A family summer day built to beat the year that fell flat
SERVICES DELIVERED
CONTEXT
The client needed a full-day outdoor event for employees and their families, built to work across a genuine range of ages. The venue was Battersea Park Bowling Green, a blank canvas where everything would need to be brought in.
Blank canvas venues put the entire operational load on the event team. There was no in-house bar, no catering, no shade, no furniture. Everything from the mobile bar to the soft play had to be sourced, transported and installed on the day. A site with no permanent infrastructure gives creative freedom, but leaves no margin for planning gaps.
The multi-generational brief was the other core challenge. Adults, older children and toddlers would all be there. Activities that worked for one age group could actively exclude another, so the day needed a layout where different ages could be active at the same time without competing for the same space. The redemption context added pressure a standard brief would not carry. People had experienced a disappointing event the year before. A day that was simply adequate would not move the conversation. The bar was set at noticeably better.
We planned the event around a central hub and a zone-based layout. A large stretch tent anchored the site, providing shade and seating, and pulling the different activity areas into one place rather than a field with things scattered across it. The programme was age-layered rather than age-mixed. A dedicated soft play area gave small children their own contained space. The inflatables, an assault course, pirate slide and Last Man Standing, were positioned for older children and competitive adults. Garden games and outdoor furniture created a lower-energy zone for adults alongside the bar and street food.
Street food was chosen over a fixed menu to cover a wider range of tastes across a family audience. The mobile bar ran through the day as the adult social anchor. Picnic benches, deck chairs and beanbags around the tent gave people somewhere to settle in rather than stand around, which matters on a full day with children in the mix.
The age-layered layout meant the soft play and inflatable areas ran without conflict simultaneously, which is the practical test of whether a multi-generational day works. People settled into the site rather than drifting, and the day held from the structured activity through to the informal social time. The client noted the improvement over the previous year directly in their feedback, which was the brief's hardest test given where the bar had been set.
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"Stacked were brilliant from day 1. They listened to our brief and came up with options that fit perfectly within our budget. They kept in constant contact throughout the process, sourced all the suppliers and was on hand all day on the day of the event. It made our job very easy. Would 100% recommend Stacked and we will be asking them to arrange our summer party next year too."
IF THIS FEELS RELEVANT
Planning a company summer party or employee family day?
If you're planning a summer party, a family day or any outdoor event that has to work across every age group, tell us what's coming and what it needs to do. We'll come back with relevant work and how we'd approach it.
