Unique Team Building and Group Activities Santa Barbara Offers

Visit Santa Barbara invited Felici Events to have a conversation with local hotel sales teams and share ways to get groups to interact – either on-site at the hotels or out in the community, highlighting what we offer as a unique service and product in order to help work that messaging into their value proposition for holding the meeting in Santa Barbara - BEYOND THE BALLROOM.  

What we are hearing for meeting planning post-pandemic is people need a “Why” to leave home and travel for meetings.  Offsite meetings can’t just be about sitting in a conference room watching a PowerPoint, teams can just as easily sit at home and do that via Zoom.  Team Building events bring value and excitement to meetings while giving attendees the chance to bond with co-workers, interact with senior leaders, and embrace company culture. 

Immersion and experiential is our niche and we, at Felici Events, know that not all groups have time or budget to leave the hotel grounds so it would help to know if you can bring programming on-site.

CLICK HERE to download your 1 sheeter of (just a handful of) #Felicified activities we can coordinate for you in the Santa Barbara area.

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CLICK HERE to start planning your Corporate Event Today!

Mr. Towbes Birthday Celebration at Bacara Resort and Spa

Felici Events Produces an Entertaining Brunch Celebration

Felici Events was honored to have been part of another grand celebration for the accomplishments, love and birthday celebration of Mr. Towbes, Santa Barbara's own "It's a Wonderful Life" (Zohe produced Mr. Towbes 80th at Fess Parker Doubletree)

This time, we had a double whammy with putting this event together at Bacara Resort and Spa.  Everything is grand at Bacara, event the entrance, impressive!

Michael Towbes Birthday 85th Bacara Entry

The gracious and gorgeous Anne, Mr. Towbes wife, was instrumental in creating this event and guiding Felici Events to a personalized affair!  Here is the happy couple just minutes before guests arrived.

Michael Towbes Birthday 85th Anne and Michael

We created life-size cutouts of the guest of honor and placed them around the resort for guests to take pictures with.

Michael Towbes Birthday 85th standing with lifesize

Being Mr. Santa Barbara created a receiving line which showed exactly that!  Everyone who is everyone came to wish him a happy birthday!

Michael Towbes Birthday 85th greeting guests

The guest of honor is an avid tennis player, so the talents of Louloudi Design incorporated this hobby into the centerpieces.  They looked lovely on La Tavola Linens with linear definitions.

Michael Towbes Birthday 85th table set up floral orange linen

Michael Towbes Birthday 85th Rotunda Room Bacara

Michael Towbes Birthday 85th tennis racket signage

Michael Towbes Birthday 85th floral centerpiece with tennis ball

Michael Towbes Birthday 85th wide lens orange table decor

Michael Towbes Birthday 85th Rotunda Terrace Orange Decor

After brunch, we moved the 275 person event to the ballroom, where we had four performances or acts celebrating Mr. Towbes and his love and support of the arts and music as well as other surprises and personalizations celebrating his interests and  accomplishments.

Michael Towbes Birthday 85th ladies kissing cheeks lifesize

The Towbes Group Inc. is an award-winning and respected construction, development and asset management company.  We had a life-size cutout of the honoree supporting the Cottage Hospital Project.

Michael Towbes Birthday 85th Lifesize Architect

The honoree is also known as the owner and Chairman of the Board of Montecito Bank and Trust.  Here we produced a 'money tree' with oversized ficus and a Towbes Bucks garland.  Did you know people have been known to try to use the Towbes Bucks in town?!

Michael Towbes Birthday 85th Money Tree

We set the ballroom into dinner theatre style small tables so all guests could see the performances.  At each table were programs, popcorn bowls and a low cylinder of floating candles wrapped in blueprints of the Cottage Hospital Project.  The red pens, personalized with Mr. Towbes Still Swingin' at 85' were party favors representative of Mr. Towbes use of them for using in his editing and return correspondence.

Michael Towbes Birthday 85th ballroom table set up

The State Street Ballet danced while guests arrived into the ballroom.  Mr. Towbes is a longtime support and passionate of this local professional ballet company.

Michael Towbes Birthday 85th state street ballet

During the brunch and performances, the Felici Events Team gathered all the 'momentos of Mr. Towbes' (the invitation asked guests to bring those in lieu of gifts), and produced two scrap books.  Carrie, Mr. Towbes daughter and Anne presented this surprise gift to the man of the hour.

Michael Towbes Birthday 85th presenting album

Let there be cake!  We replicated the invitation cover picture of the the man of the hour playing tennis onto a sheet cake.

Michael Towbes Birthday 85th birthday cake

Hope you made a wish!  Happy Birthday Mr. Towbes.  You are truly a genuine, altruistic, generous and kind man, and Santa Barbara is lucky to have you as a leader and philanthropist in our community!

Michael Towbes Birthday 85th blowing out candles

Felici Events Presents Three Holiday Parties

Holiday Party Ideas

As we quickly approach the holiday season, Felici Events brings you ideas for your private or corporate party!

Inspired by Biz Bash: The Holiday Issue we share three seasonal holiday themes sure to please your guests!

Classic Holiday

Christmas Table

Take out your ornaments and red candles! Make your holiday parties with classic themes like the nutcracker or holiday movies and use traditional decorations to bring the joy of the season! Hang up lights, wreaths, and trees, feel free to add a pine cone or two in there. For food, you can make appetizers based off dinners such as a turkey cranberry crostini, chicken kebabs or pizza bites in traditional holiday shapes. Be sure to decorate your table with a classic gingerbread house!

