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Dear Tammy,
Welcome to the 2nd edition of Regal Thinking, our
quarterly newsletter ... crammed full of ideas, inspiration and insights. We hope you enjoy. Oh, and please feel free to email us with your thoughts and comments. We'd love to hear from
you!
From where does inspiration spring?
What is inspiration? Our favourite definition is the "arousal of the mind to special and unusual activity or
creativity". At Regal, we peruse hundreds of blogs every day to open our imaginations to new concepts and designs. Here are just a small handful of
great sites to get your imagination going…
Notes on a Party
Preston Bailey
The
Bride's Cafe
And have you checked out Regal's blog yet? Check out Ready2Spark for almost daily ideas and inspiration.
Tip: Did you know that you can subscribe to your favorite
blogs through a reader? Google
Reader allows you to store all your favorites in one place, bookmark the posts you love, share them with
friends and organize them - so you can get all the inspiration your heart desires.
We're back with some great ideas for your event from around the world.
Ice is very nice
Taking ice to the next level is Ontario-based Ice
Culture. Check out their newly designed ice bars.
We were floored
Say bye, bye to boring floors! We love the fashion touches you can
bring to events with Brumark‘s FlexFloor. It rolls like carpet and looks like real stone, hardwood, seagrass and
cork!
Transformational Fencing
Magically transform ugly chainlink fences into walls of stone
or flowers with Fence Fabric.
Oh, and take a look at these gorgeous lace fences by Demakersvan.
Greenspiration for all
Regal is delighted to announce our Plant A
Forest program! For every new customer to Regal Tent Productions, we will plant 7 trees through Tree Canada. Stay tuned for more info!
Tip: Did you know that Tree Canada will help you achieve
carbon neutrality for your event? This means that they will help you offset all
of the carbon generated by electricity, travel, heating, etc, through the planting of trees.
There's a new website in town dedicated to green event products. UsedEventStuff.com is a site for event professionals interesting in reusing, recycling and repurposing goods from past events. From decor items to lighting to
flowers - you can post or find virtually anything event related.
UsedEventStuff.com is also affilliated with Special E, a green
service that rescues leftovers from events of all kinds and recycles them for people in need. To set up a Special E rescue for your event, click
here. For now, the service is available through most large urban cities throughout the U.S. To find out if they can service
anothe area, simply give them a call @ 888.448.1930.
Late last year we started a Green Challenge. We asked event planners and green
experts from around the globe to share how they introduce environmental sustainability into their daily lives. Here's what some of them said:
The newest addition to my house is the ISOLE IDP-350 Powerstrip. It has
the usual 8 surge-protected outlets... but six of these are motion censored. This is great because I can leave my computer on indefinitely... but the
lamp, printer, radio, etc in my office only turn on when the motion is detected at my desk- how nifty is that?!?
- Oh Happy
Blog!
I don't leave my office to run a quick errand. I wait until I have at
least 3 errands to run so that I don't drive unnecessarily.
- Weddings by Socialites
We occasionally buy bottled water but we use a water filter by PUR to
purify our water. This saves money and saves on trash.
- Words from the
Heart
We have a "use every paper twice" policy - I have a stack of halved 8
1/2 x 11 paper next to my desk that I use for notes, client consultation reminders, the occasional paper airplane (which gets notes on it too - so
that's actually 3 times!) and of course, to entertain my 3-year-olds when they are at the office (a frequent occurrence certain times of the
year).
- The World According to Weddlady
I recommend venues that are dedicated to sustainability (potential
longevity of vital human ecological support systems, such as the planet's climatic system, systems of agriculture, industry, forestry, and fisheries,
and human communities in general and the various systems on which they depend).
- After
Yes...
Buying locally. I’m trying to support local businesses as much as
I can to reducing the amount of shipping/importing that an item has to go through. (Saves in fuel consumption and helps boost local artisans and other
business peeps.)
- DIY Bride
To read more, click the green
link.
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Printed Velon transformed the look of a tent for this stunning event. |
The future of draping is here
On April 2, 2008 we introduced one of the hottest new products to hit the Canadian event industry –
Printed Velon®. Event Planners and Designers can now print virtally any pattern, logo, or design, with the look of high-end fabric at a fraction
of the cost. Simply select one of 19 base colours and print up to 4 additional colours on top of it. Pick from our growing library of patterns or we
can help you customize your own print. Gone are the days when draping was limited to solid colours. The future of draping is here!
Tips:
- Replicate your linen design, a logo, a monogram or even a carpet pattern
- Use Printed Velon®
to disguise garbage cans, lighting shields, counter weights or road cases
- Printed Velon® can be scented…want a floral pattern
to smell like flowers?
- It can also be perforated for easy tearing
- Got an outdoor event? Make ponchos out of Printed Velon®!
Email Damien Evans for information.
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The sun sets on this beautiful venue created for the most anticipated event at NY's fashion
week. |
When Madonna wants to create an A-list venue from thin air...
