Leonardo Hotels - 2023

Employee Awards Dinner – Leonardo Hotels

Type of Event: Reward and Recognition

location: Midlands

“Our annual employee awards dinner brings together 300 nominees from across our hotels and has to be a stand out event. Hotel people can be hard to please because they see events all the time. Our aim is for our team to see this experience as equal to, or better than, one they would deliver for one of their clients. We also want it to be something they really want to attend.

The ‘wow’ effect was the biggest feedback across the board from not just the nominees, but many of their ‘plus ones’ too.”

Leonardo Hotel’s Head of Learning and Development challenged us to deliver an event that would beat the previous year's success.

What we did

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Killer theme

The Employee Awards Dinner is always held at one of the Leonardo hotels. This time, it was held at The Midland Hotel, which is a 19th Century railway hotel.

We see this as an opportunity to celebrate each hotel alongside its people. So, we created a theme that would amplify its history - Murder on the Leonardo Express.

We built different immersive worlds in different zones for guests to flow through as the murdery mystery built.

“Intense creativity is a defining part of the way TWC works, and each element of the design showed real commitment to the idea of telling a story.”
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Immersive entertainment

We immersed guests in the theme of Murder on the Leonardo Express.

Guests' railway tickets were clipped on entry at a ticket booth.
We turned the reception area into a railway platform.
Bellboy dancers moved around the platform, until the whistle to board the train.
In the next room, there was an Orient Express carriage, with billowing steam and themed food and drinks.

“Lisa’s team coordinates every detail to make sure everything comes off exactly as planned. You can feel the energy in the room —they're genuinely excited about the event they're putting on.”
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Extra touches

Leonardo hotels share content from this flagship Employee awards event as part of their recruitment and talent retention programs.

We ensured there were plenty of opportunities to capture the team and the effort that went into this exceptional event.

"On the back of two incredibly successful events, we are now working with Lisa on our 2024 awards event. I can’t wait to see how she brings it to life.”

THE IMPACT

“The ‘wow’ effect was the biggest feedback across the board from nominees. Many of their ‘plus ones’ also told us that the night was exceptional, and so much better than events that their companies and industries put on for them.

Internally, our exec was incredibly pleased with how the company had come over to employees and guests, which included eight external award judges.

On the back of two incredibly successful events with TWC, we are now working with Lisa on our 2024 awards event. The concept we’ve agreed on is unlike anything I’ve seen before—I can’t wait to see how she brings it to life.”


If you’re looking to host an event or find out more, please get in touch - hello@thewentworthcollective.com