The Kings Suite at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole is a room that turns up dressed for a show. Our most recent night there was a company’s big annual event, and the production was full-scale - LED walls, intelligent lighting, haze hanging in the beams, a top-tier PA rigged for a room that seats hundreds. We came in as an eight-piece, and the job in a room like that is the same as always: land a live band inside all that production and make it the part of the night people actually remember.
The band that travels with the event
What makes this one worth writing up is that it was not our first time with this event - just our first time with it here. The company rotates its annual night between venues, and we go with it: one year the Caernarfon Suite at Celtic Manor down in Newport, the next the Kings Suite at the Metropole up at the NEC. The venue is the variable; we are the constant. For the organisers that means the entertainment is the one thing they do not have to re-solve when everything else about the night changes - the room, the AV company, the city. They already know how the band runs their evening, and the people who were on the floor last year see a familiar act and settle into the night faster.
It helps that we are on the Birmingham and Midlands corporate circuit as much as the Newport and South Wales one, so when an event rotates onto the Metropole we already know the room - the production, the way the suite paces an evening, and the get-in. That last one matters here more than most: load-in to the Kings Suite is down a barrier-protected side road, so vehicle access has to be arranged ahead with registration plates passed to reception. Turn up without that sorted and you sit at the barrier; we had it squared away.
Playing the Kings Suite, inside the production
The Metropole is a vast hotel, easy to get lost in, and knowing our way around it is half the battle on a tight schedule - the production crew are already building in the room when we arrive. On the night the band was the feature on the stage, not background to the AV: our own engineer on front-of-house, our own in-ear mixes. The set ran the way our corporate gigs do - two hour-long sets blended and loaded with floor-fillers, paced around the dinner and the speeches, a DJ carrying the late end. Eight pieces fills the Kings Suite; for a gala that wants more punch we bring the full eleven-piece showband with brass, and when the night runs an awards ceremony we play the walk-ons live too.
Next year this one is back at Celtic Manor, and we will be there for it too - so there will be a Caernarfon Suite write-up to follow. If your annual conference, awards night or Christmas party moves venue year to year and you want one part of it that is never a question mark, that is the part we play.
The Brotherhood are South Wales’ premier corporate band, playing awards nights, conferences and parties across South Wales and the Midlands. Get in touch to talk about your annual event - this year’s venue and next.
