This was the most exhaustive bash I ever planned but it was also the most rewarding. I was approached by an area community group to plan a fundraiser for them. They do a lot for the community so I wanted to do an exceptionally good job for them.
I had to come up with a theme that would appeal to most everyone. I decided on an Around the World fundraiser.
There's no way I could've pulled this off without the help of a great group of people that were members of this community organization. The credit for the success of the fundraiser belongs to them.
Venue
Our venue was the town community center as this group had free use of it, it was large enough for a large crowd and had everything we needed.
2nd row of
booths
The hall could accommodate over 100 people, had all the table and chairs we needed, had a full kitchen. There was an attached separate side room as well.
Different countries had different booths set up around the perimeter of the room.
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On the exterior of the venue was a beautiful playground this community group had built for kids.
Coincidentally, there was a grass airstrip at the end of the community center property where a pilot gave biplane rides. (So appropo for Around the World.)
Reservations & Invitations
This fundraiser was announced to the public well in advance of it taking place. Those planning on attending had to put in reservations with a member of the community group and she single handedly handled the invitations. My hats off to her as this was a huge undertaking.
Reservations & Invitations
This fundraiser was announced to the public well in advance of it taking place. Those planning on attending had to put in reservations with a member of the community group and she single handedly handled the invitations. My hats off to her as this was a huge undertaking.​
Guests would call in to make their reservations to attend. Rosie would then explain to them that we had an activity planned for their kids, where the kids would get a personalized (mock) passport book that they could take to each different booth, the person at that booth would stamp the book to show the child had visited that country's booth. Any parents interested could give Rosie the child's information to fill in their personalized passport book along with a photo she'd paste into their respective passport book.
Nearly every parent opted to get passport books for their kids.
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Adults and kids alike would also receive a boarding pass in the mail that would serve as their admission ticket to the event.
The boarding passes I designed on my computer and printed up on cardstock.
You can get faux passport books here if interested.
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The passport book idea went over much larger than we'd planned. We originally ordered 2000 passport books and had to reorder a second batch. They made quite a bit of money for the fundraiser.
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At the same time, we'd ordered rubber stamps for each country's booth with which to stamp the passport books. You can get a flag stamp kit of world countries here.
Booths & Staging
We put a lot of time and effort into choosing the placement of each represented country's booth.
For example, we had a gal who lived in Rome, spoke English as well as fluent Spanish and Italian. The idea was not just to man your booth but keep visitors entertained at the same time. So we put Italy's booth between Mexico's and Spain's booths so this gal could move between the 3 booths, speaking the different languages to greet visitors to all 3 booths. She'd traveled all over the world so could also answer visitors' questions about the countries.
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My helper, Jan and I manned France's booth as we were both French and she spoke French. Just by luck of the draw, we got Australia's booth next to our own.
The Australia booth was manned by an ex-pat from Australia who was an absolute gem of an entertainer.
We came up with a routine of throwing 'insults' back and forth between one another about our respective countries. For example, he'd get his booth visitors to try Vegemite and we'd tell them "Just so you know, we have free barf bags here if you're courageous enough to try his Vegemite!"
(Horrible stuff)
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He'd come back at us with "Hang around those Frenchies' booth long enough, you'll leave with 75" wide hips and enough cavities to keep your dentist in business for a year!"
This was all done in good natured humor, of course and visitors could see that.
Our Aussie friend ended up with the highest grossing booth at the fundraiser because he was so entertaining. He had a crowd around his booth during the entire fundraiser - which also worked to Jan's and my advantage with our own booth.
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As for the booth staging itself...
Each booth volunteer was responsible for constructing and staging our own booth and providing the items we'd offer at our booths.
Jan and I decided to stage a French biscuiteers shop and serve French pastries.
We used a Paris street wall backdrop with a cardboard stand-up Eiffel Tower. In front of that we built the biscuiteer's shop and awning out of corrugated shipping containers and painted it. The sidewalk sandwich board sign was also made of corrugated. The streetlight came from my party supply stash, the bicycle from my parents' garage. The 'fence' was one Jan had for doing craft shows and we decorated it with grape leaves and clusters from the dollar store. We used 2 banquet tables I have and bought the tablecloths for them.
Our booth took 2 weeks to complete (working on it on and off) and cost us well under $100.
