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.
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.