‘Tis the season to be jolly — busy!
The festive season needs planning, and lots of it. The more you want to ‘wow’, the more minute details you will have to deal with, from selecting a colour scheme for the baubles to deciding how much icing sugar is needed for snow. Without careful planning, you could end up with eggnog on your face.
Hotels will try to build a reputation over the years for their seasonal festivities, which must be maintained — or bettered — each year.
One such hotel was the first I worked in, which at the time was the only casino complex in Australia.
The budgets for Christmas and New Year were astronomical — all 1600 seats in the Grand Ballroom were sold out every year for 21 years in a row.
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The engineering department would erect 700 real pine trees sprayed with fake snow around the perimeter of the ballroom, while the ceiling was rigged with thousands of fairy lights which were then covered with satin cloth, to look like the night sky with twinkling stars. Turn the AC on low and you had a magical forest wonderland.
Across the whole complex there would be 2700 people sitting down to eat Christmas lunch at the same time in nine different places. Can you guess what was the most difficult thing to arrange? Not the food, or the vast amount of equipment — it was getting nine Santas into their respective areas without being seen by any children. Try explaining to a child why they have just seen three Santas chatting!
Who plays Santa is important to an establishment’s reputation and its kiddie street cred; the more convincing he looks and acts, the happier the junior customers will be — which will in turn result in happier parents.
When I was in London, our security manager was a Santa to remember: he was 6’8” tall giant with a booming Welsh baritone and when suited and booted in his costume (made by the Royal Shakespeare Company) he stood over seven feet tall.
Can you imagine the looks on all the children’s faces when they saw Santa having to bend down to get through the door? Brilliant.
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