Oodle Car Finance wanted to celebrate another year of hard work amongst their employees, by holding a one-day corporate family fun day with glamping at a stunning venue in Oxfordshire.
TCFC was lucky enough to be chosen for the planning and event management behind the Mexican themed festival, which drew 300 people made-up of employees and clients, children included, to the middle of the countryside.
We love our themed events, because we get to delve even more into our creative side and really have fun with it, researching props we have never used before, coming up with new ideas and whole new ways of designing and decorating the blank canvas that is a festival site. Our team fully immersed themselves with sobreros and fake moustaches to really get in spirit of the even. I think we would have felt quite underdressed if we hadn’t, as the guests went all out!
The venue was decorated with fake cactuses and Mexican coloured decorations filled this ordinarily quiet great British countryside. Delegates were greeted with a Mexican wandering band and shots of gold and silver tequila set the scene as they arrived, which certainly went down very well! (adults only).
We wanted to make the site as Mexican themed enough that it was obvious without going so overboard it would rack up a bill larger than the desired budget and we believe we created the perfect combination of budget utilisation without compromising on the look and feel of the event and its theme.
Another challenge with a family fun day is making sure that every single person is catered for. We organised a children’s tent with plenty of arts and crafts, as well as a bouncy castle to keep them busy. There were glitter artists, a dedicated children’s menu, churros stand, bouncy boxing and our signature silent disco to finish off what had been an incredible day.
Ordinarily this event had been organised internally each year by the team. However, due to their own increasing workload, this year they decided to outsource it. The feedback we received is that the brief was met exceptionally well and valuable resource that had been utilised in previous years, was able to remain within Oodle finance during the planning.
The event is designed to thank employees, their partners and clients for all their hard work and commitment during the previous year. As the company has grown so much it facilitates networking for colleagues that may not know each other very well on a day-to-day basis and gives them the opportunity to socialise outside of the office environment.
We have been advised by our client that this event was enjoyed more than any other summer event that they had held, and the feedback was incredibly positive.
Employees and guests felt valued by the investment of the event which we know creates better co-working performance and networking, and certainly goes a long way toward staff retention.
The event was structured so that the first part of it was more focused around families, primarily children, so that families could leave or retreat to their tents at an appropriate time having still really enjoyed the event.
The latter aspect was focused on the party really starting with both The Smiley Campbell Band and Lightspeed taking to the stage to cook up nothing short of an electric party that kept guests dancing for hours, only sitting down temporarily by the campfires for a drink and chat before hitting the dance floor again.
These guys knew how to celebrate and party in style!
This was our first year of using The Corporate Festival Company and we cannot recommend them highly enough. From the initial consultation through to delivery of the event, they just made light work of it for us. What usually took an incredible amount of planning time for our team, became a seamless and professional outsourced service. The team are so organised, creative, passionate, hardworking and exceptionally good at what they do.
To top it all, the on-site team are really engaging, and you can tell that they all want to be there and make the event a success, which makes a huge difference. It was an absolute pleasure to work with The Corporate Festival Company. Nothing was too much trouble, and they delivered an event that well exceeded ours and our guest’s expectations.
We are delighted to say that Oodle must have enjoyed their event as much as our staff did, because they booked with us again for the following year. This time going for an Arabian nights themed festival with a Middle Eastern menu, camels, shishas and belly dancing.
We were really grateful to have worked alongside Oodle. They are an incredibly nice company to work with and their staff were all fantastic fun on the day, whilst being respectful of an outdoor event.
Units 3-4, Trade City
Avro Way
Brooklands Industrial Estate
Weybridge
Surrey
KT13 0YF
Units 1 & 2, Greenway Farm
Winslow Road
Great Horwood
Buckinghamshire
MK17 0NY
Company Registration: 03209530
VAT Number: 700 521 494
