Key Features for a Successful Fundraising Event

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What it takes to throw a Gala, Auction, Fundraiser, or Alumni Event:

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Over the past 20 years, we have developed relationships with many schools and non-profit organizations across New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. We understand how important the yearly fundraising gala is.

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Here’s what you’ll need:

LIGHTING

Lighting can be the simplest, most effective way to create an immersive environment for guests. There are infinite ways to transform a space with light. These are some of your options:

Uplighting

Uplights are powerful lights, with a huge range of color. They are traditionally placed around the perimeter of a room, creating a glowing effect of the entire space. Color choices for these lights can vary from one to many. They are also used to illuminate standing structures, props, entryways, and many other features and focal points in a room.

Auction Lighting

Lighting for auction items is key for a successful evening. You’ve worked hard all year to source these items, and with so much riding on those bids, you cannot let them go unnoticed. Clean, subtle, and effective options like overhead wash lights and pinspots highlight the allure of every prize and prize table. It helps make sure guests find exactly what they’re looking for.

Custom & Specialty Lighting

Creative lighting is a huge wow factor. GOBO projections use a customizable template, shining light through to project images anywhere in the room. These can be thrown on to walls, dance floors, ceilings and more. Choose from stock patterns and effects or design your own. Lighting effects like this, as well as colorful patterns or laser light displays can be continually layered to add more and more drama. Other options range from simple colored washlights to illuminate the band or dancefloor to high end LED light displays. Find what fits your budget. 

DECOR

A unique evening is a memorable evening. Make sure this year stands out from the rest. Choose a cohesive theme and decide where your budget is best spent. Where would you like guests to keep their focus? This may depend on the function of the evening. If this is a sit down sort of symposium, or if there will be presentations, perhaps spend more on centerpieces - a great reason for guest to want to stay seated and still engaged, as well as inspired. If the evening has more of a cocktail/grazing vibe, try sourcing larger decor items, or dividing the space into the direction you’d like guests to take. Decide what your goals are for the evening, and come up with a floor plan that can accomplish this. Maybe the flow of the tables, bars, stage, etc. all lead right back to the auction items. Find your focus and the guests will too.

Centerpieces & Table Top Decor

From elegant and simple to intricate layering, centerpieces keep the theme in mind all throughout the night. They are points of discussion that immerse guests into the evening and always entertaining. Don’t forget accent items for your bars, food stations, and auction tables. These can be informative or decorative, large or small.


Large Props & Installations

Depending on the event space, you may decide to utilize larger decor or props to build your environment. This can be very effective. Things like ceiling treatments and installations are impressive, one-of-a-kind and site specific. Sculptural elements are also great focal points and keep the theme. Will there be a stage set up at the event? How can you draw more attention to it? Even if you do not have a physical stage in the space, you can create the illusion by flanking the area both left and right with something eye catching. Bar rentals are smart, sophisticated and can be custom features at your event as well.

Drape & Dividing a Large Space

Take a good look at your event space. How can it improve? Where will the focus be for the evening? Smart options like temporary drape walls and other structures can reinvent a room, hide unsightly features, and section off areas or create new ones. This is a great idea for behind a stage or podium. Backdrops do this as well and there are many options for drape in all colors, sizes, textures, and heights that can reinforce your theme easily. If you want guests to really hang out, look into renting some simple furniture and coffee tables, positioned correctly, it’s an instant lounge area. 

Don’t forget its called FUNdraising for a reason. The event is not just about supporting your cause, it’s about celebrating you and your team, and those that continue to support the efforts of your organization. Make sure your event is one guests will return to every year, eager for more. With good intentions come great things. Don’t forget that non-profits are about helping others, and ask for help when you need it.

Feel free to reach out about your event to:

info@eggsoticevents.com or call at us (908)735-9870 for more information.

We provide all of the services listed above and are happy to offer donation based discounts to non-profit-organizations

Image Theft in the Event Industry

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Event design is, by nature, a collaborative art. If you read through this blog, you'll notice that we often share the task of creating a great event design with florists, DJs, caterers, and entertainment companies. 

We want to share our work with our readers, so we credit the other vendors involved with links, credits and thank yous. Even though the primary goal of this site is to share our own work, we're also happy to share the work of the vendors with whom we collaborate, and promote them in the process. We deeply appreciate when other vendors do the same.

