Transforming a Newcastle Museum Into 1920s Paris: The Christmas Party That Broke Employee Survey Records
SERVICES DELIVERED
CONTEXT
A corporate client came to Stacked Events with a brief to end a strong year differently. The ask was a Christmas party noticeably unlike anything the team had experienced before. The brief specified high production value, genuine creative ambition, and entertainment that would hold a room. They selected the Discovery Museum in Newcastle as the venue and handed the creative direction to Stacked Events.
A museum is an unusual corporate event venue — and that's precisely what makes it difficult. Discovery Museum is not configured for dining, entertainment staging, or cabaret-style performance. Everything — staging, lighting, sound, and catering infrastructure — had to be brought in and configured from scratch within a heritage space with its own physical constraints.
The entertainment brief was unusually broad. Burlesque dancers, aerial performers, a hula hoop artist, live jazz vocalists, and a jazz band each needed to serve the same evening. They had to function as a coherent cabaret programme, not a sequence of unrelated acts. In a dinner theatre format, entertainment and dining have to be sequenced so neither works against the other. Guests cannot eat a three-course meal and watch an aerial performance at the same time.
The 1920s Paris concept also required a custom sound environment. Period-appropriate music had to support the theme, work across five distinct entertainment acts, and sustain atmosphere through an entire evening. It could not be sourced from a stock playlist — it had to be built specifically for this event.
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Stacked Events took on full creative direction and production delivery. The Discovery Museum was selected for its architectural character and scale. A heritage venue gives a period concept a physical foundation that a purpose-built event space cannot.
The transformation involved period set dressing and lighting designed to evoke a Parisian jazz club. The room layout was configured specifically for the dinner theatre format. A custom soundtrack was produced in-house by the Stacked Events team, blending period-appropriate music across the full programme. The audio environment was designed to hold consistent with the theme from arrival to close.
The entertainment was programmed as a proper cabaret bill: burlesque dancers, live jazz vocalists, a jazz band, aerial performers, and a hula hoop artist. Each act was selected and scheduled to serve a different moment in the evening's energy arc. Dinner service and performance were sequenced so that set pieces had the room's full attention, and dining ran between acts rather than simultaneously with them.
The event produced the highest engagement and satisfaction scores the client had recorded on their annual employee feedback survey. Following the event, the client engaged Stacked Events to manage their entire events calendar on an exclusive basis.
Exceptional! This will be the first of many.
IF THIS FEELS RELEVANT
Planning a themed corporate Christmas party or dinner theatre event?
Stacked Events designs themed corporate events around a fully produced concept — from venue choice through to entertainment programming and a custom sound environment. Tell us about your brief and we'll come back to you within 48 hours.