One Day, One Venue, Two Entirely Different Events
Ada brought its people together in Toronto for Stradaganza, a company-wide gathering of 240 employees drawn from teams across North America, EMEA and APAC. The company booked a single floor of the Globe and Mail Centre and asked it to do two jobs in one day. From morning to mid-afternoon the room needed to work as a 240-seat conference space with a full stage. From early evening it needed to be a celebration floor with activation booths, bars, lounge seating and a DJ.
The Idea Hunter was engaged on March 30, 2026, six weeks out from the event date. The mandate covered creative direction and decor management, custom fabrication, furniture and rentals, interactive experience curation, entertainment, staffing, and on-site management across the full production day. Ada retained its own programming and a portion of its own suppliers, which meant The Idea Hunter was building the environment and holding the operational plan around content the client owned.
Three Constraints That Shaped Every Decision
The first constraint was the flip itself. The conference programme ran until 3:00 PM and evening guests began arriving at 5:30 PM. That left a two-hour window to strike a 240-seat theatre configuration, install a wall-mounted activation, move furniture into place, set six booths and a lounge zone, and complete a walkthrough. There was no second room to stage from and no possibility of extending the window.
The second constraint was visibility. The fabrication package was large: a twenty-foot welcome wall standing ten feet high, a twenty-four-foot illuminated stage wall, and a built registration area. All of it had to be installed, finished and cleared before registration opened at 8:30 AM, on the seventeenth storey of a working downtown tower with a shared loading dock and elevator access. Guests were never to see a build in progress.
The third constraint was split ownership. Ada ran its own programme from the stage, supplied the technology for one of the evening activations, and managed several of its own suppliers directly. The Idea Hunter owned the environment, the activations, the entertainment and the master run of show, and had to keep every one of those elements synchronised with content it did not control.
“Great execution, very communicative team, and ability to deliver within a short timeframe”— Ada Support Inc., post-event survey
The Day in Four Chapters
The production day ran from midnight to well past midnight the following morning. It was planned as four distinct chapters, each with its own crew, its own access window and its own completion checkpoint.
Chapter One: The Overnight Build, 12:00 AM to 7:30 AM
Furniture and rentals loaded in first. The fabrication crew followed at 3:30 AM and installed in a deliberate order: stage wall first, then the registration booth, then the welcome wall last so that the main entrance stayed clear for as long as possible. The Idea Hunter had a manager on site from 4:30 AM overseeing the load-in. The client walkthrough took place at 7:00 AM and the fabrication crew was finished and out of the building by 7:30 AM, a full hour before registration opened.
Chapter Two: The Conference, 8:30 AM to 3:00 PM
The room ran in a plenary configuration, 240 seats facing a stage backed by the illuminated wall. Breakfast, a mid-morning break and a full seated lunch were all served in the adjoining area. The Idea Hunter held the run of show across the day, coordinating room transitions and stage resets around the programming the client delivered.
Chapter Three: The Flip, 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Guests departed for off-site activities at 3:00 PM and the venue emptied. Rental crews arrived at 2:30 PM and the wall installation team at 2:45 PM, both staged and waiting so that work began the moment the floor was clear. Seating was struck and replaced with activation booths and lounge seating. The world map went onto the wall. Bars and communal tables were positioned, wrapped and dressed. The DJ arrived at 4:00 PM and tech-checked at 4:10 PM. The room was set at 4:45 PM, fifteen minutes ahead of schedule, and the client walkthrough happened at 5:00 PM.
Chapter Four: The Celebration, 5:30 PM to 10:00 PM
Guests returned to a room they would not have recognised. Every activation opened on time and ran until close. Load-out began at 10:30 PM and the venue was clear within the contracted window.
