'...this glorious hall with its magnificent acoustics...'Evening Standard
The St Ceciliatide International Festival of Music offers promotional and marketing opportunities unique in London. Sponsorship will guarantee a tailored combination of advertising throughout the festival as well as the unique opportunity to entertain clients as guests of both the concerts and banquets held at London's remarkable Stationers' Hall.
In 2007 the St Ceciliatide International Festival of Music dates are 17-25 November.
The structure of the evening
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18:30 Guests arrive at the floodlit forecourt of Stationers' Hall, just a stone's throw from St Paul's, and then... |
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...on entering the Hall itself to a reception in the oak-panelled Stock Room, decorated with portraits of past Masters of the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers. After the reception... |
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19:00 ...the audience takes its seats for the concert in Stationers' Hall itself, adorned with banners and stained glass windows, including a window to St Cecilia. Champagne is served during the interval, and afterwards... for details of our performances, please click here |
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21:00 ...guests move into the Court Room for the post concert banquet. (Carriages for 23:30 approx) |
'The genteelest feast in the world'
Below is a menu from a recent Festival, which is representative of both the food and wine served. Bernard Rapson, an expert in the wines of Saint-Émilion, carefully chooses from our own cellar to complement each of the 5 courses.
This elegant Festival, referred to by the Daily Telegraph as "Glyndebourne of the City"; has a high class reputation that results from a number of factors combining to ensure that attending the Festival is always a memorable experience:
- A beautiful, historic venue within yards of St Paul's. Festival banqueting is held in the Court Room of Stationers' Hall, which is closed to the public;
- Excellent artistic standards, with internationally renowned artists and imaginative programming;
- A sense of exclusivity arising from the small scale of the venue. The capacity of the Hall for a concert is 210. The Court Room used for banqueting seats 110 plus a further 22 in the Ante Room.
A hallmark of the Festival is attention to detail. Guests are shown personally to their seats, and during the interval champagne is served. For the banquet guests are seated at tables of ten, and every guest has an individual place card. During dinner, guests will generally have an opportunity, if they so wish, to meet the artists who have performed at the concert - just as they did in the seventeenth century.
The result is an occasion that lingers in the memory and an outstanding opportunity to talk to clients and colleagues in an unhurried atmosphere.
Past audiences have included
Organisation 3iAndersen Consulting Ashurst Morris Crisp Bank of England Cartier Chase Manhattan CT Bowring Deutsche Asset Management Express Newspapers Financial Times Group Freshfields Hambros Bank IBM KPMG Lloyds of London Mercury Asset Management Mizuho International Mizuho International PricewaterhouseCoopers Rathbone Brothers Reed Elsevier Reuter Foundation Salomon Brothers Schröders Schweppes Simmons & Simmons Sotheby's Stephenson Harwood Telegraph Group Times Newspapers |
Represented by Managing DirectorMarketing Director Partner Director Communications Director Bank Director Chief Executive Client Director Chief Executive Chairman Senior Partner Director Chairman Partner Chief Executive Director Director Joint Managing Directors Partner Director Chief Executive Director Managing Director Finance Director Director, Europe Marketing Director Director Partner Finance Director Chairman |
Meeting Expectations
The St Ceciliatide International Festival of Music is not only dedicated to excellence in music, but also aspires to create a unique sense of occasion, to the benefit of audiences, Business Partners and their guests.
What was expected...
Independent on Sunday
...and what was achieved
No one knows why St Cecilia gets the saintly music brief. She was martyred for reasons of chastity, which is not a musical virtue. But no matter: She's an inspiration. And this concert was part of a whole Ceciliatide festival which runs during November in Stationers' Hall and gets more inspired every year."
Independent on Sunday
"At the St Ceciliatide International Festival of Music, there was not a seat to be had.... This splendid 17th-century wood-panelled hall provided the perfect backdrop..."
The Times
We recognise that in a competitive world our Sponsors expect excellence, and so particular attention has been paid to ensuring that our offerings are based on the Festival's enviable reputation for careful attention to detail. We now offer five levels of Business Sponsorship:
- Banqueting Partner
- Corporate Partner
- Shared Corporate Partner
- Associate Partner
- Corporate advertising in the souvenir programme. Click here for more details
Each Partnership Offering is fully described below.
Prices for each package range from £2,950 to £15,000. In the past we have tailored a superior Festival Partner package to suit sponsors offering £20,000 and over.
For more details on all packages please do not hesitate to contact us
Please note that we are willing to work with our Sponsors to ensure that the evening meets their particular requirements. In most cases the details of the packages below can be tailored to suit our Sponsors needs perfectly.
Banqueting Partner Benefits
The benefits offered to the Banqueting Partner are:
- Acknowledgement on all banqueting menu cards, the design of which is produced in conjunction with the Banqueting Partner.
- 10 tickets (including banqueting) to each concert.
- Full page full colour advertisement in the souvenir programme. The Banqueting Partner will have the option of an inside back cover advertisement.
- Proactive public relations co-operation to ensure acknowledgement of the Banqueting Partner's role.
- Priority booking for all concerts for the Banqueting Partner's staff.
Corporate Partner Benefits
The benefits offered to the Corporate Partner are:
- Up to 20 tickets (including banqueting) .
- Half page full colour advertisement in the souvenir programme.
