At Art Fun Studio, celebrating our 10-year anniversary of organizing creative and corporate events, we thought we’d seen it all. But nothing prepared us for the high-stakes logistics drama surrounding our event with the team from Figma, the leaders in collaborative online design and development. This wasn’t just any paint-and-sip; it was our largest corporate event to date, bringing together approximately 125 creative participants at the stunning Venue 42 by Convene in the heart of Times Square.
The Figma team was hosting a large corporate off-site event, and they wanted the painting event to be an activity where people could relax, socialize, and enjoy a creative break together.
Scaling Up for Figma
Planning for 125 people is a completely different ballgame than planning for our usual corporate groups of 40-50. What made this particular event historic for us was the incredibly tight schedule: the Figma organizers contacted us only one week in advance! This required a big influx of supplies—from 125 stretched canvases and easels to three hundred brushes and a lot of paint. Given the scale, we relied heavily on Amazon to source and ship all our art supplies directly to the venue. Despite the compressed timeline, everything was meticulously planned to arrive a couple of days before the event date, scheduled for late October.
Then, disaster struck.
The Logistics Nightmare: An Unexpected Outage
Just as our supplies were entering the critical delivery window, the infamous AWS (Amazon Web Services) outage hit on October 19th. This wasn’t just a minor technical hiccup; it was a well-publicized event that rippled across e-commerce and logistics networks globally, freezing delivery estimates and sending tracking updates into chaos.
Suddenly, our carefully planned timeline evaporated. Art supplies essential for 125 people, including everything from palettes to protective aprons, were stuck in transit. With the event just days away, and a hard deadline of October 22nd to have all materials prepped, the stress levels at Art Fun Studio skyrocketed.
figma off-site sip and paint
The Million-Dollar Insurance Battle
If the supply chain wasn’t stressful enough, the venue presented us with another major hurdle: insurance. As a small art business, we carry a robust $2 million general liability insurance policy. However, the building required proof of $5 million in coverage, plus Workers’ Compensation.
It was clear these were requirements typically meant for construction businesses, not a mobile art studio. They initially rejected our Certificate of Additional Insured (COA) and also demanded specific, highly technical legal language on the certificate. It took several long sessions with our insurance company to draft and process the exact wording.
Thanks to the incredible communication and negotiation skills of the Venue 42 by Convene hosts, they managed to convince the building to accept our existing, lower liability coverage, understanding that an artist simply won’t cause $5 million worth of damage. This was a huge win for us and the event!
Art Fun Studio artists
Partnership Triumphs Over Panic
It took several frantic attempts and countless hours to finally reach the right channels within Amazon support to understand where our vital packages were.
The true heroes of the logistics battle were the incredible people at Venue 42 by Convene. They understood the severity of our situation immediately. Their team went above and beyond, constantly checking the reception for packages, keeping detailed logs of which packages arrived, and updating us immediately. Their cooperation was invaluable, acting as our eyes and ears on the ground and giving us the crucial information needed to coordinate with the couriers.
Through persistence and the amazing partnership with the Convene team, we managed to confirm the final delivery of the supplies just in time for pre-event staging.
corporate sip and paint event results
The Takeaway
Despite the eleventh-hour scramble involving a one-week turnaround, logistics, and paperwork, the Figma team event was a massive success! We are incredibly proud of our dedicated Art Fun Studio team, who were quick to organize this beautiful event and managed to overcome every single challenge thrown our way.
Our team, consisting of experienced artist Inna Kaplun and two dedicated helpers, managed to cover all the tables, prepare the 125 stations, and deliver a seamless, high-energy painting session. The atmosphere was vibrant, the conversation was flowing, and many highly creative and talented Figma employees walked away with their own unique masterpiece.
The experience was a powerful reminder that meticulous planning is only half the battle; the cooperation, communication, and human touch of our partners—like the outstanding team at Convene—and the persistence of the event organizers are what truly save the day when the unexpected happens. It also taught us a valuable lesson about diversifying our logistics plan for events of this magnitude!
Ready to host your own stress-free (we promise!) large-scale corporate event? Contact us today!
Art fun studio artists
