Avnet Customer Appreciation

Avnet celebrates their customers each year with an appreciation event that also gives back. Past events have been in the form charity golf tournaments and a banquet style dinner post game play. We were challenged by Avnet’s team to give the event a fresh twist. The event needed to recognize Avnet’s key customers, make them feel valued, and raise money for their local charity partners. We came to them with a solution combining unique venues, great live music, and comedy.

For the Irvine event, we chose the House of Blues to highlight our musical guest The Chris Weaver Band. The charity partner for the evening was Caterina’s Club, a chef run operation feeding hungry children with pasta dinners. To highlight the foundation, we worked in pasta to the decor elements; a place card with a single bow tie gave guests an overview of the impact their donations would make, a pasta step and repeat wall made for great photo ops as well as a shout out to Avnet partners, and Caterina’s Club personnel had a prominent location near the main stage. To keep the giving going a live raffle took place between the band’s sets and the evening concluded with a live auction of an in-kitchen dinner with Chef Bruno of Caterina’s Club.

For the San Jose event we chose the San Jose Improv, a historic building in downtown San Jose. This unique venue allowed us to start the evening with a short comedy set by Larry “Bubbles” Brown followed by music from the Chris Weaver Band. Our charity partner was Project Night Night, a group that provides comfort care packages to homeless children. In addition to their live raffle we integrated the decor to fit the charity by using little golden books and a step and repeat wall with partner recognition on blankets, bags, and teddy bears (all of which were donated at the end of the night).

Both events raised over their goal for the charities, and the attendees left feeling uplifted.