Graduations · Orlando
A Graduation Party Venue in Orlando, If You Book Before May
The whole problem is the calendar
Graduation season in Orlando is six weeks long and everyone is inside it at once. UCF, Valencia, Rollins, FAMU alumni families driving down, plus every high school in Orange and Seminole County, all finishing within days of each other. Which means every private room in the city gets asked for the same four Saturdays in May and the first two in June.
The families who get the room they want are the ones who booked before the commencement schedule was published. That feels backwards, but it is how it works. Pick a likely weekend, put down the $500 retainer, and adjust the start time once the ceremony time is announced. The retainer is non-refundable but it comes straight off your balance, so it is not money spent, it is money moved forward.
We book up to 18 months out. A junior’s family can hold a date.
Build the party around the ceremony, not against it
Commencement runs long, parking is worse than expected, and photographs afterward take another thirty minutes nobody planned for. Then the graduate has to change.
A morning ceremony works with a 2 PM or 3 PM party start. An afternoon ceremony works with 6 PM or later. The mistake is a 4 PM party after a 1 PM ceremony, which puts your guests in the room forty minutes before the person the party is for. Give yourself the gap. You have six hours of rental either way, and our setup happens before your hours begin, so you can walk into a finished room.
Split it. Seriously.
Three families, three graduates, one room. It is the single best value decision available in graduation season and hardly anyone makes it.
The room seats 100 at tables and holds 130 standing, so three guest lists of thirty fit without pressure. You buy one rental instead of three. One catering order instead of three, which gets you past the 50-guest catering minimum easily. One DJ, one photographer, one balloon order. Three tables of photographs instead of one, and three sets of grandparents who all get a proper afternoon.
Split three ways, a Platinum weekday booking with food lands in territory that a single family could not touch on its own.
What the room includes before you add anything
Tables and chairs for 100, an event host on site for your entire rental, setup before you arrive and cleaning after you leave (both outside your hours), the pleated gray drape backdrop, house sound, two TV screens, free on-site parking, WiFi, step-free access and accessible restrooms. White coffered ceiling, statement chandelier, black and brass bar, low stage, white walls.
Chairs are included. Not $4.50 each, which is what you will be quoted elsewhere by venues advertising the same capacity we have.
Why Platinum suits a graduation
Platinum brings two staff, custom decor styling with florals, linens and ribbons, a two-item hors d’oeuvres station, your choice of a mimosa bar or wine service for the adults, a photo backdrop wall and a cake and dessert table, with food for 30. For a joint party, extra guests are $45 each for food, so scaling from 30 to 90 is arithmetic, not a package upgrade.
If you would rather run leaner, Venue Only is the room with everything standard and no food attached, and a buffet dropped and set in the room is $32 a person. If you want the whole thing handled, the Presidential packages cover 50, 75 or 100 guests all-inclusive with full catering, an open bar, a coordinator, two hours of photography, printed invitations and a red carpet.
Useful extras: uplighting in the school colors, $250. Balloon garland, $325 for ten feet. Marquee letters for the graduation year, $100 each. DJ for four hours, $650. Digital photo booth, $200 for two hours.
The food, which is the actual reason to book here
The kitchen is in this building, shared with the restaurant. Nobody is driving your food across town in foil pans. It comes out of a commercial kitchen twenty feet away, hot, and there is never a delivery fee. You can taste the exact menu before you book, which almost no Orlando venue can offer because almost none of them have a kitchen at all.
Jerk chicken, griot, oxtail, chicken curry, pepper steak, salmon, diri ak pwa, mac gratinée, sweet plantains, and a table of akra, paté and wings while people arrive.
The rest of the numbers
No minimum spend Monday through Thursday. Friday and Saturday carry a $3,000 minimum total spend. Sunday after 4 PM is billed at weekday rates, which in the middle of graduation season is the best-kept opening on the calendar. Events end at midnight and extend to 1 AM for $150 an hour, arranged in advance.
Call now if the ceremony is this spring. The room goes early.
Questions
About graduations here.
When should we book a May or June party?
As early as you can, and before commencement dates are announced. We take bookings up to 18 months out and a $500 retainer holds the date. Every graduating family in Orlando starts calling the same week the schedule goes up, and the good Saturdays go first.
Can two or three families share one party?
Yes, and it is the smartest thing you can do. One room, one caterer, one bar, three graduates, and the cost split three ways. The room seats 100 and holds 130, so it absorbs three guest lists comfortably.
What if the ceremony time changes after we book?
Talk to us as soon as you know. Moving your start time within the same day is usually straightforward. Moving to a different date depends on what is open, so tell us early rather than close in.
Do we have to serve alcohol at a graduation party?
Not at all. Plenty of graduation parties run on sorrel, fruit punch and soft drinks. If the adults want a bar, it has to be served by our licensed bartenders under our license. Guests cannot bring their own alcohol.
Can we display photos and play a slideshow?
Two TV screens are included in every package, along with house sound with Bluetooth and aux. Bring the slideshow on a laptop or a stick. We will also set a table for photographs, awards and the cap and gown.
Come and stand in the room.
Tours are by appointment and we answer within four business hours.