Attendance is the whole battle
A twelve-person dinner with the right twelve people is worth more than a conference. The difficulty is never the venue; it is getting senior people who receive several invitations a week to commit and then actually turn up. That is a research, invitation and chase operation, and it is where most executive programmes quietly fail.
- Guest strategy: the specific named people, not a job-title profile.
- A reason to attend that is about their problem rather than your product.
- A credible chair or peer host, which is the strongest attendance driver there is.
- Structured invitation and chase, with over-invitation planned for drop-out.
- Confirmation and reminder sequence in the final ten days.
Design the evening so it is not a pitch
Senior guests forgive almost anything except being sold to over dinner. The format has to make the conversation the product. In practice that means a tight topic, a chair who runs the room, two or three questions prepared rather than a presentation, and your own team outnumbered by guests.
- One topic, framed as a question the room genuinely disagrees about.
- Chatham House convention stated at the start and observed.
- No deck. A chair, not a speaker.
- Your team in the minority, briefed to listen and not to close.
- A clear, short ask at the end, made once.
What we run
Venue sourcing and private dining rooms, menu and service standard, guest research and invitation management, chase and confirmation, on-site hosting and seating plan, facilitation support for the chair, note capture, and a written follow-up pack per guest within days rather than weeks.
Questions buyers ask before booking a CXO dinner
These are the questions that decide whether a programme is worth funding. Ask any agency, including us, to answer them in writing before you commit.
- Who owns the invitation list, and does any guest data stay with you after the programme?
- How will attendance be reported: invited, accepted, attended and engaged as separate numbers?
- Who chairs the room, and is that person independent of your sales team?
- What happens if fewer than the target number confirm a week before?
- What follow-up does each guest receive, and when is it handed to your team?
Dinners, roundtables and roadshows are different scopes
An 8–24 guest private dinner is a hosting and guest-strategy exercise. A delegate roundtable of 80–200 people, or a multi-city roadshow, is closer to conference production: facilitation teams, AV, breakout design and delegate logistics. Larger roundtable and roadshow facilitation is quoted as a separate scope, not as a bigger version of the dinner package — the staffing model and lead times are entirely different.
Programmes, not one-offs
A single dinner is a nice evening. A programme of eight across a year, in the cities where your buyers are, with a consistent topic and a growing alumni list, becomes a channel. We run them as a series with one producer, shared guest intelligence and comparable reporting for each. If your executive dinner programme includes the January meeting week in Switzerland, our separate Davos executive dinner planning guide explains the additional venue, guest-access and accommodation constraints for independently hosted events.
Indicative budget bands
Ranges, not quotes. Every brief is scoped and itemised before you commit.
- From £6k per dinner
- London private dining, 10–16 guests, invitation management and hosting.
- £40k – £90k
- A programme of six to eight dinners across UK and European cities.
- £90k+
- Year-round executive programme with research, content and alumni community.