The Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria (RASV) and Moonee Valley Racing Club’s hospitality solutions group, Dean & McPherson are delighted to officially announce a new partnership to deliver an all-new food and beverage offering at Melbourne Showgrounds.
Dean & McPherson has been appointed for 5 years to manage all catering at Melbourne Showgrounds across the annual event calendar, including functions in the Victoria Pavilion, an all-new 1,300-seat banquet venue and during Victoria’s largest and most iconic annual community event, the Royal Melbourne Show. Dean & McPherson is a division of the Moonee Valley Racing Club and is a market leader in creating hospitality experiences at world-class sports events and entertainment venues.
Dean & McPherson has delivered high profile events such as the 2018 World Cup of Golf and the 2019 Presidents Cup for the PGA Tour and major events at The Valley Racecourse. RASV CEO Brad Jenkins said “we are excited to partner with the Moonee Valley Racing Club’s hospitality solutions group, Dean & McPherson to deliver a food and beverage experience at Melbourne Showgrounds like no other venue.”
Dean & McPherson are committed to making a significant investment into maximising the appeal and success of the food and beverage offering at Melbourne Showgrounds for the benefit of our clients, patrons and stakeholders. They have a highly experienced and professional team with considerable event and venue hospitality expertise that can offer Melbourne Showgrounds clients with access to an exciting array of dining options to suit events of every size and scale.”
The versatility and size of Melbourne Showgrounds means that we need to cater for a huge variety of events from banquet dinners, large exhibitions, trade shows, product launches, university exams, music and community festivals to board room functions and much more,” Mr Jenkins concluded. Michael Browell, CEO of Moonee Valley Racing Club was thrilled to be entering a new partnership that will service a wide range of Melbourne Showgrounds clients.
Dean &McPherson will leverage its considerable hospitality, and event expertise, capacity and experience to a broader audience at Melbourne Showgrounds.” “This partnership will showcase innovative, leading-edge hospitality solutions and deliver exceptional experiences for our clients and their guests with a distinctive and personalised feel,” concluded Mr Browell. Head of Hospitality at Moonee Valley Racing Club, Luke Kinniburgh continued: Together, we will introduce new hospitality concepts, enhance existing offerings, create immersive dining experiences, and present world-class solutions for private events including corporate events, galas, banquets, conferences and other social gatherings. An important part of our collaborative effort will be to introduce the amazing new Victoria Pavilion to the market.
We have been on a very ambitious, targeted journey in recent years to showcase our adaptable services and to align with our business strategy of engaging in off-course hospitality events to bring a new level of creativity to the marketplace, ”concluded Mr Kinniburgh. With Melbourne Showgrounds receiving some of the highest rates of booking enquiries in its history, Melbourne Showgrounds Executive Manager, Venue & Commercial Operations, Hannah von Bibra was thrilled to have another valuable partner involved in the venue.
As an indoor-outdoor venue, Melbourne Showgrounds is well placed to navigate our way through the new ‘COVID normal’ requirements. To have the support of the terrific team at Dean& McPherson will place us in an even stronger position. “We are excited by the prospect of offering an even greater range of menu options and tailored packages that will suit any event managers requirements and to provide even greater service to Melbourne Showgrounds clients,” Mrs von Bibra concluded.
Melbourne Showgrounds is Melbourne’s largest and most versatile venue, offering unique and flexible indoor and outdoor spaces designed to host a variety of events and activities including trade shows, exhibitions, expos, festivals and much, much more.
Personally having working in the event industry for 20 plus years and in multiple markets around the world, I have encountered many outside catering companies and have to say that, Dean & McPherson is one of the best companies that I have worked with full stop. The entire team showed an incredible amount of professionalism and flexibility, but more than anything it was their teamwork, creative abilities and willingness to assist in all aspects of the event that sets them apart from any other I have worked with.
As a company we couldn’t be happier with the decision we made to partner with Dean & McPherson. The 2018 ISPS Handa World Cup of Golf was a massive success and the perfect launching pad for what was to come as the 2019 Presidents Cup was the biggest and most successful Presidents Cup to date across every key metric. We can’t thank Dean & McPherson enough for their partnership and know that we would not have achieved what we did without them.
All I can say is wow! You all are amazing and can’t thank you enough for all you do to support us and our events. The comments and feedback received from everyone has been tremendous and it is clear that the World Cup was just the beginning for Dean & McPherson. The quality, the presentation, the service was first class – most importantly the people are just awesome – thank you for our partnership!
I just wanted to send you a note to say thanks for all of your assistance with making the breakfast a success. We have had some great feedback and much of it centred on the quality and quantity of food so it was a really great experience for our guests. On top of that the service you provided was first rate and we certainly made the correct decision in working with you and your team. Your flexibility in helping us drive as many sales as possible was greatly appreciated, in particular considering how busy you were with the constant changes around the Cox Plate.
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