- Proactive public relations co-operation to ensure acknowledgement of the Corporate Partner's role.
- Priority booking for all concerts for the Corporate Partner's staff.
Shared Corporate Partner Benefits
The benefits offered to the Corporate Partner are:
- Up to 10 tickets (including banqueting) .
- Half page full colour advertisement in the souvenir programme.
- Proactive public relations co-operation to ensure acknowledgement of the Corporate Partner's role.
- Priority booking for all concerts for the Corporate Partner's staff.
Shared Corporate Partnership is conditional upon the Festival being able to identify another suitable Corporate Partner for the concert in question
Associate Partner Benefits(Our new No Frills Package)
The benefits offered to the Associate Partner are:
- Up to 30 tickets (including banqueting).
- Acknowledgement within the souvenir programme.
- The option to take additional tickets at a reduced rate
Please note that the costs of staging the Festival are not covered by the prices charged to the public and it is our Partners that help us to maintain the high standards with which the Festival has become associated - for this we ensure their participation is recognised by all of our guests throughout the festival.
The St Ceciliatide International Festival of Music souvenir programme is distributed to all concert goers free of charge, and includes:
- Historical background to the Festival.
- Full details of all concerts - in other words a single programme (and therefore a single advertisement) reaches the whole audience for all the Festival events.
- Biographies of the artists appearing at the Festival.
- Acknowledgement of supporters of the Festival.
The programme is printed in full colour, and includes photographs and other illustrative material.
Advertising (other than advertisements allocated to Festival Partners) is being restricted to four pages in the programme.
Advertisers in the souvenir programme will have the opportunity to offer priority booking to all concerts (except the Festival Partner's concert) to their staff.
Charitable Donations and Benefactors in Kind
Charitable Donations
The St Ceciliatide International Festival of Music is also able to accept charitable donations if Partners wish all or part of their contribution to be in that form.
All donations are acknowledged in the Souvenir Programme.
Benefactors in kind
Staging a festival such as the St Ceciliatide International Festival of Music is a complex process. Many organisations are involved, including printers, caterers and vintners, providers of flowers to decorate the beautiful hall and lighting experts to light the performances.
There has been a long tradition in the arts of third parties providing such assistance in kind - in other words, either not charging for their goods and services, or charging at cost.
This kind of assistance is of great value, not only financially but also because it cements relationships between the arts and external commercial organisations.
Any organisation providing such assistance to the St Ceciliatide International Festival of Music would be warmly welcomed and explicitly acknowledged in the souvenir programme.
The Festival will also seek to provide such benefactors with other benefits. Because such arrangements would be on a case by case basis it is difficult to list them. However, we have in mind:
- Acknowledgement in the souvenir programme.
- Labelling if appropriate of equipment lent.
- Priority booking for all concerts (except the Festival Partner's concert) for members of the Benefactor's staff.
- Other benefits appropriate to the assistance provided.
Contact Details and Further Information
This web page is inevitably limited.
If you would like further information, including:
- Details of future artistic programmes for the St Ceciliatide International Festival of Music;
- An opportunity to visit Stationers' Hall;
- Further details of our Partnership offerings
then please contact
Bernard Rapson
St Ceciliatide International Festival of Music
Bank Cottage
Preston Capes
Northamptonshire
NN11 3TD
Telephone 01327 361380
Fax 08700 517752
Email sponsors@st-ceciliatide.com
Festival Historical Background in Brief
The St Ceciliatide International Festival of Music has its origins in the seventeenth century, and has always been associated with Stationers' Hall, which is a stone's throw from St Paul's Cathedral.
As early as 1666 Samuel Pepys wrote, "To Stationers' Hall, where did fall in with some musicians, very merry fellows. Much talk of a Society, to be called Gentlemen, Lovers of Musick". The Great Fire of London delayed the founding of the Society until 1683, when it organised its first musical evening in Stationers' Hall, a concert accompanied by fine wines and dining.
Around that time a tradition grew up that the Gentlemen met each November to hear a work commissioned for the feast day of St Cecilia, patron saint of music.
In 1692, the Society awarded its commission to Henry Purcell, who responded with Hail! Bright Cecilia, one of the glories of English music. The Gentlemen's Journal said of that year's Festival that "a splendid entertainment is provided, and before it is always a performance of Music by the best voices and hands in Town . . . . This feast is one of the genteelest in the world".
Sadly, in the eighteenth century, the Society was disbanded, probably due to excessive rowdiness!
In 1992, for the 300th anniversary of Hail! Bright Cecilia, the Festival was revived by Penelope and Bernard Rapson. Purcell's great ode was a natural choice of music, followed by a banquet in the Court Room of Stationers' Hall.
The St Ceciliatide International Festival of Music has now grown in stature and ambition, with internationally renowned artists and a revival of the tradition of commissioning new music. Banqueting is of the highest standard, and a new tradition has been established too - the fine vintage wines served with each banquet are always Saint-Émilion, personally chosen by Bernard Rapson, a member of the Jurade of Saint-Émilion.
The 2006 St Ceciliatide International Festival of Music gratefully acknowledges support from:
- Lloyds TSB Private Banking
- Mizuho International
Presented in association with the Financial Times
Design: Josephine Rapson
©Copyright: St Ceciliatide International Festival of Music 2007