Gala Vacation

Even for the die-hard gala-goer, there comes a night when another honoree in another hotel ballroom is just plain boring. It is a nonprofit event planner’s worst nightmare — and for the attendee, too, since she may have dropped a few thousand dollars on the ticket, dress, blowout, and car service home, with only smoked salmon canapés to remember.

Fortunately, event planners this season seem up to the task of wowing their charitable clientele — and keeping expenses in line — with assistance from luxury travel brands.

How about boarding the Queen Mary 2 for a night away from New York? New York City Opera and the Brooklyn Academy of Music are teaming up to present the Britannia Ball on May 24 onboard Cunard’s 150-ton ocean liner, docked in Red Hook, Brooklyn. “Our luxury ocean liner is a pretty amazing venue to do a special event on, keeping in mind that organizations are looking to create that new experience for their supporters,” a Cunard spokesman, Brian O’Connor, said.

Cunard’s role in fundraising for the event is significant: It is donating the venue, food and beverages, taxes, and gratuities. But it is money well spent because it will show off Cunard’s product to its target audience.

“What a lot of people don’t necessarily realize is that luxury brands operate on lean budgets,” Mr. O’Connor said. “We look for opportunities where we can get multidimensional bang for the buck. Being able to do charity events with such fine institutions is a big driver of how we leverage our brands and how we make our brand known to our target audience.”

The Britannia Ball has been in the planning stages for more than two years. The first talks were with City Opera alone, but — wanting to fill the 1,000-person capacity of the ship’s banquet rooms — it sought a partner. BAM was a good match since Cunard is docking in Brooklyn and since BAM has a long-cherished tradition of sending its supporters offsite for parties.

The biggest feat turned out to be holding the ship in New York.

“We altered the schedule so that she stays in port overnight, which is very rare,” Mr. O’Connor said.

Patti LuPone is set to perform excerpts from her cabaret show “The Lady With the Torch” in the ship’s Royal Court Theater, and the Peter Duchin Orchestra will entertain during dinner in the Queen’s Room, which Cunard claims is the largest ballroom at sea. The ship’s culinary staff of more than 100 will be preparing the meal.

Most guests will disembark at the end of the ball, but some, including the gala co-chairmen, Jeffrey Peek and Elizabeth Peek, a contributor to The New York Sun, are choosing to stay onboard during the Memorial Day weekend, for a four-day getaway to the Bahamas.

Mr. O’Connor estimates that between 30 and 40% of Cunard’s marketing budget is spent on events with a nonprofit partner.

Although this ball will be the first of its kind in New York, it probably won’t be the last. Sir Harold Evans and Tina Brown are said to be planning a gala in the near future on a Cunard ship for an organization they support.

Another luxury travel brand getting involved in New York fundraising is Rosewood Resorts and Hotels, the owner of the Carlyle in New York and Acqualina in Sunny Isles, Fla.

Acqualina, a new oceanfront condominium and hotel near the Bal Harbor shops, was the host of a four-day getaway for New Yorkers during the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. The charity partner was Safe Horizon, which supports victims of domestic violence.

Rosewood’s marketing budget included donating several items for a benefit auction, which is a common practice for many luxury travel companies. However, it went well beyond this level of support, making a cash donation to the organization; donating its spaces and staff to host the weekend, and flying down and putting up Safe Horizon staff members, this reporter, and several social New York couples with children, such as Alexandra Lebenthal and Jay Diamond, and Adelina and Bill Ettelson. The hotel also offered complimentary spa treatments at Espa, which opened in December.

“We try to bring in charities as much as we can,” the publicist for Acqualina, Carol Bell, said. “We reached out to New Yorkers with families because the resort is ideal for them.”

Having an event in Miami Beach appealed to Safe Horizon because it is seeking to increase its national profile. Safe Horizon also found that going to Miami was a great way to approach its core potential supporters, New Yorkers.

“This is the first time we’ve had an event that was longer than one evening or one afternoon. We had an opportunity to spend four days with people, and we had multiple conversations with a lot of the same people. By the time it came to the auction, a lot of people were so generous because they got to know us,” the chief development officer and marketing officer at Safe Horizon, Maile Zambuto, said.

“People are relaxed. It’s not like a dinner where you have to stuff your husband in a tux and he’s going to sit and listen to speeches,” Ms. Bell said.

Ms. Zambuto summed up the trend: “So many companies approach us, we think carefully about each partnership. We look at our affinities and we look to see the long-term potential. It’s really the wave of the future, a winwin on so many fronts,” she said.

agordon@nysun.com