RP: Decorating conference room at work HELP!

katarczyna

Hi ladies, about a month (?) ago, I posted a question asking how to decorate a work conference room.

We're having a department party/event early May. It's a competitive game, with about 30-40 people attending. I was approved for a modest budget, most of which we're spending on drinks.

I'm planning on spending about $125 on decorations. No one gardens or has access to free flowers. There's really no "theme", but our colors are red and cyan. And I don't want to stick cutouts on the wall, I'd rather spend more money on beer to be honest.

Here are some pictures of the room -- the middle wall opens up to an identical room, so we have a lot of space to work with. 

Please help. I am so at a loss.

 

Here's from the entry door, right wall is what pulls back and opens to an identical room -- so we'll have a room that looks like this, just twice as wide. We'll obv rearrange the tables.

 

And a bad picture of the back wall / shelf thingy.

 

MaryWithoutSound

What about something like this?  You could tailor it to use your colors, and I think it would stay within your budget:

 

6fsn

Will there be food?  Or any supplies on the table?

I was thinking you could get some containers in you colors, then fill them with food or supplies.  Maybe even do cookies/cake pops iced in your colors.  I've also found that a couple of wide ribbons running down a white table cloth is a cheap, but cute runner.  Let the the end run down the length of the table and use short pieces to basket weave in the middle or at either end.  It's more interestong and holds the long ribbons in place.

katarczyna

Thanks for the picture and ideas! 

 

There will be food - some light snacks (it's from 3-5). The limitation with food and what we can bring in is that it has to be catered, and only from one of our approved vendors. Le sigh. Which means it's going to be Cafe Baci or Au Bon Pain. And the beer and wine from whatever place we normally get it from.

 

Rather than balloons -- because we have the same vendor problem, I think I'll get some of those tissue pom pom things. I think they're equally festive, yet easier to do, given our company's policies on stuff like this. 

GatorWedsNole

Not sure if you have a "favor" line item on your budget, but if you want to add something festive to the tables that serves a dual purpose, maybe the folks at Au Bon Pain can pack cookies in red boxes or tie cyan ribbon around a clear baggie that the cookie is in.

Hope this help!  GL!

jj_sbride

Stinking nest.
I replied to your last post...or so i thought. I think the nest ate it. It was long too.
I used to do this for a living...decorating conference rooms for clients. Hopefully this will make sense ;-)

So that it doesn't seem so overwhelming to decorate such large space, you want to make two focal areas: one by placing a table in front of the window and use the food counter as the other area.
This way it will draw their attention as they walk in the room.
I remember you saying its like an Easter theme...but non-religious and you wanted it to be on the classy side...am I right?

The paper poms or paper lanterns are a great idea. Instead of hanging them all over, you can create points of impact by clustering them and hanging them over the two focal points like this:

I have bought them from oriental trading and its much cheaper.
Here are the poms.
I've also made pinwheels like these. I used craft paper from Michael's cut into strips. I had to use 3 accordion folded sheets to make one pinwheel. Instead of buttons i cut out a circle of paper for the middle. You can see them in this picture on the left.

For the tables, I would have a paper runner down the middle out of wrapping paper or by just placing pieces of craft paper like this with small bowls of pretzels on top.

 For the front table centerpiece, can you get some wheat grass or fake grass?
scatter plastic eggs around it with chocolate bunnies.


At a dollar store or goodwill, find large glass vases and fill them with lemons, limes or plastic easter eggs like this for the food table and front table. So cheap and it looks great:

Dont forget to use risers to get height, basically I use phone books or shoe boxes wrapped in brown paper. Place the food and glass vases on them to add different levels to the table.

I will post more ideas if i remember anything else.
HTH!! Good luck...post pictures.

jj_sbride

Just saw your awesome color scheme...you could do red apples and turquoise/cyan eggs in the vases. I actually painted the plastic eggs for this shower with cheap acrylic paint.

katarczyna

Thanks so much ladies!!!!!