How Each Constraint Was Answered
The flip was solved by sequencing rather than by adding people. Every crew was given a fixed arrival time, a staging position and a defined order of operations before the day began, and crews were on site and waiting before the floor cleared rather than being called in after it did. Work that could be moved outside the window was moved: the bar vinyl was applied off site and removed off site, so nothing on the critical path depended on it. The result was a room set at 4:45 PM, fifteen minutes ahead of the plan.
Visibility was solved by compressing the entire fabrication build into the overnight hours and enforcing a hard finish time. Installation order was set to keep the main entrance clear until last, the loading dock and elevator windows were booked in advance, and the crew was contracted to be complete and departed by 7:30 AM. Registration opened at 8:30 AM into a finished room with no evidence of the build that had happened hours earlier.
Split ownership was solved by The Idea Hunter holding a single master run of show that covered both its own elements and the client's, with named owners against every line. Where the client supplied technology, The Idea Hunter built and branded the surround and supported set-up. Where the client managed a supplier directly, that supplier still appeared in the master schedule so that no dependency went untracked. The Idea Hunter also carried the venue compliance package for every supplier it contracted, including vendor agreements, insurance certificates and workplace safety clearances, so that nothing was held up at the loading dock on event day.
What the Guests Experienced
The strongest moment of the evening was the return. Guests left a conference room at 3:00 PM and walked back into a celebration floor at 5:30 PM. The stage they had spent the day facing was now backing a DJ, the seating was gone, and the room had been rebuilt around them while they were away.
The activations were designed to give people a reason to move through the space rather than settle in one corner. A patch station let guests choose from five custom-designed patches and have them heat-pressed onto their own items while they waited, each one turned around in under thirty seconds. A wall-mounted world map invited guests to mark where they had travelled from, and by the end of the night it read as a portrait of how far the company reached. A lounge zone was placed deliberately away from the music so that quieter conversations had somewhere to go.
Delivered On Time and In Full
Every contracted element was delivered. The overnight build finished ahead of its deadline, the flip completed fifteen minutes early, all activations opened on schedule, and the venue was cleared within the contracted load-out window. The final scope was approved by Ada in writing before the event and delivered against in full.
Ada took a single venue and a single day and got two complete events out of it, without asking its people to travel between locations and without any part of the production being visible to them before it was ready. The company brought teams from three regions into one room, sent them home with something they had customised themselves, and closed the day in a space that had been rebuilt around them in two hours.
“Truly one of the best ones we were able to host for our employees.”— Ada Support Inc., post-event survey
Frequently asked questions
How much lead time does an event like this need?
The Idea Hunter was engaged six weeks before the event date, with the full scope confirmed in writing roughly four weeks out. Six weeks is workable for a production of this size, but it compresses the fabrication and print schedule. Eight to twelve weeks gives more room for design iteration and better supplier availability.
Can one venue really host both a conference and an evening party?
Yes, provided the flip window is designed into the day from the beginning rather than added at the end. This event used a two-hour window while guests were off site. The window has to be protected in the run of show, crews have to be staged and waiting before it opens, and anything that can be done off site should be.
Will guests see the build happening?
Not if it is planned that way. The entire fabrication package here was installed overnight and the crew was contracted to be finished and out of the building an hour before registration opened. Installation order was set so the main entrance stayed clear until the final piece went in.
Who handles venue compliance for the suppliers?
The Idea Hunter does, for every supplier it contracts. That includes vendor agreements, certificates of insurance, workplace safety clearances and any venue-specific approval forms. Compliance is completed and filed before event week so that nothing is stopped at the loading dock on the day.
Can we run our own programming and supply our own technology?
Yes. Ada ran its own stage programme and supplied the hardware for one of the evening activations. The Idea Hunter built and branded the surround for it, supported the set-up, and carried both the client-owned and agency-owned elements on a single master run of show with named owners on every line.
How many people from The Idea Hunter are on site?
For an event of this size, three on-site managers on a staggered schedule plus dedicated load-in coverage. The staggered pattern means someone is present from the overnight build through to the final load-out, rather than a single shift that covers only the guest-facing hours.
