Tables for the 2006 Black Tie Dinner go on sale Aug. 26 via a lottery draw beginning at 10 a.m. in the Austin Ballroom of the Adams Mark Hotel.
This year’s dinner, marking the 25th anniversary of the fundraising event, is set for Nov. 11. It will feature actress Geena Davis as keynote speaker and actor Alan Cumming as winner of the Elizabeth Birch Award.
The dinner will also include a silent auction, a live luxury auction and a drawing for a new BMW Z4 Roadster, as well as the announcement of the 2006 Kuchling Award winner.
Tables for 10 will be sold for $3,000, with individuals encouraged to arrange groups of 10 and to designate a table captain to coordinate information and payment for the table and to represent the group during the lottery process, said Tom Phipps, dinner co-chair.
Individual tickets – if any are available – will be sold at a later date for $300 each, organizers said.
Sheila Bryant, development director for the dinner, said that the event is expected to sell out quickly, and urged individuals, groups and businesses to consider sponsoring the event to ensure premium table placement
Individual sponsorships begin at $4,000 per table, and a variety of sponsorships are also available at higher levels for couples, organizations and companies, Bryant said. The levels offer a variety of benefits, depending on their value, including advance table selection, tickets to VIP functions, hotel suites, on-screen recognition at the dinner and ads in the dinner journal, she added.
“Individual sponsorships are really wonderful for a couple of reasons,” Bryant said in a written statement released this week. “The extra donation helps us do what is most important, which is raise more money for our beneficiary organizations. Beyond that, table sponsorship provides access to the best available seats as well as invitations to fabulous VIP parties.”
Bryant said organizers are “aggressively seeking” additional sponsors for the 2006 dinner, adding that sponsorship is an especially good value for businesses who can have “their brand promoted throughout the dinner.”
Proceeds from the Black Tie Dinner each year are divided between the Human Rights Campaign and local organizations. A total of 18 local beneficiaries have been chosen this year.The 2005 dinner, featuring keynote speaker Lily Tomlin and Birch Award winner Sharon Stone, was the most successful to date, raising $1.24 million.
In its first 24 years, the event has raised more than $9 million.
For more information on sponsorships, contact Sheila Bryant at 972-733-9200, ext. 8, or go online to www.blacktiedinner.org.
Raffle tickets for the drawing for the BMW Roadster are $100 each and are available through any Black Tie Dinner board member and through beneficiary organizations.
Beneficiary organizations are listed on the dinner’s Web site.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition, August 18, 2006.