The Caernarfon Suite is the room where we play Celtic Manor’s Black Tie Christmas calendar - most years a run of ten or twelve nights through November and December, a sit-down banquet of several hundred in black tie, a giant mirror ball over the floor, and a full showband set that has the room up from the first number. We know the late part of the night here particularly well: dinner long cleared, the floor packed wall to wall, and the suite emptying out toward the lobby and the resort bedrooms rather than a taxi rank. It is the biggest room at Celtic Manor, and the one we have logged the most nights in.
The biggest room at the resort
The Caernarfon Suite is the largest event space at Celtic Manor, just off junction 24 of the M4. It is a single banqueting room of around 1,200 square metres with a 6.2-metre ceiling, seating up to 900 for a banquet and around 800 for a dinner dance, with a private bar at the entrance and proper space for a dancefloor and staging. It divides into three when an event wants less, and it is the room behind the resort’s big conferences, gala dinners, the Black Tie Christmas programme and the New Year’s Eve ball. That scale is the whole point: it is a room that wants the full showband - eight to eleven pieces with brass, and a saxophone that lifts the party numbers and reaches the back of an 800-cover floor without anyone pushing the PA. Bring a four-piece and a couple of monitors and the room swallows it.
Production already in the price, and a get-in we do in our sleep
The reason a client books us for a room this size and does not also have to book a production company is that the PA and the lighting come with the band - a rig that covers 800 covers and a 6.2-metre ceiling that takes a proper show wash over the stage, so the room looks like an event and not a function lunch. This is our home resort, so the get-in is automatic: we know the goods access, where the stage builds, and how the events and banqueting team pace a turnaround. We load in around the day’s schedule, run in-ears rather than wedges to keep a banqueting room with sightlines from every table clean, and slot into a tightly run operation without being the part anyone has to manage. For a planner that is the value of a band that plays the room often - the logistics are handled, not discussed.
From dinner to dancefloor
The night settles the same way most times: a day of conference or meetings, dinner and speeches in the suite, then the band for the evening - and by the time we are on, the room has eaten, had a drink and is ready to stop being delegates. We play two roughly hour-long sets blended in our own style, mashups and medleys and seamless transitions, loaded with floor-fillers, a DJ carrying the gaps and the late end. It flexes: an awards dinner runs the band after the trophies, the Black Tie nights want the floor up from the first song, New Year’s Eve is paced long to land midnight on the downbeat. We always want the running order and the tone in advance.
I can’t recommend The Brotherhood highly enough. They are incredibly versatile with groups of various sizes to suit all occasions. They never fail to create an amazing atmosphere and always get everyone dancing. They do all our Christmas Parties and many corporate events and we always receive rave reviews about the standard of their entertainment.
- Nancy Mollet, then Conference & Banqueting Director at The Celtic Manor Resort, now Venue Director at ICC Wales
The Brotherhood are South Wales’ go-to corporate band. Check our availability for your conference, awards or Christmas party in the Caernarfon Suite at Celtic Manor.
