Imagine the most luxurious, opulent hotel you’ve ever seen suddenly closing its doors and leaving everything inside as it was. Imagine walking through those same doors twenty, even thirty years later, and seeing what kind of time capsule you’d find, and how the earth and dust would have settled over the interiors and exteriors. Isn’t it all very I Am Legend? Well, Austrian photographer Thomas Windisch documented such an encounter across 12,000 miles of Europe, including photos of 100 abandoned and abandoned hotels.
While his surrealist project captures abandonment, stillness, and an overwhelming sense of calm, all we can think about as event planners is what kind of killer parties could be thrown in some of these spaces.
Picture champagne towers, aerial arts ladies on ribbons dangling from cavernous ceilings, jasmine and ivy vines covering the walls of the rooms, antique grand pianos blaring, and massive old bars brimming with booze.
A fantastic event is all about the mood and energy you bring to the space, and these old hotels are so mysterious and grandiose that you can embrace that magnetism while also playing up the forbidden prohibition feel. In the world of party planning, that means a lot of booze and a lot of dancing, so focus on the bar and the music. You could even bring in a few unusual entertainment acts, such as a cabaret troupe or flapper dancers accompanied by a large horn-heavy jazz band.
Some of the hotels are so traditional and beautiful that it would be fun to turn them upside down and throw a wild party, but a truly elegant large-scale dinner could work just as well. When planning a party in any of these types of venues, aim to match the grand scale of the space to the mood of the party. So, if you’re planning a more formal dinner, go big and serve five or six courses with butler service, wine flowing constantly, perhaps a partial orchestra for entertainment, rent chandeliers and candelabras, and line long banquet tables with abundant flowers and greenery.
Choosing how to personalize the setting is part of the creativity that goes into event planning. It is entirely up to the host to shake things up in a refined ballroom by bringing in wild décor, an unexpected type of entertainment, or simply a really abundant menu. As long as you have a group of talented, artistic vendors and a venue that is open to new ideas, the possibilities are endless.
While hosting an event on the set of one of Windisch’s photographs may be difficult, you can easily translate the concept into your own event planning. The idea is to let loose and do something unexpected, to muck things up a little, and to not place too much emphasis on the party being too perfect, too stylized. After all, a little grit and dirt won’t stop any of these spaces from shining.