Food Cutouts

Christmas Kebabs

Gingerbread House

Winter Wonderland

Winter Wonderland

Winter Wonderland is a modern theme that looks elegant and transforms your venue into an entirely different place! With Disney's "Frozen" and ice being all the rage, having a winter wonderland themed party can be the perfect theme for your holiday party! Decorate with snowflakes, crystals, blue lights, crystals and silver decor.  Be sure to have a hot cocoa bar to warm your guests up!

Hot Cocoa Bar

Winter Wonderland Center Piece

Winter Lights

Try something innovative with live ice sculpting!

Live ice scultping

The Ice Beat Factory is an exciting performance ice show combining ice sculpting with live music.

Offbeat Bash

Many modern holiday parties are saying no to the traditional holiday themed parties and going for a more offbeat theme like a masquerade ball or as Biz Bash demonstrates, a circus theme.  Another theme idea could be a Brother's Grimm theme with Once Upon a Time, Grimm, and Disney's upcoming film, Into the Woods serving as inspiration. There's so many possibilities with this theme, guests can come dressed as their favorite fairy tale characters and the ideas for decorations are endless!

Fairy Tale Invitation

Fairy Tale Chandelier

Get creative with invitations to inspire guests and decorate with grand chandeliers to create a more spectacular fantasy!

Fairy Tale Center Pieces

Flower Centerpiece

Take inspiration from Brother's Grimm fairy tales for centerpieces such as a single rose or a candelabra!

Feel free to use a specific fairy tale or just combine them all to make an enchanted venue! Have some caramelized apples or Alice in Wonderland cake for dessert! Be sure to checkout Cody's Cocktails inspired by fairy tale creatures that are sure to be remembered at your holiday party! This one below is called "Maleficent" and contains black vodka, grape schnapps, and apple pucker!

Poison Apples

Maleficent cocktail

Whatever you decide for your theme, holiday parties should create a festive and joyous occasion!

Breast Cancer Awareness Mitzvah Pink Celebration Theme

Pink Bat Mitzvah in Honor of Arin

Montecito Country Club - photos by Jay Farbman

If you know Zohe Felici, you know she is a kid at heart!  One of her favourite events this past year, was Arin's Bat Mitzvah.  The theme of the event was pink, honoring breast cancer survivors including Arin's grandmother.  The Mitzvah was dedicated to another one of Felici Events' clients, The Breast Cancer Resource Center of Santa Barbara.

The party starts from the entrance.  We laid out a pink carpet and hung paper puff balls to greet guests as they arrived, they knew they were at the right place even before stepping foot into the party.

The client wanted to incorporate the Western Wall as a 'leave wishes for Arin' welcome / guest book.  We found this replica from a local rabbi and doctored it up a little bit with foliage and hung baskets to leave notes for Arin.

The pink frames we found were a nice added touch throughout the event.

Maintaining a whimsical feel, we used pliable wire strands to hang the escort cards and paper puff balls from the main chandelier.

The first things guests did once inside was walk into cocktail and hors d'oeurve hour, we made the first part of the celebration KID friendly by having their own bar.  After all, it is a kids party - Mock-tinis all around, cheers!

These girls must-ache you a question......

The kids dining area was whimsical and fun.  Playing with the height of the ceiling of the club's main dining area, we used large round balloons as part of the centerpieces, tied to basic daisy floral with rock candy incorporated into the piece.

Inspired by slinky's over a dance floor, we re-created the concept using less heavy, more conducive material.

La Tavola Linen combined with flowers by Modern Day Design were the instrumental design elements to incorporate the pink theme.  This was the adult side of the banquet room, which still suited the theme, however, became more classic with the addition of shantung linens and combined mono-chramatic floral pieces.  The glass vases wrapped in fun paper maintained the joviality of the celebration while exuding class.

We also sought out lighting experts LBPS Events to warm up the gorgeous, yet cavernous room, Fucshia toned up-lighting did the trick. They also helped us infuse some design inspirations the client presented us with, such as the elegant white tufted couches and adhering the slinkies hanging above the dance floor, which definitely created a festive ambiance.  Guests loved dancing underneath it, event the guest of honor and her family did the hora underneath it.

One of our client's must have was a candy bar.  Here Felici Events created a similar design concepts as the Mock-tail Station we had at cocktail hour, but incorporated more silver with the linens, and candy itself.

We included a dessert and cupcakes by Wayne Kjar Cakes as the sweet endings to the night.

Held at the Montecito Country Club, a quintessential Santa Barbara venue conducive for weddings and social events, this celebration not only wowed the guests, but also the guest of honor, her friends and most importantly her mom, our client.

Incorporating the pink theme into the event was not only girly, fun and right up Felici Events' alley, it also created a challenge to produce a celebration which did not feel like a baby shower, but instead, reflected the coming of age of a very smart and shy young lady who just happened to love pink. Mazel Arin!

GREAT night to all!  Here is a sneak peek from outside the Montecito Country Club looking into the celebration.

TA-DA! Felici Events Team who helped orchestrate Arin's Bat Mitzvah into a very special Kid + Adult Pink Party.

Ciao Everyone!