The most highly anticipated event at New York's fashion week was the Gucci sponsored Madonna Malawi Fundraiser. Sold out well before the show, the crème de la crème of the
international entertainment glitterati excitedly paid the $2,500 - $10,000 per plate entry. The A-list guest list and the heartfelt importance of the
event demanded the best venue New York could offer. Regal was sought out to partner with the planner to create a temporary venue befitting this
prestigious event. The extreme variances in temperature and the limitations of the site posed many challenges to overcome. Solutions included
transporting the vinyl material in climate-controlled trucks and mounting it using electric blankets and heat blowers to prevent cracking and
shattering. As well, a custom engineered floor was designed by Regal to weight the structures down as staking and standard weights were not an option.
With these and many other challenges surmounted, the event was an acclaimed success - raising over $3.7 million!
Get a behind the scenes glimpse of this amazing event!
Watch the QuickTime video of the tent set up here
Watch the QuickTime
video of Madonna's speech and celebrities bidding on auction items here
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Building a world-class squash venue from the ground
up
Always excited by the prospect of a good challenge, the Endurance World Open Squash Championship in Bermuda did not
let us down, For this event, we constructed a 16,000 ft2 world-championship outdoor, glass-wall squash venue
in three short weeks to house 1,400 on-site spectators. Oh, and did I mention this was during Hurricane
Noel? Completing this project to our
client‘s immense satisfaction was an enormous task, but creating this event from the ground up was truly extraordinary. Ross Triffit,
Tournament Director for the Endurance World Open Bermuda shares with us how he did it.
How did you convince the squash elite to hold the Endurance World Open in
Bermuda?
It was immediately following the hosting of our first ‘major’ international, the Bermuda Open 2004. We
assembled an amazing management team and transformed a school gymnasium into a 600 seat stadium with all the necessary infrastructure. The event was
an instant success and was recognized as being one of the best on the tour. Immediately following the event in a meeting with the PSA (Professional
Squash Association) we negotiated the largest contract in the history of the sport, to host the PSA Masters for two years and the World Open in the
third and final year.
How was the site and the decision to build a venue from scratch come to be?
The
decision was easy. We didn’t have a venue big enough on the island to host the World Open, so we had to build one from scratch. The events from
2004 – 2006 had provided significant TV coverage, broadcast to a potential audience of 625 million, but the TV viewers were seeing the inside
of a school gym. We weren’t capturing the beauty of Bermuda. The event could have been anywhere. So, by using the clear span tent technology we
were able to design and build a venue from scratch to suit our needs and situate it overlooking the beautiful Bermuda beaches and the stunning azure
waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
Not only did you have guests and players from all over the world, but most of the components required
to plan this event came from outside of the country. How did you manage this?
The logistics of the event were not easy. We had to
ship in 13 containers of specialized equipment, with some coming as far away as Germany. Some of the containers were larger then normally allowed in
Bermuda, so we had to seek government exemption for the import and transportation on the roads. We also had to seek exemptions on duties and
immigration policy to allow for some of the goods and skilled labor to be imported. These were all things we had become familiar with from running
previous events and our partnerships with Government and Fast Forward Freight made it all go smoothly… with the exception of Hurricane Noel
creating havoc with our shipping schedule!
With the pride of your country on the line, what was your recipe for
success?
Planning, flexibility, working with the best vendors, seeking expert advice and assembling the best team! We have an
extremely passionate and dedicated team who have been with us since the beginning. Not only do they make everything happen, they do it to the highest
standard and are always prepared to do that little bit more to do it as well as they can.
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Every detail satisfied the couple's dreams for their big day. |
Making dreams come to life... We recently worked on a
society-wedding with Toronto-based Bliss Events. Working in close collaboration we helped create an
expression of pure elegance by erecting two distinct yet connected tented spaces. We’re delighted to share that Bliss Events won the
prestigious CEIA Star Award for Best Wedding and the President Tara O’Grady, was gracious enough to share some insights with
us:
How did you come up with the inspiration for this event?
The inspiration for
the dining tent was to emulate the hosts’ taste (the mother of the groom) which is rich, opulent & elaborate. The lounge tent was
designed for the bride & groom, it was the party tent.
What 3 pieces of advice would you give to others planning a tented wedding?
1. Hire
the most reputable vendors in the city for the tent, electricity & lighting.
2. Establish a respectful and trustworthy relationship with your tent
provider.
3. You must accept that the weather may not cooperate - so, have a back up plan for everything.
Having recently won the CEIA Star Awards for this event, what tips would you give on how to create an
award-worthy event?
The most important advice I would give in creating an award worthy event is to understand your clients
goals and make decisions with confidence! |
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From the ground up...Regal introduces two new products!
Regal is pleased to announce the addition of Bil-Jax and Supa-Track flooring to our diverse
list of products and services.
Bil-Jax is a rugged and versatile flooring system,
manufactured with telescoping legs, which can level out virtually any surface. It can also be used to create risers, staging, runways, or
any raised and leveled surface.
Supa-Trac is a quick to install, easy to transport modular
flooring system designed to create a durable surface, with a heavy load capacity, over relatively even ground.
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