We couldn’t be more proud of our One Brilliant Team for their hard work and commitment to making this year’s spring gala season the best one yet. When it comes to large-scale fundraising galas, we continuously strive to improve our event planning process and execution to speed up plating times, elevate our client’s experience, and ensure that each gala is more memorable than the last. 

Explore key takeaways from this year’s season and our plans for the next gala season:

Planning & Prep Checklist

One crucial key to success is early planning! We’ve established a rule that tastings for a gala should be held no later than three months prior to the event. This ensures plenty of time to tweak menus, adjust timelines, and guarantee that our clients and their guests are more than happy with their event experience. To further assist our larger event clients, we’ve put together a handy one-pager that details the ideal timelines and planning process to help set them up for as much success as we possibly can!

We've also realized the importance of making tastings guest-centric. While we know our favorite dishes, it’s essential to cater to the preferences of an event’s regular attendees. For example, if an auction’s crowd prefers simple flavor profiles, it’s our responsibility to curate a menu to accommodate their tastes and create a memorable experience for their audience. To achieve this, we invite a diverse group to our private tastings, gaining valuable insights into what will please our guests’ palates.

Food & Beverage Hits

Speaking of custom menus, we had some standout dishes and cocktails that were a major hit at this season’s galas. Among our favorite cocktails was our Homemade Zima featuring Tito’s Vodka, Lemon & Lime Juice, Soy Milk Wash, and Mint dusted with Edible Glitter for an “Aglow'' themed auction. A close second had to be the 4 Trays of Cocktails showcased at an auction for some adorable furry friends, including the Meowgarita, Paw-sitively Purrfect Gin & Tonic, Dirty Paw-tini, and Collie Cosmo. Bonus points for this one because our team got to strut down the runway as the auctioneer tallied up the dollars that bought guests a delicious libation and raised money toward a local animal charity! 

Our favorite dishes and desserts this season ranged from our vibrantly green Vegan Spinach Tahini Soup with Lemon Za’atar Oil and Quinoa Crouton to our Roasted Hazelnut Cake with Olive Oil, Blood Orange, and Theo Chocolate Ganache. We are continuously impressed with how our chefs truly get to know our clients, their preferences, and event goals to customize the perfect event menu. Let’s just say there was lots of variety among the menus for this season’s events, and we loved every second of it!

Record Plate Up Times

Our goal is always to speed up plate up times. The faster we can get all of the dinner elements placed on a warmed plate and delivered to the guests, the less time the food has to grow cold (and less delicious)! It’s also important to us that our dishes are placed quickly at all tables so that guests on the other side of the room don’t have to wait too long to eat. Lastly, the faster we can serve the whole room, the more buffer time we can create within the event’s schedule, allowing space for any technical difficulties or other delays that might occur. We are still in awe of our team of servers and chefs this year and their ability to work together to create so many seamless experiences, all while maintaining the quality and presentation of our unbeatable food. 

See below for this season’s plate up times!

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Next Season!

We are so thankful to all of the incredible organizations and gala clients who trusted us to help their fundraisers succeed this year. It’s not a task we take lightly, and we are beyond proud of our team for improving our processes and leaning into the joy of teamwork to help our clients reach, and even exceed, their goals! Moving forward in the next gala season, our team will continue to prioritize starting early and setting deadlines. We want to give our guests the best event possible by tackling hurdles early so we can spend the final weeks tweaking minor details to really make our client’s night spectacular. 

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Contact our team today to start planning your next fundraising gala, it's truly never too early. We can’t wait to help take your event to the next level to help raise awareness and support for your organization!