THE NEXT BEST THING TO HIT CHELSEA!

The San Francisco based boutique hotel, Kimpton Hotels, opened its 50^th property and its fourth in New York last week. The new hotel is called Eventi and located on the Avenue of the Americas between 29^th and 30^th streets. This luxury boutique hotel features 292 guestrooms, including 53 suites. The hotel features over 10,000 square feet of meeting space and an additional 5,000 square feet of outdoor space!

We first heard about Eventi from Jennifer Flaherty, the catering Sales Manager at Eventi Hotel. She kindly reached out to us in April and invited us to check out “the next best thing to hit Chelsea.” When we saw some 3D graphic photos of the hotel interior, we knew we had to check it out!

The first thing we noticed when we walked into the lobby was both the painting on the ceiling and the infinity mirror closet near the elevator. Every detail was decorated with eclectic and unique taste.

The pre-Function Space, located on the third floor, was stunning. When we stepped out of the elevator, we knew right away, this is where we want to bring our PARTY!! The space didn’t need much, it is already party read. If you ever have a chance to see the space, don’t forget to check out the floor to ceiling artwork by Barbara Nessim!

The Ventana Ballroom has floor to ceiling windows and LED lights lit on the ceiling that twinkle like stars.

The Boardroom has chic décor all around. A few key items that we loved were the unique, textured wallpaper and large windows that give you the view of the future public garden. * Don’t forget to feel the wallpaper in the building!

Terrace: It is LUXURY to have an outdoor space in the middle of the city. The day we were at Eventi Hotel, it was sunny and beautiful out! The Terrace comes with outdoor lounge furniture and planters.

The hotel is already becoming a hot place to be, they were sold out for opening night and the entire weekend! Jennifer explained the naming of the hotel as well, “The name is Eventi because we want the hotel to be an Events Heaven and we are willing to work with events planners/designers to create great events.” Best wishes to our new neighbor hotel Eventi, and special thanks to Jennifer for giving us a ROCK STAR tour of the hotel!

Form the Ground Up!

When working on your party decor, you can't forget to look at the broader aspects of the space - the floors, ceilings, and walls. For this post we will be discussing ways to use the floor of your space to accent the decor and not just as an eye-sore that you hope people don't notice.

For a child's party recently, we covered the floor in plush carpet to warm the space up a bit. Any kind of carpet will always soften the space and aid acoustics as well. Carpeting is a real back saver too. Hard surfaces can really break the spine of your guests over the age of twenty-five after standing around socializing and dancing all evening. Warning: Carpet ain't cheap, but there are a few things you can do to mitigate costs. Have a carpet provider measure the space and give you an estimate for a temporary carpet. This means it doesn't have to be bound, just cut to size and taped down at the edges to get through the event.

Choose carpeting that won't catch in women's heels and can take foot traffic and wine spills - that is, carpet that is lower grade and cheaper. Shag carpet is gorgeous, but it's a major tripping hazard; instead, use shag as an accent under a coffee table but not for the entire floor. Ideally, you want to go as ghetto as you can with carpeting: good old synthetic cut pile carpet. Light colors, like white or ivory, create a lovely ethereal look, but in my experience it's best to go with a dark hue, like black, navy, or chocolate brown, so the floor simply disappears. Black carpeting is also the cheapest option.

Throw rugs are another way to add dimension and interest to your floors. We once did a party in a large loft that had this pukey gray carpet. The party was at night so no one was really going to notice it, but I thought it would be fun to break up the floor space into different seating groups. We found faux animal print rugs at rugsdirect.com, overstock.com and a West Elm furniture store, and grouped them with lounge furniture and threw in some matching animal print accent pillows to boot.

A brilliant new company that has changed the floor landscape is FLOR (flor.com), which makes cool carpet tiles in a variety os styles and materials. You buy FLOR per tile so you can create any size design you want by mixing and matching.

Floor mats or low-tack vinyl appliques are another alternative to rugs. At a wedding, a couple wanted to use a family crest as a design motif. Instead of carpets under the coffee tables, we had cool floor vinyls are made by 3M (the tape people) and any print store can look into this option for you.

Lighting tricks are another way to rock out your floors. Instead of floor graphics on vinyls or creative carpeting, you can project shapes and colors directly onto an open floor space. We did a party in a beautiful outdoor location with tons of plush furniture rentals, but we didn't have any rugs to use. Our lighting designer used a gobo with a beautiful branch pattern on it that he used to project onto the floors where the seating was arranged - it was gorgeous!

Jes' Invites to Remember

This was a doggie vest Save the Date, so obviously Jes loved it!

With Spring in full bloom and Summer just around the corner parities and entertaining is at the front of everyone's mind. The first impression guests get of your party is the invitation so unique ideas are the best way to show the events style from the very beginning. Below are some of Jes's Favorite and most memorable invites from events she has designed and produced!

- We designed a great invitation for the launch of a new razor. Instead of paper invitations, we sent out gorgeous girls with long legs in short shorts who rode around Manhattan on pink Vespa scooters, personally delivering an invitation to each guest in the form of a razor with the details printed on it. The idea made quite an impression - the attendance rate was phenomenal, thanks to those leggy girls!

- For a one-year-old's birthday party invitation, we created a simple iMovie on a Mac mode from baby pictures and a soundtrack of "When I'm 64" by the Beatles. After the thirty-second slideshow came a page with the party specs. this type of things can be done with PowerPoint too - just e-mail it, send out a flash drive, or burn it onto a DVD.

- For a vodka launch, we sent out carved potatoes. Most people go the super-sexy model route with alcohol, but we had an artist carve the details into an actual potato, as one would using a lino block. You could even make potato prints this way if you ink them up. We sent the potato out in a box with scruffy tissue strands, much like a pet rock.

- There is nothing lovelier than using a child's piece of art as an invitation. To me, this is the most personal, charming invitation one can receive, because after the wow factor dies down from receiving a potato in the mail, all you are left with is the gimmick itself and not a treasured piece of original art.

- if you want your guests to remember your event, you could send out conceptual thank-you cards. We once did an urban awareness event for young twenty-somethings with a sex-ed expert on deck talking about safe sex. To thank them for coming, we sent a replica of a condom package with a real condom inside - hopefully one they added to their already existing collection.

There are more fabulous invite ideas and tips in Jes' book Party Like a Rock Star.