Triangle Business Journal

Monday, December 20, 2004

Around Town

Tis the season ... to party

Kim Nilsen

If your company's holiday party has become more drudgery than revelry, don't dismay.

Write this year off, and promise your employees and/or clients you'll do better next year.

If hosting isn't your bag, consider borrowing an idea from one of the Triangle's more creative corporate entertainers.

This year's party offerings have included an intimate cigar and steak night for some of the big boys of real estate and a crystal ball-toting psychic hired to keep morale high at a local marketing agency.

The Raleigh public relations company ClearImage, assisted by party planner Lisa Stone, spent about $5,000 to turn downtown Raleigh's Lincoln Theatre music and beer hall into a smoky jazz club. Accountants, lawyers, financial advisers and technology workers on the guest list received invitations shaped like concert tickets.

Two years ago, ClearImage rented out the independent film theater Rialto and invited clients and partners to screenings of holiday classics "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."

"Pretty much any place that you would want to rent is up for grabs," says Stone, a partner in Red Jester Events. "Every place is negotiable." Some of her personal favorites for entertaining include Chapel Hill's Carolina Inn and Raleigh's BTI Center for Performing Arts. Stone also favors often-overlooked locales such as art galleries and historic homes.