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Note: If you're going to serve food to the public, check your local and state regulations. We had to have a temporary license to do so after a health inspector came in to inspect everything.
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Not all booths sold food. Some sold non-food items from their respective countries.
Entry hallway staging
Thank the good Lord for tech geeks like Jerome and his crew! They brought my staging idea to life unlike anything I ever expected and did so brilliantly.
To enter the community center venue, one goes through a first set of double doors and walks down a long hallway with town offices on either side of this hallway. At the end of this long hallway one passes through a second set of double doors into the room containing the booths.
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I wanted patrons to feel like they were actually traveling to another country. So at the first set of double doors we stationed a uniformed 'flight attendant' to collect their boarding pass admission tickets. That end of the hallway was staged to look like an airport boarding gate.
Overhead next to this boarding gate Jerome and crew installed what looked like a working arrival and departure board.
Overhead next to this boarding gate Jerome and crew installed what looked like a working arrival and departure board.
We covered the walls in snow blankets, pulled apart (puffed up) to resemble clouds. These hid the town office doors
down the hallway and made it look as though one were airborne.
But here's where Jerome and crews genius came into play.
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​Once you got past the arrivals/departures board they'd rigged up on overhead screen on which anyone in line saw a looping video similar to this:
However, their genius presented an unanticipated problem - the line on the runway slowed to a crawl as people watched the video.
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Enter the genius of another community group member, Rich in solving this problem after seeing the video below.
Rich dressed up as this airport employee traffic controller, dance moves and all and got the line moving by directing the 'airplane' of passengers down the runway. After the first day of doing this, he realized the kids in line would be making the dance moves along with him. Rich stayed up all night collecting paper towel tubes from the group and spray painting them fluorescent orange. He'd then pull the kids imitating him out of line, hand them 2 of these paper towel tubes and have them help him guide the 'airplane' down the hallway!
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I was busy in the other room and one of the other group members came to me and said "Come with me, you have to see this!" (I had no idea Rich had done this)
When I saw Rich and those kids directing the line of people down the runway, I literally collapsed on the floor laughing. People were snapping away taking pictures and videos...but Rich had that line moving and patrons were having a good ol time just getting into the venue.
As I said before, party guests have 'radar'. If they see their hosts are having fun, they'll get right into the party mood too.
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When visitors got to the end of the 'runway', we'd made a half baggage carousel that appeared to be coming out of the last town office, loaded with suitcases. A second 'flight attendant"
thanked them for flying Imagination Airlines.
Each child received a pilot wings pin - courtesy of my friend, Alex who worked for the airlines and got the airlines to donate them to our fundraiser.
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I can't tell you how many compliments we got on having such a creative venue entry - all thanks to Jerome, Rich and crew! Due to the time, effort and attention to detail we all took, that fundraiser ended up being the second highest grossing event in the community group's history.
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Staging is everything. By the time the patrons got off that 'runway', they were in a party mood and opened their wallets accordingly.
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STAGING THE DINING AREA
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This was a relatively simple affair, each of the banquet tables being covered in an inexpensive disposable vinyl tablecloth with an Around the World theme to it. Centerpieces for the tables were a globe set inside a styrofoam ring into which flags of the world were inserted and hot glued into place.
Disposable Around the World themed dinnerware, eating utensils, napkins, etc. were set up on a table next to the kitchen along with various condiments.
Travelogue
As I already mentioned, there was a separate room off the dining area that could be closed off.
A friend of mine (retired lawyer) spends his time traveling the world and living in different countries for week or months at a time. He very graciously made up a presentation of photos he'd taken during his travels and gave a day long travelogue to anyone interested. This was included in the price of their admission ticket.
That room was full every time I peeked in and he said he got tons of questions about different countries from people planning to travel there.
Raffle
We also ran a day-long raffle of travel related items. You could use these as prize items at your own party!
National Geographic magazine subscription
Try the World Subscription Box
I scrapbooked 5 travel journals to be raffled off.
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If you're going to do this, I recommend getting the binder style journal with refillable pages.
Be sure to include some photo pocket holders in your book!
An Around the World party is another really versatile theme party to throw - school prom, baby shower, birthday party, cultural exchange, bon voyage party. It can feature one country or multiple countries.
