Defying the downturn to ring in 2010; Crowds expected at many New Year's events, even as hard times take toll
It might have been a year marred by lost wages, shrinking businesses and soured hopes, but even so, on the last night of 2009, event planners across the region were bracing for a crush of revelers.</br></br>At the Gaylord National Hotel at National Harbor on Thursday, staff scrambled to prepare food for 6,500 and to make sure no one would wait in long lines for vodka tonics at Big Night DC, the region's largest New Year's Eve gala.</br></br>The mood was calm. Gaylord and HiBall Events, which work together to stage the $750,000 event, began planning almost as soon as the confetti was swept up last January. On Wednesday, they set up 15 party areas throughout the cavernous hotel and convention center, with such themes as shamrocks and Mardi Gras. That left Thursday to cook 500 pounds of pasta, 1,500 pounds of chicken, 900 pounds of roast beef and 5,000 shrimp for the gala, for which tickets cost $110 to $210 per person.</br></br>"We start by cooking the pasta in 80-gallon kettles; then we can make something like 400 gallons of sauce," said executive chef Rigoberto Lemus. "We always prepare more than we need, because to run out would be bad for our customers."</br></br>Mike Harrigan, president of HiBall Events, said he had worried that the recession might hurt ticket sales, but Big Night DC sold out 36 hours before the event, and 3,000 hotel rooms at National Harbor and several hundred more in Old Town Alexandria (which is accessible by water taxi after the party) were booked.