Olivia PowellHouse of eve recently welcomed 150 attendees to its first immersive venue and event day in London. The event offered guests the chance to experience eve’s 31 venues all under one roof, as well as a variety of culinary concepts and experiences.
Opening at 7.30am, 16 organisers arrived for the wake-up yoga workout, followed by a VR massage workshop by Spa from Ordinary. Attendees were able to travel to a forest stream, a waterfall, or a beach via a VR headset with accompanying audio, whilst they received a massage.
Michael Aldridge from Unique Venue Consultancy said: “The industry has taken a while to wake up to its own immersive experiences and this was great with new and exciting ideas. House of eve is clever and well thought out and it’s easy for people to understand how they can use goaskeve.com plus the use of QR codes is brilliant. There have been some great examples here today that people can use in their own events.”
eve’s full-service capability including its venues, production by Full Circle and seasonal parties by Ultimate Experience were showcased in the style of a gallery, with boards displaying images and interesting facts about each business. QR codes enabled delegates to immediately link to the venue’s details on goaskeve.com and bookmark their favourites. In addition, venue ambassadors were on hand to discuss ideas with organisers, wedding planners and agency representatives.
Guests were invited to discover their own ‘eve aura’ with aura photographs taken by Blank Canvas. Personality traits shown by the aura colours in the photograph were matched to eve’s venues, encouraging organisers to look at venues that would supposedly suit them best.
CH&CO and Create supplied food to guests in ‘eve’s Kitchen’ space, with the first meal of the day being brunch. Visitors sampled Leo’s rye sourdough bread served with cashew butter and spinach, soft eggs with fennel and dill salt and Skyr yoghurt, lingonberries and pine sugar.
Lunch was circulated in bowls, and attendees enjoyed BBQ duck doughnuts with mushroom sugar, maple & bacon, beetroot risotto with horseradish cream with sustainable cod and seaweed butter, and plant-based patties in rye buns with pickled cabbage. Afternoon tea was a seated affair in the kitchen in conjunction with GC Couture, with chefs on hand to describe, discuss and display their skills, as they bubbled liquorice on plant-based panna cottas, and fermented the greens to accompany the Cured sea trout with buttermilk and vodka pickles. Menus were also delivered by QR code, meaning no paper was wasted in creating the kitchen.
To end the day, a Rum Shack opened with a variety of innovative cocktails supplied by Rum & Sugar, coffee cocktails courtesy of Bewley’s coffee and Caribbean soul food canapes.
Managing director for eve by CH&CO, Katy Thompson said: “Despite Covid-19, House of eve was a great success showcasing eve’s capabilities in person and as an intelligent event creating platform that can provide organisers with everything they need. It was a chance for people to get to know eve’s personality and some of the tricks up her sleeve.”