With Ruthless Inefficiency (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} mafiabass) wrote,@ 2009-03-02 00:14:00 |
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... and two weeks later,
the Dinner Dance went very well. And, as usual, I learned a lot. One of these days I'm going to be able to pull off one of these things without a hitch. They were all minor to midrange hitches, so that's a small blessing. 43 people were there in total, which is up from last year, but still lower than two years ago. What we really need is 80 or so people. It's hard to profit off the tickets with a lower turnout because operational expenses eat the profit up.
We decided to gear the music more toward ballroom-style dancing, and I think that went well. This format also lent itself to a sort of chronology, though the songs picked from each decade weren't necessarily in order because we wanted to space out the different dances.
We hired The Green Martinis to play a few songs for us, as well. My intention was to bring them on after we played through the recorded music. I was thinking that a live band would be a great end to the night, and if people didn't like them for whatever reason, they could leave. This was the midrange snafu- they had to go on around 8 to 8:15 because of some scheduling issues. I'm not sure what happened there, but I'm not going to place any blame. They were my plan B on a short notice and really saved my bacon. Thanks guys!
The food was awesome! We picked a really good menu, and Aladdin was great as usual. You can check the whole thing out on the site, but both the Chicken Marsala and the roast beef was excellent. I could barely pick up the roast beef with the tongs because it was falling apart. I can't say enough good things about Aladdin.
I thought our decorations looked nice, too. Silk rose petals were sprinkled along the table, with 2 heart doilies (1 on each side of the centerpiece, facing different directions). The centerpiece was a 10" glass bowl with stones in the bottom, filled with water for 2 floating candles and three real rose petals. We lit the candles, but I think that was a mistake. Perhaps a more traditional method of candlelight would work better. We also bought a trellis with some fake vines to set up for a "Photo Booth." I hate the name, but the idea is really good. My LiveJournal pic (atm) is from last year's photo booth.
I was pleased with the amount of time I was able to spend with Lindsay, too. I guess that means we net our staffing requirements rather nicely. Four people could probably run the whole thing competently, but we had 6. Not too shabby.
If I had to pick one thing to be genuinely disappointed in, it's our advertising. Nothing worked out the way it was intended to. On the bright side, there's a ton of information for next year's committee.
I'll take a couple of the pictures from this year's dance and put them on the Dinner Dance web site at some point. For now, I'm going to end this without telling you how the rest of Valentine's Day went. I'll leave you clamoring for more. What sort of awesomeness did we get into? Find out next time! Catch you later
the Dinner Dance went very well. And, as usual, I learned a lot. One of these days I'm going to be able to pull off one of these things without a hitch. They were all minor to midrange hitches, so that's a small blessing. 43 people were there in total, which is up from last year, but still lower than two years ago. What we really need is 80 or so people. It's hard to profit off the tickets with a lower turnout because operational expenses eat the profit up.
We decided to gear the music more toward ballroom-style dancing, and I think that went well. This format also lent itself to a sort of chronology, though the songs picked from each decade weren't necessarily in order because we wanted to space out the different dances.
We hired The Green Martinis to play a few songs for us, as well. My intention was to bring them on after we played through the recorded music. I was thinking that a live band would be a great end to the night, and if people didn't like them for whatever reason, they could leave. This was the midrange snafu- they had to go on around 8 to 8:15 because of some scheduling issues. I'm not sure what happened there, but I'm not going to place any blame. They were my plan B on a short notice and really saved my bacon. Thanks guys!
The food was awesome! We picked a really good menu, and Aladdin was great as usual. You can check the whole thing out on the site, but both the Chicken Marsala and the roast beef was excellent. I could barely pick up the roast beef with the tongs because it was falling apart. I can't say enough good things about Aladdin.
I thought our decorations looked nice, too. Silk rose petals were sprinkled along the table, with 2 heart doilies (1 on each side of the centerpiece, facing different directions). The centerpiece was a 10" glass bowl with stones in the bottom, filled with water for 2 floating candles and three real rose petals. We lit the candles, but I think that was a mistake. Perhaps a more traditional method of candlelight would work better. We also bought a trellis with some fake vines to set up for a "Photo Booth." I hate the name, but the idea is really good. My LiveJournal pic (atm) is from last year's photo booth.
I was pleased with the amount of time I was able to spend with Lindsay, too. I guess that means we net our staffing requirements rather nicely. Four people could probably run the whole thing competently, but we had 6. Not too shabby.
If I had to pick one thing to be genuinely disappointed in, it's our advertising. Nothing worked out the way it was intended to. On the bright side, there's a ton of information for next year's committee.
I'll take a couple of the pictures from this year's dance and put them on the Dinner Dance web site at some point. For now, I'm going to end this without telling you how the rest of Valentine's Day went. I'll leave you clamoring for more. What sort of awesomeness did we get into? Find out next time! Catch you later
