The Thoughtful Host
The Coronavirus has put us all in a place to be more thoughtful with our daily routines in everything we touch, everything we do and how we interact with other people.
On a global scale, we all have to trust that the other person is being thoughtful and responsible about the same things on the same level. It’s become our new normal.
At Craven + Co., we have been rethinking events to help the virtual event feel more like our in person events prior to the pandemic. A couple of weeks ago, we were excited to have the opportunity to plan our first small gathering for a client that was actually guests coming together in-person.
It has always, for 22 years and counting, been a staple to our approach to event production to imagine an event from the guests’ perspective. We remove ourselves from what we know and what we want to happen and try to picture the guest walking in and seeing it for the first time…and how will it happen for them.
For this event, our approach was similar but for reasons we’ve literally never had to consider before. We needed for it to be intentional and thoughtful from the very start, so that it felt safe and could be relaxed. Because anything less would be no fun and actually stressful for the guests and the host.
Spoiler alert: we pulled it off.
Socializing while Social Distancing
The party was in the client’s backyard, which was a large green space with plenty of room to spread out. We brought in a bright + cheerful lounge area from our friends at Moontower Rentals to highlight the already gorgeous setting.
We greeted guests with a tray of plain white masks that they could customize with a sticker of their choice with fun messages like, I’m Smiling, Stop Talking, Breezy Babe, Safe AF.
Right beside the masks we displayed our customizable hand sanitizer station. It’s a high-design station that we fell in love with the second we saw it. It was designed by a brilliant Spanish woman named Andrea Lisboa when she (prophetically in hindsight) created her company, Touchland, in 2014. We also set out her individual hand sanitizers around the party so that guests could casually spritz whenever they wanted.
Food service was also something we had to rethink. We chose to go with a food truck, so that guests could go to the truck in small groups. Peached Tortilla did an amazing job with special attention to every precaution possible when preparing the food and delivering it to the guests.
We created appetizer drawer boxes with a friendly note to “grab your personal appetizer tray” and a window so they could peek inside to check out the apps first.
Weldon Henson and his trio performed the perfect laid back Texas Honky Tonk set list of old country mixed with his original songs and brought the whole thing to life. Since coming together for celebrations is a new thing and requires the right tone, the music had to reflect the same. Weldon and his musicians did exactly that.
The result was a fun, unforgettable night under the stars with friends…with all of the right elements to do it thoughtfully and appropriately. And we’ll admit, it felt so good to produce an event after such a sudden pause in the event industry.