The only times that we truly take offense to the sharing of our images is when other companies use our photos in their own marketing materials when they had nothing to do with the event. 

Here is a photo of our work that we've loved and shared for several years:

Fire and Ice decor and lighting by Eggsotic Events • Crystal Plaza, Livingston NJ  • Photography by Egil Matiss

Fire and Ice decor and lighting by Eggsotic Events • Crystal Plaza, Livingston NJ  • Photography by Egil Matiss

This photo was taken by Egil, the owner of Eggsotic Events, at a bat mitzvah at the Crystal Plaza in Livingston, New Jersey. Eggsotic Events designed and produced the event. Our services for this event include:

• Planning and Consultation
• Floral centerpieces
• Table linen rentals
• Lounge furniture rentals
• Glowing furniture rentals
• Bar stool rentals
• Crystal columns with LED uplights
• Truss columns with realistic artificial flames
• LED uplighting around the room perimeter
• Flame lighting projections on ceiling
• Laser projection throughout room

Also, we set up this room in a very short period of time. There was an afternoon event before this evening event, so we had approximately one hour to make the room look the way you see it above. We worked very hard to create this event design, so it was very frustrating to find so many companies claiming this event as their own.

We found out that a company was using this photo in their marketing materials, and taking credit for it as their work. That led to us exploring further and finding several other companies using it as well.

Elite Entertainment - San Jose, California

This company took the theft of our image the farthest. Not only is it prominently featured on their website; it's also used on third-party sites where they have vendor listings.

Dragon Talent Agency and Event Studios - Las Vegas, Nevada

San Jose AV Rentals

CRE8AD8 (Create A Date) - San Antonio, Texas

EMO Ltd - Bristol & London, UK

Sound Stage and Lighting Hire - South Africa

How to Find Out if Your Images Have Been Stolen

All of these sites were found quite easily, and they are all from just one of our images. To see if other vendors have stolen your photos for their own marketing use, do a reverse image search through Google.

• Go to google.com, click Images in the top right corner, then click the camera icon in the search bar.
• Paste a URL of the photo, or drag and drop the photo onto the search area.
• Google will automatically find sites that use that image. If you have the image shared on Pinterest, then Pinterest will come up many times in the listings. 

We are sending cease and desist letters to all of the companies shown above and their sites will be removed from this post once they comply.

Thank you for reading and we hope that this helps other hard-working companies protect their work online.

Articles Featuring Eggsotic Events • NJ Event Design & Lighting

Eggsotic Events
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Here are a few recent articles featuring Eggsotic Events' decor and lighting services:

Photography by Emin Wedding Photojournalist; Photo via weddingplannermag.com

Photography by Emin Wedding Photojournalist; Photo via weddingplannermag.com

A Peek Behind the Scenes at Three Fabulous Tented Weddings • Wedding Planner Magazine

Eggsotic Events partnered with Marie Danielle Vil-Young of A Votre Service Events to create a gorgeous tent atmosphere for a wedding at a farm in Bordentown, New Jersey. Eggsotic provided uplighting, band/stage lighting, ceiling wash lighting, draping, and a ceiling installation with hundreds of LED candles and lanterns. We also installed draping on the mandap for the ceremony. For more details about this wedding, read the original article here. To see more photos of this beautiful wedding, visit the photographer's blog.

Photography by Jashim Jalal Photography. Photo via theyesgirls.com

Photography by Jashim Jalal Photography. Photo via theyesgirls.com

New York City Meets Las Vegas Marriage Proposal by The Yes Girls

Eggsotic Events provided our Eiffel Tower and uplighting at GoldBar in NYC for a marriage proposal planned by The Yes Girls. The Yes Girls are a group of planners who specialize in one-of-a-kind marriage proposals. Kishan and Merisa's love story involved meeting in Las Vegas, so the Eiffel Tower was chosen to represent Paris Las Vegas' iconic tower replica. Merisa said yes! To see more photos and find out more about custom marriage proposal planning, click here for the full article. Also, read Kishan's testimonial here.

Photo via nj.com

Photo via nj.com

Horses and Riders Stars of the Field and Fashion Fundraiser • NJ.com

Eggsotic Events provided uplighting, dance floor lighting, band lighting, draping, and auction lighting for the New Jersey Conservation Foundation's Field & Fashion Fundraiser at Cedar Lane Farm. The NJCF raises funds to preserve land and natural resources throughout NJ. See the full article on NJ.com.