you can have any leftovers sent to a local food kitchen or homeless shelter and compost everything else.

Choose a truly green venue

A green event isn’t green without the involvement and participation of your event venue.

Today many venues offer recycling and composting options for you and your guests. However, truly green venues go much further than this, so when evaluating facilities for your green events, look for venues that:

Are a LEED-Certified facility (LEED certification is a standardized building industry certification granted to facilities that meet a number of requirements in reducing greenhouse gas emissions). This is by far the most important factor in identifying a truly green venue.
Have an Energy Star score of better than 50, with a score of better than 75 being optimal. Basically, the higher the score, the better.
Are within close proximity (1/4 to 1/2 mile) to public transit options.
Employ energy-saving systems (like convection heating/cooling and energy-efficient LED or CFL lighting) and water-saving strategies (like low-water toilets and showerheads).
Use vehicles with low emissions or low energy consumption rates (like natural-gas powered vehicles).
Maximize natural light to illuminate their event spaces and rooms as well as to heat those spaces.

Offer incentives for guests that rideshare or take direct flights

As we discussed earlier, transportation is likely to have the biggest impact when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions generated by your event. This can extend to a number of areas – like transportation of food items and decor/flowers and on-site transportation – but the biggest transportation impact is the separate trips all your attendees make to the event itself.

The first step here is to locate your green event centrally so that the largest number of guests have the shortest distance to travel.

But the next thing you can do is to give your attendees incentives to share rides to the event or take direct flights (which are much more efficient than flights with connections).

You could offer special prizes or discounts to these guests who choose these greener options and partner with a sponsor to provide the gifts. You could even give priority seating, menu options or value-added programming to these guests as incentives.

Reduce the amount of “stuff” dispensed at the event

Swag. Handouts. Gifts. Programs. Favors. Promo items. Gift bags. It’s amazing the amount of stuff we take home from events and never, ever use again. Eventually, most of it ends up in a landfill. When you think of all the energy it took to produce those items and the additional energy to dispose of them, it makes you shake your head.

So instead of handing out materials, opt for electronically distributing things like programs and guides for your event that people can load on their laptops, tablets and smartphones.

And instead of giving out another logo-emblazoned stress ball or post-it note dispenser, opt for giving out experiences or intangible-but-useful items instead, like tickets to movies or music shows, gift cards for local vendors or donations made by you on your guests’ behalf. If you must give out a physical object, give out items that are environmentally sustainable, like beeswax candles or small flower/herb pots.

Set a casual dress code for your event

Suits may look spiffy, but lots of dress clothes can also contribute to the carbon footprint of an event. Dry cleaning releases lots of greenhouse gases, as does having to lower the temperature of your event venue or guest rooms so that guests in dress clothes are comfortable.

By instituting a casual dress code that fits the seasonal climate, you can avoid the above measures and have a greener events.

Do you have any revolutionary sustainable event best practices of your own? Then add them to the comments below.

How to turn your conference into a gala dinner

Posted on 31 Agosto 201618 Luglio 2017 by Fedra

More and more conferences are concluding with a styled gala dinner.

There are three main reasons driving this trend – an entertaining gala dinner is a great way to reward your attendees after a long information heavy conference; gala dinners encourage networking; the savvy event planner can minimize costs when ‘bundling’ the two events.

When planning two back-to-back events, the key to a successful experience is a smooth transition between the two. With so many elements coming together and you’re racing against the clock, this can seem somewhat overwhelming. Our event experts share some insightful tips to help the savvy event planner knock their event out of the park:

1. Use a second room within the venue

Choosing the right venue is one of the most important decisions in planning your conference. To successfully include a gala dinner as part of your conference, a venue with two rooms is ideal.

Booking two rooms in your venue will allow you to usher your guests to a second location for cocktails and networking. While your guests are enjoying cocktails your secondary team can redress the conference room in preparation for the gala dinner.

The key to a smooth transition is teamwork.

To make sure it goes without a hitch, you’ll need an experienced events team to ensure all the lighting, AV, sound and styling is in place. The room should be unrecognizable when your guests re-enter the room!

2. Offer a different kind of conference setting

Following a long day seated in a conference chair, your guests will welcome a change of scenery. Breaking from the monotony of what is expected at a typical conference will really wow event attendees.

Conferences can be rigid affairs, but a break from tradition and a little bit of flair changes all of that.

The most common seating transition is theatre to banquet round, but again it depends on what space you have to play with. Economical use of the venue space presents a number of possibilities for any enterprising event planner.

3. Add flair to your event with a hefty dose of style

It’s a no brainer. To transition from a conference to gala dinner your, event styling is your trump card.

Styling for a conference tends to be minimal with some simple yet sophisticated table centerpieces, draping and some branded props around the room. On the other hand, gala dinners are the holy grail for event stylists where literally you’re only limited by your imagination.

4. Keep the guests of your event entertained and engaged

Adding entertainment and inviting your guests to participate during your conference and gala dinner are great ways for any event planner to ensure that their’s is a memorable event.

Engage your guests with social media: Event Feed is an online platform which scans all social media platforms for a predetermined hashtag and then displays these posts on a screen so that guests have the chance to be featured during the conference and gala!

After a long, content rich day at the conference, your guests will welcome entertaining performances.

5. Create the right atmosphere and ambiance with AV and lighting effects

The right lighting features add another dimension to your event. Using roving gobos, pin spot lighting and dynamic colour changes are a great way to transition from a conference to a gala dinner.

During a conference, audio visual equipment is typically used to share slides and capture the audience’s attention. As you transition from a conference to a gala dinner, use the same audio visual equipment to create a dramatic impact. Using the projector and screen that were used for conference slides, project stylized images that match the theme of your gala for added effect.

6. Pre-set like a pro for a smooth transition from conference to gala dinner

Transitioning between a conference and a gala dinner doesn’t have to be an ordeal.

A great deal of pre-planning and pre-setting can make for a smooth transition from drab conference to exciting gala dinner. Timing plays a key part in transitioning between conference and gala dinner.

A well scheduled event will be one that goes off without a hitch.

For conference and gala dinners, pre-setting stage looks in two distinct layers is a good idea.

Employing the use of black drapery means that you will be able to hide a secondary stage for a gala dinner and transitioning from conference to gala dinner is as simple as pulling back a drape.

When it comes to planning a successful conference and gala dinner, the key is turnaround time and ensure that you have ample staff on hand to transition from conference to gala dinner in a timely manner.