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“PLANNING FACTORY INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT TO SPEAK AT THE SPECIAL EVENT CENTER STAGE CONFERENCE”

“SPEED DATING 101: SEARCHING FOR MR. WONDERFUL”

“Our table came about one afternoon as we were sitting in our offices playing with a ‘Mr. Wonderful’ doll, every woman's dream of the perfect man. As someone pressed his button to reveal his comment of choice — “Let's just cuddle tonight” — someone shouted, tongue in cheek, “That's what we need, a Mr. Wonderful table!” Voila, the ‘Speed Dating 101: Searching for Mr. Wonderful’ table was created.

Always wanting to create and use a new table configuration, we decided that our ‘Speed Dating’ table would resemble a bar. To that end, we used a high-top 8-foot banquet table as the basis for our design. Of course, you can't have a bar-type table without bar stools, so these were the next element in the design. To get across the point that our speed dating would include members of both sexes, we used pink and blue sides for the tables. We also included table chargers that represented the corresponding male and female symbols. We played off the male and female stereotypes by creating fictional characters whose place cards were mock personal ads. Because we couldn't have real people seated at the table, we created ‘thought bubbles’ that represented comments that each participant may have been thinking. One ‘male’ bubble leered, ‘Hello, girls … ,’ while a ‘female’ bubble fumed, ‘Hey, creep, my eyes are up here!’

We had a few challenges to overcome during the design implementation. For one, our centerpiece did not survive the commute to Dallas. This sculpture of a man and woman embracing ended up being a woman embracing a headless man. We thought — how appropriate! However, we located some glue to repair the statue. Wish we could do that for real-life men!” — Cher Przelomski, Susan Simmons and Kate Van Graafeiland

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“THE ORIGINAL TEXAS HOLD ‘EM”

“We came up with the idea of designing ‘The Original Texas Hold ‘Em’ while attending The Special Event 2005, when we learned that The Special Event 2006 was to be held in Dallas. With poker making a comeback, we thought we'd hearken back to the original Wild West poker games held in saloons.

With the idea of this table in our minds throughout the next six months, we were constantly on the lookout for appropriate items that we could incorporate into the design. The most unusual element for our tabletop was the rustic barn wood table cover, which was retrieved from a renovation site and cut to fit a 72-inch round table. Chair back covers (which PFI has come to be known for in our Tabletop Gallery designs) were covered with leather vests and chaps. Toy gun holsters were the receptacles for napkins and utensils. The centerpiece was an upside-down cowboy hat overflowing with poker winnings, including the deed to a ranch.

Our biggest challenge was finding the period chairs. We struggled to find rentable ladder-back chairs, but remembering Ducky-Bob's, we were able to find suitable rental chairs.

We liked the fact that our table ended up looking as if cowboys had just stepped away from a round of poker for a moment and would return shortly for the next hand. We also liked the unique tabletop treatment using a weathered red gingham table linen and even more weathered pieces of barn wood.” — Cher Przelomski, Susan Simmons and Kate Van Graafeiland

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