part time cat

So I had an odd job on Tuesday night. Thanks to a friend of mine working at Segal Communications (funny coincidence on the same last name!!!) I was asked to perform at a charity event they produced for Virgin Unite Canada called The Mad Hatter's Ball. One of the halls in The Metro Toronto Convention Centre was transformed into a fantasy world that took guests through a rabbit's hole tunnel into an affair fit for the Mad Hatter himself. With tables boasting a $15,000 price tag and performances including Natalie Imbruglia, Feist and Cathy Griffin, as well as an appearance by Sir Richard Branson himself, I found myself "rubbing legs" with the best of them! What was my role exactly you ask? Why I was the Cheshire Cat, roaming through the crowd, weaving between people's legs while crawling under and over tables. I've had many a strange job in my odd little life but I have to say this was strange even for me. Do you know that people actually pet me?!

So for those of you who weren't fortunate enough to crawl through this major event, here is a sneak peek of what I saw that night. Actually...if we are being honest...I only really saw legs and table skirts. But I managed to capture these shots of the decor in between crawls. I am after all an event designer at heart....doubling for cats is just a side occupation!

Going through the rabbit hole to get into the Mad Hatter's ballroom. Event planners, Eden Planning, made great use of huge wall projections of whimsical, fantasy forest scapes to create a feeling that you were in a magical world away from reality. The columns were covered in burlap to represent an enormous tree trunk making you feel like you were in a dream where space and size were out of sorts!

The tables were a mixture of bright fabrics and mis-matched chiavari chairs in gold, silver and brown. The centre pieces were a whimsical collaboration of tea cups, tea pots, plates and gerbera daisies in various bright colours.

Sneaky Juicy Tidbit: The production crew wore these rabbit costumes so they could go about their business while keeping the theme consistent throughout. It was brought to my attention as I hob-nobbed with the cool backstage people that one of Feist's sound guys "borrowed" one of these outfits and spent the evening roaming around the event. No one knew who he was and he would just skip through the crowd and show up in the oddest of places. He said he loved the total anonymity. What a funny, wonderful bunch of people Feist had on her crew. They seemed to just be having the best of time together. And they let me stand up on the side stage with them while she performed. I felt like such a groupie...it was wonderful! And finally....a self portrait of the cheshire cat herself! I'm waiting for pics of me in action. I'll post those as soon as I get my hands on them!