Brief: To create ‘The Christmas Tavern’, a pop-up Christmas marquee installation at The Bird hotel in Bath. The space had to be multi-functional as it was used by the hotel to host Christmas and New Years parties, as well as being a place for guests to eat Christmas lunch and afternoon tea throughout the month of December.
Who: Kaleidoscope Collection– An independent collection of hotels in Bath. The company pride themselves on their creativity and innovation, weaving playful eccentricity into everything that they do, making them the perfect client for Tarren.
Where: The Bird,Bath.
When: The marquee was open daily, from the end of November until New Years Day. The build took place over a fortnight prior to its opening.
What Tarren did: Kaleidoscope Collection had previously had a Winter Wonderland theme for their Christmas parties, and wanted this year to have a more mature aesthetic. They came to us with some ideas in mind, and we worked with them to design and create ‘The Christmas Tavern’- a cosy, welcoming and elegant space for their guests to celebrate the festive season.
We made and installed the project’s infrastructure and set. This includes the wood-panelled tavern walls, tree-lined walkway and creative set pieces, such as the candy cane arches. We also installed the technical infrastructure, including truss, the overhead grids for hanging the bauble ceiling, mirrors, lighting and sound. Once this was completed, we dressed the set, implicating a few final features, such as garlands and wreaths, to bring the Christmas spirit to The Bird.
Our favourite feature: “My favourite component of this project was the creation of the tree-lined corridor. It was a promenade set for people to walk through that linked the marquee to the hotel’s breakfast room. It has a real element of Narnia magic about it, and I think it brings the outside inside perfectly”– Tarren’s Creative Producer, Becks Hemus.
Challenges: One of the biggest challenges of this project was completing the construction of other areas of the marquee, whilst the 5000-strong bauble ceiling was being installed overhead.
Another challenge, was that The Bird’s restaurant was fully functioning whilst the install was taking place. We desperately wanted to avoid disturbing the day-to-day business of the hotel, so through clever scheduling, a conscientious attitude and regular communication with the venue we managed to avoid this. We were able to anticipate particularly busy times, and also use the time that we had effectively to install the project.