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Once a year, the GSDM community swaps scrubs for prom dresses and tuxedos for one of the school’s most popular events: the Goldman Sachs Gala.For the second part of our ongoing “Behind-the-scenes” As part of our series, we spoke with Amanda Modelevsky, Director of Meetings and Events at GSDM, about how she prepares for this year’s Goldman Sachs Gala at its brand new location, The Power Plant in SoWa.
Moderewski’s main goal for the Goldman Sachs gala was simple: to make his guests happy. However, achieving this goal was a huge undertaking, and she put in months of planning and hard work.
“I’m involved in everything about Gala, including getting every last speck of dust off the floor before you come in,” Modlevski said.
The first Goldman Sachs Gala was held grandly year 2010, featuring a cocktail hour complete with a raw bar and tooth-shaped ice sculptures, followed by a formal sit-down dinner. The evening was a success and the evening quickly became a popular and much-loved school event.
When Modelevsky started at GSDM in 2017 as assistant director of meetings and events (she was promoted to director of meetings and events in 2019), Gala remained in its original form. Departments would buy up entire tables, quickly filling the event’s maximum capacity of about 400 people.
Modelevsky used this format to organize the 2018 and 2019 galas at the Fairmont Copley Hotel and was expecting to host a third gala in 2020, but she was forced to cancel the event due to COVID-19. The 2021 gala has also been canceled due to concerns about the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).
The after-party is finally back in 2022, but in a new format as a night-long cocktail party with more appetizers and food stations instead of a sit-down dinner. The redesigned event ended up being a huge win, Modlewski said.
“Our number of guests has exploded,” Modlevski said. “We have 700 [people] It was great and we got great feedback. ”
However, with guest numbers growing again in 2023, GSDM has officially outgrown the Fairmont Copley Hotel, so Modelevsky began planning for the 2024 gala by looking for a new venue.
“As much as we love the Fairmont Hotel, we also love the people who work there and we are treated very well, but we have outgrown the space,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to run this event from scratch and give it my all.”
Moderewski began exploring other venues, including concert halls with permanent furniture, stages and bars. Before making the commitment, she wanted input from her DMD and DMD AS class representatives to make sure she was on the right path.
She was surprised to learn that the students did not want Gala in the concert hall. Instead, students said they wanted a “big, flashy night” at a venue they wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to attend. She instead looked for a venue as high-end as the Fairmont but with more space, and found a perfect fit in GSDM’s own backyard, the newly renovated SoWa Power Plant.
After touring the space twice, Modlewski said she knew the SoWa Power Station would meet her needs for a Goldman Sachs gala. The site is essentially one large room, which provided Moleski with endless possibilities for transforming the space.
GSDM has booked the SoWa Power Station for summer 2023 for the 2024 Goldman Sachs Gala. However, booking an event venue is just the first step; planning has just begun.
Next, Modelevsky needed to identify and book vendors she wanted to work with, including but not limited to design/décor, lighting and entertainment.
The SoWa Power Station was a huge blank slate, which gave Modelevsky the daunting task of creating a luxury event from the ground up. She began the task by meeting with event design and production firm J Barry Designs in the fall to discuss aesthetics and design elements for the 2024 gala. Together they came up with an overarching gold color scheme and mood board, a collection of inspirational images and text designed to evoke the desired style for the event. )
So Modlevsky Share this plan with other vendors so they can see where the event design is going and how they fit into it.As each supplier develops their own Gala plan, they A combination of mood boards and Modelevsky’s notes from previous celebrations.
“It’s basically a giant puzzle that you’re putting together, and everyone has a piece to create the whole thing,” Modlevsky said. “Every supplier plays an important role in bringing this all together.”
While Modelevsky worked with outside vendors, she also worked closely with Taline Kalo, a web and graphic designer at GSDM Communications, to design gala invitations and email them to the GSDM community. She said receiving an invitation is the first time a potential guest considers attending the event. This is your only chance to get customers to attend.
“This is your first point of contact with your guests [and] That’s your first impression of them,” Modlevski said. “That’s why it took me so long to go through this process. I’m very meticulous about everything, type A.”
Modelevsky began the invitation design process by sharing a mood board with Kalo. They worked together to create a design that included event information (such as date, time, location and other relevant details) and captured the style of the event. The save-the-date design was created prior to Intersession and sent to the GSDM community in early January.
“For this event, it doesn’t make sense to just send out a black and white invitation, because there’s a lot to it,” Modlevsky said. “Go the extra mile, put extra effort into your invitations, and use your event aesthetic as your overall design concept.”
Prior to the end of the reservation date, Modelevsky worked with event coordinator Jenna McMahon to select a new ticketing system, Eventbrite, to make event registration and waitlist management easier for Gala attendees and event staff. An updated invitation was sent on February 1, announcing that tickets were officially on sale. After ticket sales went online, tickets for the gala sold out in less than two weeks.
“We’re still going to have a check-in process and everyone’s going to have a QR code on their ticket, but I want the check-in to be clean and seamless and I’m really excited about that,” Modlevskiy said.
On January 31, Modelevsky, McMahon and all the vendors involved in the 2024 event met at the SoWa Power Station for a space exercise, or as Modelevsky put it, an exchange of ideas. Everyone gathered in the huge open space and started imagining their designs and what they would need to offer. Within two weeks of that meeting, the design for the big day was finalized and approved.
“We can all jump on Zoom and do what we did during the exercise, but getting into this space just elevates your mindset,” Modelevsky said. “You ask all these different types of questions.”
From February to March, Modlevskiy completed all the logistics with suppliers and developed a “performance itinerary” for everyone involved in the Gala. The “Show Schedule” (also called a set sheet or cue sheet) is a master document that contains each person’s name, contact information, and an hour-by-hour breakdown of each person’s responsibilities from 8 a.m. on March 22 to the early morning of March. Points 23.
Modlewski said “performance” is crucial for a smooth preparation and conclusion during the event.
“I’ll make sure their loading process goes smoothly, that everything is set up according to the floor plan we all agreed on, and that we all arrive on time,” Modlevski said. “Often, there are last-minute adjustments. This thing didn’t go the way we wanted, so we either canceled it or adjusted it.”
Moderewski’s plan went into effect the morning of the party. She jokes that once you start, it’s too late to turn back. Modelevsky and her team carefully tracked her performance in the hours leading up to the Gala and addressed any issues that arose.
After vendors made last-minute touches to everything, Modlewski walked around the venue making sure the band, registration, catering and bar were all ready. When everyone was ready, she announced it was time to open the door. Before doing so, she took the opportunity to look around and see what she had accomplished.
Moderewski said the preparations for the gala are organized chaos, but it’s always worth it for her favorite moment: the calm moment before it starts.
“There is a very small window [of time] Before guests enter the room, I can stand there and observe everything and see what’s going on,” she said. “I had a feeling, a little rush before we opened the door. Everything was ready and guests could see everything very quickly. This is my favorite part of being an event planner.”
go through Rachel Grace Phillipson
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