SUGAR & RIND BESPOKE PRESENTS
TRANSFORMING BUSH HALL INTO A DISCO PARTY TO REMEMBER
INTRODUCTION
Back in March 2024, we transformed Bush Hall in West London into an unforgettable disco party for Charlie and Isabel’s 60th birthday celebration.
The brief was to create a smashing 60th birthday party and they wanted us to come up with a theme. After proposing several options we settled on ‘As Disco as you Dare’! This gave the guests the option to dress up as much or as little as they wanted. As you can see, not many shied away from the task.
VENUE SELECTION
The client had already settled on Bush Hall, a decandant Edwardian dance hall located in Shepherd’s Bush, West London. In fact, this was the start of what has become a beautiful partnership with Sugar & Rind becoming the preferred party planner for all events there, but more on that later…
THEMING
To enhance the venue and create a real wow factor, we worked with our bespoke decoration supplier to bring in an abundance of dazzling decor. There were light-up neon signs, giant DISCO letters on the dance floor, table decorations with disco balls, glitting curtains and so much more!
ENTERTAINMENT
The main entertainment for the evening was the incredible Earth Lights band who blew the guests away with their performance. The front man, Spencer Kennedy, is the son of the drummer of the 70’s band Imagination and when the client discovered this, he nearly died of excitement. They absolutely rocked the dance floor and Charlie was absolutely made up with having made a new friend for life!
CATERING
On arrival, the guests were served cocktails in the bar area before a delicious three-course seated dinner in the main room and we even managed to arrange a Colin the Caterpillar Cake for one of the guests! Beer, wine and soft drinks were served at the tables and all night long as the guests continued to dance the night away.
FEEDBACK
We hired Sugar and Rind to help us organise our joint 60th birthday party – cocktails, seated dinner, band and dancing for 160 people. We recommend them most highly!
The first and most important thing to say is the party was a complete blast! So fantastic, such fun, we are still on a complete high. As are all our guests – they’ve called it the party of the century!!
Having Philly working with us on this made organising the party as stress-free as you could hope, and her expertise and knowledge is what made it so perfect.
She managed all the contracts with multiple suppliers, and at times this meant she had to negotiate on our behalf, sort out tricky issues etc, all of which she did in a completely unflappable way so there was never any worry for us. She also has the best Rolodex, masses of experience and great taste which all contributed to the party’s success. The band she suggested were absolutely perfect; she wisely pushed us to have a theme which made the whole evening hang together; she knew a great designer to decorate the venue and a great furniture supplier to jazz it up. We were able to trust her advice and judgement about things like timetables, table plans, sorting venue issues etc and she handled all the details so professionally and kept everyone fully updated. I suspect the suppliers were all thrilled to be working with such a professional as she must have made their lives easier. We also appreciated Philly’s flexibility in agreeing to work with a couple of suppliers who were our preference and who we introduced to her.
A particular thing I wanted was to be able to fully relax on the day of the party itself and I absolutely could. Philly and her team were at the venue sorting it out and setting up so when we arrived it was perfect. She was an elegant presence all night, keeping everything ticking over and running smoothly – I know she even served drinks at one point! Basically, she made the party run perfectly so we could just be footloose and fancy free enjoying our guests!
I also appreciated that invoicing and accounting were all done accurately and in a timely fashion.
I’ve copied below some parts of my thank you note to Philly to give you more of a flavour:
I can now take a moment to say the hugest thank you on behalf of us both to you all for an unforgettable night!!! We both had just the best time, as did all our guests!! I think we all had a night to remember forever – and it was the perfect way to celebrate so many things.
Bush Hall looked fantastic – we were especially thrilled with how nice the upstairs bar and the terrace looked, and the main hall was fantastic with all the tables laid out. We were so glad we chose that layout. The candles everywhere looked lovely. The decorations were really something and made the place look fantastic and so suitable for a disco party! We especially loved the big ‘DISCO’ sign by the stage – so funky! Our thanks to Saskia for all her work on that.
The arrivals and flow of guests worked really well and having everyone upstairs worked fantastically – we never got to the crush I have experienced before and it was a lovely way to be able to greet the guests. Drinks seemed to be flowing and everyone was happy.
What can we say about The Earth Lights other than they were absolute perfection. All of them were fantastic and the way they worked with the crowd – especially Spencer – was amazing. Our guests adored them and had such a great time. The DJ was also brilliant and so interactive and charismatic. It was a big decision to choose them, but it was a brilliant recommendation and they could not have been any better. The lighting and sound were impeccable too – thank you, especially for supporting Charlie’s speech.
And a big thank you to all the many staff who looked after our guests so wonderfully – it seemed like everyone had a great time even if they couldn’t all find their coats by the end of the evening 🤣 – luckily all repatriated now!
Philly and Rupy – you were such a wonderful presence on the night and it was very reassuring for us both to know you were managing everything and we didn’t have to worry about anything other than having fun with our guests – you were worth your weight in gold on the night and looked fabulous too!
We have had so many thank yous already from our guests who just loved everything about the event – calling it the party of the century! It was everything we hoped it would be and more!
Thank you so much from us both!! We’re completely exhausted and on a complete high!!!
Isabel Taylor
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