Each year, our client (a world leading agricultural and dairy cooperative) hosts its Senior Leaders meeting in either Denmark or England. This meeting brings together three hundred senior managers of the business from around the globe. In 2017, we designed their Senior Leaders meeting so that they could have a conference by day and a Christmas party by night. Alongside their conference, we were asked to create a meet and great area that would accommodate their delegates for breakfast and lunch and also sixteen exhibition pods where brand activations could take place throughout the day. To maximise our client’s budget, and the time constraints of its senior leaders, we turned the space into a Christmas party in the evening. 

The biggest problem to overcome was the size of the space versus the number of activities that needed to take place. The space ordinarily accommodates one thousand people cabaret style, but when you add in a stage, sixteen exhibition booths, breakout spaces and space to change the venue in the evening, three hundred delegates is actually a lot of people to accommodate.

To get around this problem, we designed a series of concentric spaces that could adapt throughout the day. We placed the stage at the centre of the room with tables positioned around it, we then installed eight over-stage screens to ensure that everyone had a great view of the screen content whilst maintaining their focus on the stage. We then corralled the seating area with sixteen “log cabins” that faced outwards to provide the exhibition pods. We designed the cabins to fit in with the alpine look-and-feel of the whole event, which was coordinated right down to mini ski slope table centres (with the table number as a slope run marker).

Beyond the coral, we brought in food traders to provide breakfast and quick food throughout the day, so outside of the main conference area there was a feel of a Christmas market place. We even had quirky Christmas trees manufactured to add to the ambience.

The conference, exhibition and breakout events functioned seamlessly throughout the day. When everyone left the hall in the late afternoon, we removed the stage from the centre of the room to reveal a dance floor underneath. We then turned the log cabins around to face into the centre of the room, which created little booths that people could relax in during the evening. With a few adjustments to the lighting and screen content, and some classic Christmas tracks, the party was good to go.

Scroll down to see some snaps from the event.