How Do You Tell a Story with an Event?

Events as Stories; A Narrative Told with Food, Flowers, Service and Sound

How Do You Tell a Story with an Event?

Events as Stories; A Narrative Told with Food, Flowers, Service and Sound

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And what is a Landmark Occasion?

Your son’s christening. Your daughter’s bat mitzvah. Graduations, Commencement. Convocation. Your wedding day. 50 and Fabulous. Ninety and Still Naughty. Investitures. Anniversaries. Confirmations. Going Away. Coming Home. Anniversaries. Charity Fundraisers. Family & Friends Memorial Occasions. Your Celebration of Life….

These are stories told not just told with words but with food and hospitality, entertainment and artful design. They’re the signs and signifiers of our lives.

Sir Salman Rushdie, with David Lowenstein-Vallee, host, producer and sponsor, Celebrating Canada, a garden dinner for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association at Campbell House Museum, June 2011. Photo Credit: The Toronto Star

Life’s stories are not just personal, they are business. A new product that is going to make work at home easier, make the planet safer and us look prettier, these events are stories too. How many of your stories are about the office holiday party when we celebrate with cheer the achievements of the year with colleagues who are our friends. There some of these events that we look back at with great memories of a wonderful times, and others not so much.

Often the most profound stories we help tell are our charity events. We produced Canada’s biggest running HIV/AIDS benefit, Bloor Street Entertains for the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research – once during a bomb scare – now that is a story. But with far less drama the work we did for Walrus Magazine, for Campbell House, for the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund – and for volunteers and guests too, these events meant something. To raise money for something bigger than ourselves, to feel in your little way you were making a difference . . . that’s a lovely story to tell.

The Last Wednesday in January, an originally concept gala dinner produced for The Walrus Magazine
by Shelley Ambrose CM, Publisher and David Lowenstein-Vallee, Event Producer & platinum Walrus sponsor.
Hosted by Margaret Atwood, CC, OC in Distillery District, Toronto.

The hardest event narratives we help with is when someone dies. Hard on the empathy glands but satisfying for us in that if we do right by honouring someone, we help start the process of memorial and remembrance fittingly can be useful and a comfort to the family and friends in sorrow. We hope those memories can be a blessing.

We provide start to finish event planning and producing services – curating food and creating incredible cocktails, we design incredible event spaces and decorate with gorgeous flowers, stunning fabrics and the best silver and china. We work with the best freelancers in the business to execute our production of your vision. We work in concert with media, public relations, government relations, marketing and business or fundraising development and client appreciation.

We work with the best freelancers in the business to execute our production of your vision.

Our work includes media & public relations, government relations, marketing and business or fundraising development and client appreciation.

David with legendary Toronto event producer, international publicist, style icon, the philanthropist Mary Symons at Teatro Verde, CANFAR’s Bloor Street Entertains, the last Wednesday in November, 2009.

From conception to original ideas to mopping up the floors at the end of the night, we cover the waterfront.

We work with competitors who are friends we respect.

We work with seasoned freelancers whose lives we have shared professionally for several decades in some cases. We are train and promote young up and comers while embracing those who have the knowledge that comes from experience.

Our clients pick and chose what services they need from us - we can be a one stop solution or a team player, a part of something bigger.

Mostly, we work with and for our clients. These are not our stories, they are yours.

But when told really well, they become our collective stories….
and the best end up as zeitgeist, or even stardust.