Whether it’s an over-the-top bash for international financiers or a laid-back vineyard idyll where there’s plenty of time to taste the wine, Seattle-based event planners know how to show off their city and its environs to best advantage.
Radarworks Event Services
www.radar-works.com
Radarworks likes being put to the challenge by local movers and shakers. Recently approached by Boeing Capital Corp. to create a thank-you celebration for the international bankers who helped finance the new 787 Dreamliner, the event planners created a global village of dazzling entertainment at the 18th fairway and adjoining function areas at the Snoqualmie Ridge Golf Club.
Elements included a flight simulator theater where guests could virtually fly and land a Dreamliner; a networking area designed to resemble an international first-class lounge complete with a Dreamliner-shaped ice bar; a premium scotch tasting bar; an outdoor Havana cigar lounge with parquet flooring and palm trees; and a live stage presenting a STOMP troupe, fire dancers and other performers. For the grand finale, there was a laser show over the fairway highlighting aircraft through the years.
“The atmosphere of the golf club was transformed into something you might see at a billionaire’s private estate,” says Radarworks account supervisor Judy Henrichs.
For Microsoft Corp., Radarworks took a different turn, using a hip downtown club, Fenix Underground, to create an event for 800 people that included a live rock concert with a mosh pit as well as a lounge area with game stations.
“Because of the way things were set up, people could move freely between the concert and the Gaming Lounge, where they could hang out, network and get drinks and food,” Henrichs says. “And you could be in the Gaming Lounge and still see and hear the concert on plasma screens.”
LeftCoast Destination Services
www.leftcoastds.com
LeftCoast Destination Services, which has long offered winery tours and team-building events for groups in the San Diego area, recently extended its services to Greater Seattle. Among its favored destinations is Woodinville, 10 miles northeast of Seattle, which currently boasts 30 wineries and plans to open Woodinville Village, a 22-acre complex with four additional wineries, next year.
“We’re taking what we have done for many years in California and applying it to Seattle,” says owner Dave Wilson, a Seattle native. “There are so many good wineries both to the east and west of the city.”
Along with winery tours, there are team-building events in which participants get a chance to blend their own wine by using citric acid, essence of oak and other traditional additives.
