The annual fright-fest of ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and all things that go bump in the night’ is fast approaching. In the world of leading-edge event management, it means only one thing – it’s almost time to eat, drink, and be scary. CEO Liz Taylor explains in her 5 Key Tips to Create ‘Ghoulishly’ Great Halloween Events.
NOTE FROM ED: And before I go on – yes – I will be pulling out all the stops in this article to use those scary puns, double entendres and frighteningly good descriptions that marketeers adore so readily. Well, why not, it’s once a year.
In fact, Halloween has become so wildly popular that it’s largely infiltrated the corporate events sector. Now, thousands of businesses use it to put a frightfully fun spin on events such as –
- Team building events
- Motivational events
- Awards or reward and recognition events
And it’s no showing any signs of slowing down. On the contrary, Halloween continues to gather momentum, with many businesses even choosing it as an alternative celebration to the traditional company Christmas party.
But there’s just one small catch… Arranging a spine-tingling soiree can be a perilous proposition, even with the levels of immortal experience that we’ve got at TLC.
Keep your hair on! Repelling the event jitters is easier when you’ve got a step-by-step plan to make experience is more pleasurable than painful.
In this article, we’re talking you through five key elements of planning hellishly awesome fright night festivities. So, come into our parlour, said the spider to the fly. There’s no trick to these treats…
THRASH OUT YOUR THEMING
Picking your event concept is a great starting point. This is because having a defined style to hang your witch’s hat on makes everything else more streamlined and less stressful.
That said, Halloween is a ‘theme’ – or should we say many themes and concepts – in its own right. So, narrowing down the spooky style for your Halloween party is no small task.
You can go treacherously traditional, with mummies and zombies, corpse brides and dead dolls.
Or perhaps there’s a particular film, television show or slice of popular culture that you’re dying to jump on. There’s no shortage of ominous options. The likes of –
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- Stranger Things
- Ghostbusters
- The Beautiful and The Damned
- Game of Thrones
- Penny Dreadful
- Alice in Wonderland
offer very different but equally decadent styling possibilities.
PICK YOUR PLACE
A wickedly wonderful event planner such as TLC has the experience and the vision to make every celebration a scream! So, most quality hotel ballrooms, industrial warehouses and well-located marquees are the perfect blank canvas for some serious spellcasting.
Or you might prefer to go all in and pair your venue with your chosen theme. If so, there are some abominably atmospheric venues in the Manchester and Cheshire area, for example –
- The Albert Hall
- Ordsall Hall
- Gorton Monastery
- Manchester Cathedral
- Bolesworth
- Peckforton Castle
And take a look at our article Five of the Spookiest Venues in the UK and Ireland for just a few of Team TLC’s preternatural picks nationwide.
FOOD FIT FOR A PRINCE OF DARKNESS
Create smoke and mirrors around your menu. You can do this simply by ‘rebranding’ your favourite dishes. For example, serve up a chicken escalope as ‘chilling chicken’ or a beef wellington as a ‘tombstone steak’.
Sticking strictly to the theme? Then devilled eggs, mini mummy dogs and revolting eyeballs are just a few of the depraved delights that the famished fiends will devour.
How about a spicy soup to give them pumpkin to talk about? In TLC style, we like to take it to the next level. Imagine a tragically tasty tomato and basil ‘blood’ soup served in a baked pumpkin.
And don’t forget that the way your room and tables are dressed plays a hair-raising role in the overall eerie ambience. Autumn-inspired accessories like ghostly glow-in-the-dark napkins. Macabre table décor intertwined with foliage and deep red roses. Skulls, bones, and tombstone signage – all lift an event space. They’re tiny examples of the intricate attention to detail that TLC is renowned for.
DANGEROUSLY DELICIOUS DRINKS
Make a spook-takular statement with drinks. Some of our all-time favourites include –
- Bloody Mary syringes
- Freaky black vodka, blackberry, and pomegranate Haunting Halloween cocktails
- Ghoulish green Grasshoppers
- Rose vodka and absinthe Les Fleurs de Mal (the flowers of evil)
- Champagne, vodka, and raspberry Vampires Kisses
From an aesthetic perspective, there’s no such a thing as too over the top when it comes to Halloween. So, don’t think glasses, think goblets. And look for ghastly green, otherworldly orange, bewitching black and wintery white crystalware to make your guests’ night even more magical.
Unsurprisingly, TLC has many maleficent secrets for adding an extra demonic dash to your drinks. Put it this way, ‘ice and a slice’ can go back in its sarcophagus for another day. Instead, think about adorning your drinks with aromatic vapour bubbles, toasted marshmallows, dry ice and popping candy.
SHOW THEM SOME FANG-TASTIC FUN
Apply bobbing might be fun for the little devils. But grown-up ghouls are expecting more spookily sophisticated ways of getting up to no good, (though we’ll make an exception for Sangria-soaked apples!).
How about a clairvoyant?
Perhaps you’d like to carve out some time for a Jack ‘o’ Lantern competition?
Or how about a murder mystery element to get your guests in to the spine-chilling spirit?
And music. Music is so important for setting the mood at any event and making your Halloween event truly bewitching. Here’s our suggestions and recommendations –
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A world class party band like the Swan Band caters for everyone—vampires, skeletons, ghosts, and ghouls included. They span the decades, genres, and styles to provide a mischievous musical experience that will hold your crowd spellbound.
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The musicals can provide a boo-tiful backdrop to your rancid revelries. So, what’s your poison? Cats? The Phantom of the Opera? The Rocky Horror Picture Show? Sweeney Todd? Little Shop of Horrors?
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Choose your DJ with care. Top quality DJs will take time in advance to get to know what you want and what you don’t want. In addition, they know how to read the mood of their audience. Your crowd might prefer the Monster Mash, Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Queen’s A Kind of Magic, or Radiohead’s Creep and The Cranberries’ Zombie. Your DJ’s proactivity can be make or break.
At TLC, we’d love to a chat with you about your evil-icious corporate events, enchanting entertainment, and the most inhumanly inspiring venues. Get in touch with us at –Tel: 0161 876 6266 Email: taylor.lynn@tlc-ltd.co.uk
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