Rafanelli adds a dash of gay to bipartisan inaugural events

Boston-based event planner Bryan Rafanelli and his company, Rafanelli Events, have worked for their share of high profile clients, including the Clintons, the Red Sox and the New England Patriots, but the star wattage of their latest gig easily outshone those events. President Barack Obama's inaugural committee hired Rafanelli to plan three simultaneous bipartisan dinners the evening before Obama's Jan. 20 inauguration to honor Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. John McCain and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. They also provided support for other events throughout the inaugural festivities including the children's concert and the Lincoln Memorial concert.

Rafanelli said the inaugural committee reached out to his company because they were impressed by an event Rafanelli's life-and-business partner Mark Walsh had planned for Oprah Winfrey in Chicago last November featuring Michelle Obama and Joe Biden. During the primaries Walsh was a high-profile Hillary Clinton supporter, coordinating LGBT outreach for her national campaign, but Rafanelli said there was no friction over the company's past work for Clinton.

"I think in classic Obama style there's a real respect for what Mark had done for Hillary. ... In addition when he went out to Chicago he proved his stripes by throwing that massive event out there," said Rafanelli.

Rafanelli Events partnered with the Chicago-based Event Architects to plan the three bipartisan dinners, and they were a logistical challenge, to say the least. The three-course seated dinners were held at the National Building Museum, Union Station and the Hilton Washington, and each dinner had 1200 guests. As a result of security concerns the organizers had to get all of their equipment-filled trucks into Washington, D.C. by Jan. 17, two days before the events were scheduled to take place. The biggest challenge was to keep all three dinners on schedule while coordinating appearances at each dinner by Obama and Biden.

"Both the president-elect and the vice president at the time attended these dinners on separate schedules. ... The minute either one of them got behind that drove everything else, and by the way we're throwing a three-course dinner, and Faith Hill, Patti LaBelle and Carole King are performing," said Rafanelli. "It was an extraordinary feat to make it all happen."

Rafanelli said another challenge was finding the right tone for the events. Rafanelli Events and Event Architects began planning the events in earnest about 30 days out, and while they did not meet directly with Obama they worked closely with the inaugural committee and Obama's staff. Given the state of the economy Rafanelli said everyone agreed that they did not want to make the parties too extravagant, but at the same time they wanted them to have the grandeur appropriate to a presidential inaugural celebration. Rafanelli said his company and Event Architects chose to downplay some of the more traditional patriotic imagery in favor of a more modern feel, to play up the sense that President Obama and his administration were bringing change to Washington.

"This is not a red, white and blue traditional situation. This is a modern and contemporary vision coming into the city," said Rafanelli.