Alberta Meeting & Event Guide Fall/Winter 2017/2018 | Page 17

LOOK
Setting the stage
» Reinventing
the gala format
through audience
relationship
By Jessica Tkachuk
T
he Centennial Planetarium
is practically vibrating. Steve
Martin - acclaimed actor,
Grammy-award winning musi-
cian, renowned comedian and prolific art
collector - is in the building. Guests hud-
dle in excited groups, phones at the ready;
staff hurriedly make their way across
the signature hot pink carpet, muttering
into headsets; and in the middle of it all,
Derek MacDonald quietly, with an almost
impenetrable aura of collectedness, walks.
The owner of the award-winning
event agency, Boom Goes the Drum, has
every reason to abandon his outer shell
of cool. This evening marks the return of
LOOK, the annual major fundraiser for
Contemporary Calgary, and an event that
has helped put his company on the map
as one of Canada’s top strategic event
planning agencies. The LOOK series has
successfully bucked the all too famil-
iar “rubber chicken dinner” gala format,
and has been hailed as one of the coun-
try’s hottest parties, winning numerous
awards, and repeatedly selling out days in
advance. The stakes are high for his client,
and this year there is added hype with
Steve Martin’s role as a guest speaker,
and host of ‘The Social’, Lainey Lui (also
known by her moniker, Lainey Gossip) as
master of ceremonies.
So how is it that, despite the hur-
ried pace surrounding him, MacDonald
seems unfazed as he makes his way up
the Planetarium’s winding ramp to Steve
Martin’s dressing room? After all, these
days it takes more than star power to
create a successful fundraising gala; chal-
lenging economic times require event
producers to create meaningful connec-
tions with their guests.
MacDonald believes the key to fund-
raising and gala success lies somewhere
in these connections. “At a fundraiser,
you’re asking something from your guests;
maybe to support a foundation or lend
their voice to a cause. Either way, to do
that well you need to establish an event
experience that creates a relationship
which supports that ask.” He also points
out that this guest relationship should
begin long before your guests ever walk
into your venue doors, “If your first point
of contact with your audience is at regis-
tration,” he posits as we ascend the ramp,
“You’re missing something.”
The process of establishing that audi-
ence relationship for LOOK began more
than 10 months prior to the party itself,
with a much smaller audience: the LOOK
committee. “The Contemporary Calgary
story was relatively new and unknown,
and we couldn’t possibly reach every-
one by simply telling it ourselves. Rather
than pump budget into amplifying one
biased voice, we enlisted a group of voices
and empowered them to tell it for us,”
explains Derek. “If you want to know
who’s responsible for this crowd, it’s those
people.” The volunteer committee for
LOOK consisted of more than 75 people
that MacDonald speaks of as though they
are superheroes – a group of people var-
ied in demographics and attachments to
the cause, but connected by a singular,
visionary goal: to establish a significant
destination in Calgary for public and
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