We have just organised a series of reader events for YOU magazine.  Gosh they are hard work – but so rewarding.  The first was a Royal Wedding event.  Two hundred readers arrived in their finery (many including fascinators) to celebrate Kate and Will’s wedding.  They watched every detail in the height of luxury on the big screen at the May Fair Hotel and after ‘the kiss’ and ‘fly past’ they celebrated with bubbly and a delicious lunch.  They stood with the congregation in the Abbey for the National Anthem, waived their flags and had ‘three cheers’ for the newlyweds.   Of course to avoid unexpected road closures and still arrive ahead of the guests meant leaving early enough to travel to Paris and back for breakfast, but it was worth it!

The next was a Book Day at the fabulous Bloomsbury Street Hotel.  The event sold out in hours – unsurprisingly as there was a terrific line-up of speakers including Jilly Cooper, Celia Imre, Maureen Lipman,  Jenni (now Dame Jennyi) Murray and Lulu.  Click here to see what it was like.

As an event planner you often find out about new and ‘wow’ things when you least expect to – in my case on a familiarisation visit to Eastbourne for event planners.  I arrived at the Devonshire Congress Centre, which had been pre-set for a conference to show its full potential.  The set looked basic but professional – until the technician revealed that the backdrop was, in fact, made of corrugated paper.  Sturdy enough to stack, what close-up looks like an extended Christmas decoration, this corrugated material can be folded up with one hand and a 1’  x 12’ (300 x 4000) section is lighter than my laptop.  No more worries about weight restrictions or lugging hundreds of flight cases, it can also be lit from within with LED lights, or have flowers suspended from it.  Wow!  Brilliant news for event planners.  Can’t wait to use it.

Let us know if you are interested.

A few months ago I was invited to an open day at a Stately Home.  As an event organiser and venue finder I get invited to loads of openings, parties and site visits and it’s not often I say I was ‘blown away’ when not discussing the weather.

Aynhoe Park is a stunning Grade II listed 17^th Century house on the Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire border.  Lovingly restored by its new owner, it is now available for hire for a select number of exclusive events each year and I can’t wait to have a suitable event to place there or to recommend it as part of our venue finding service.

Apart from the manicured lawns and breathtakingviews of parkland, the inside is also a real treat.  Knowing the heritage and the influence of Sir John Soane in remodeling the house in the 1800s, you would expect the beautifully proportioned rooms and even the curved windows and doors – and they don’t disappoint.  But you don’t expect to discover the owner’s astonishing collection of sculptures and mouldings (one of the world’s greatest collection of plaster casts), the gothic touches, taxidermy and quirky humour of the décor – as well as some stunning modern fittings and furniture including a Zaha Hadid sofa.     

The guest who is able to stay over in one of the chic and stylish bedrooms is lucky indeed . . . I’d love it to be me!  It’s a real discovery for a venue finding service.

When I was growing up, with little thought of party planning, I thought of tents as portable canvas structures which you erected yourself and where you holidayed if you wanted to experience the thrill of living outdoors and/or wanted a low budget holiday option.

When I started my career in events and party planning my perception of tents changed.  I thought party marquee; movable semi-permanent rigid structure; probably white canvas or plastic with plastic windows, pretty internal draping and a chandelier.  Or may a glorified umbrella structure to shield the activity inside during inclement weather.

 Today the tent world is far more sophisticated and imaginative and there is far more choice.  You can have all of the above, hire traditional canvas pole tents with beautiful linings hand-made in Rajasthan or vintage military and tiffin tents, faded by 60 years of English Summer sun.

 My favourite are the domed Mongolian Yurts, beautiful wooden framed structures which can be erected without any posts in the ground – a valuable solution on hard or delicate surfaces.  Fully waterproof for the rain, the cap can be removed and walls opened in the sunshine.  They come in all sizes – from a structure to house a hot tub to one large enough to dine up to 500 …. or even double bedrooms complete with carpets, antique beds and wash-stands for guests wanting to stay over with beautiful lanterns to light the route outside at night.

 They may be retro in look, but tent times have certainly changed in the party planning industry.

In these credit crunch times (yes, I know we’re officially out of recession, but budgets are still very tight) everyone is looking to save time and money.

Finding the right venue can be such a laborious task, especially if you aren’t familiar with what’s on offer.  So GBA Events have decided to offer this service for free.  It costs you nothing as we take our commission from the venue – and we hope to be able to obtain a better rate than you could get yourself.  So it’s a win win situation.

Try it out for yourself – just click through to our venue finding service, complete the form and let us take it from there.

It’s as simple as Who, What, Where and When.

Awards management is our speciality.  Looking back over past events, I remember the highs:  great evenings, often packed with celebrities, literati and glitterati, with presenters from Jack Dee, Piers Morgan, Rory Bremner and Ronnie Corbett to HRH The Prince of Wales.

 However, all jobs have their ‘unglamorous’ moments and if you think envelope stuffing is bad you should try awards management and being in our office when we are sorting awards entries.  First they are logged in and sorted by category, then categories are resorted to go to judges, whose boxes of homework are then sorted by delivery method and area.  Huge sigh of relief as the office once again is an ocean of calm – and then it starts all over again as the shortlisting results come in:  Entries sorted into shortlist and non shortlist, the shortlist regrouped by category, then judge, then ….. you’ve got the picture. 

Finally they make it to the judging session – and you’d never guess the journey they’ve made when you see the elegant room set up.

Dress code during the awards management period is definitely ‘down’; chocolate intake definitely up, and sense of humour essential!

Gift bags – or goody bags as they tend to be called – are the bane of our office life when event planning!

Don’t get me wrong, they’re terrific if you are the recipient.  In our experience everyone, no matter how senior, loves a freebie!  And, providing as event organisers we see they are filled with products that are properly targeted and appropriate for the audience (and therefore not heading for the nearest bin on departure from the event), they can be a great way for PR companies to promote their brands.

Goodie Bags for Anna Wintour

Once we feel – and the client agrees – that products are appropriate, for us it is the event planning logistics that challenge.  Budgets never stretch to the companies offering bespoke gift services, so it is down to us to synchronise delivery dates for products  (inevitably there is always one that’s late!), teams of bag-stuffers and moving the (hopefully really full) bags to or round at the venue.  Then there’s the aftermath – the people who swear blind that they never received one (even though they were personally given to everyone as they left) or left it in the taxi!

Moan over, we are really grateful to all the companies that supply gifts for our events and ultimately add a little extra ‘wow’ factor.

The Ashes at Lord’s reminded me that life is full of surprises – not least for the client for whom we were asked to plan a surprise party recently. Mad about cricket, Lord’s Cricket Ground seemed the obvious venue choice for his party and we knew that he and any cricket afficianados on the guest list would be ecstatically happy when all was revealed. Party planning aside, whilst this quintessentially English venue and bastion of male sporting culture (which only deigned to allow women into their hallowed Long Room in 1998) is geared up to do events other than cricket matches, I was personally rather indifferent.

Pianist plays at Lord's

Slightly concerned about the dress code (no admittance without jacket and tie, even on a Sunday morning), I emailed our lovely pianist. The answer came back:“Ms Branston – you are addressing the biggest cricket fan in London! I would no more enter the holy of holies without a jacket and tie than you would book another pianist!!!” So that was the party planner put in her place!

I hadn’t bargained for all the guests, particularly the non-sporting ones and the women, to be, forgive the pun, literally ‘bowled over’ by the place. The sartorial elegance, the stunning views of the pitch and the delicious food… it almost made me contemplate going to watch a match!