On Friday, Nov. 1, 125 people gathered in the Atrium on 10th to drink cocktails, enjoy a delicious meal and help solve the (fictional) murder of Harry Hyde. “Murder at the Speakeasy,” a 1920s themed murder mystery dinner event, was the culmination of three months of planning by senior hospitality management students Clara Davis, Mary Margaret Garrett, Sophia Muniz, Hallee Grimm, Maddie Dudgeon, and Adrya Nichelson, supervised by Kelly Gillespie, B.S. ’23, operations director of Eclipse Catering and Events.
Gillespie has been involved in the hospitality management program since her graduation by helping with the event planning class (HSP_MGMT 3200) where she manages 70 student volunteers at The Atrium each semester. This semester, through talking with Amanda Alexander, associate teaching professor for hospitality management, Gillespie volunteered to expand her involvement by hosting two capstone group events this semester.
Under Gillespie’s supervision, the students hired Jest Murder Mystery performers, created the food and cocktail menus, tablescapes, a photo booth and gathered sponsored raffle items, which ultimately raised $600 for the Mareck Center for Dance. The students then worked the event to ensure that everything went according to plan.
“It felt like the event we’d planned for 3 months was over in like 10 seconds, the day went so fast, but we did get to sit back and watch the event from a kind of outsider perspective,” said Garrett. “It was really cool to see our friends and family who got to come and the other audience members really enjoy themselves.”
Planning an event of this size with professional direction allowed the students to discover their different strengths in event planning and learn about professional-level event execution.
“The planning was educational because I’ve never done an event to that scale before, but I like to work under the stress of the day of the event,” said Muniz. “It was a lot of fun to run around and get everything finished up and then see everyone enjoy the end product.”
“It was a learning experience to turn our studies into the real thing,” said Nichelson. “We plan mock events all the time in the hospitality management program, but it’s one thing to say ‘oh, we’re going to use this company for our mock event’ but it’s something else to actually do it and find the contracts and take the real-life next steps in the process with a real budget.”
Gillespie is passionate about helping the next generation of hospitality management professionals and growing the industry, even so early in career. She said that working with students so close to her age allowed her to impart her newly acquired professional wisdom to students who will soon be in her shoes as new graduates.
“We’re in school right now and have so much schoolwork going on, but working with Kelly showed us the reality that it’s not going to be like that in six months,” said Dudgeon. “We’ll have professional jobs and won’t just have one concentration of what we’re doing.”
“We all learned a lot from Kelly, not only about event planning, but about what you can do as an MU alum so young and right out of college, and that was an inspiration to all of us,” said Garrett.
During the process Gillespie tried to guide the students without micromanaging or being too hands off. This level of guidance allowed the students enough autonomy to learn, but not to flounder in taking on such a big event.
“She was a voice of reason for us because at the beginning we were all bouncing ideas off of each other and Kelly would be like ‘that’s cool, but is it feasible?’ and so that kept the planning manageable and realistic,” said Davis.
“She was also really good at constantly reassuring us and being excited, and that is something that mentally kept me from getting worried,” said Grimm. “Even when we doubted ourselves and were worried about ticket sales or how we’ve never done anything like this before, Kelly never doubted us and was always excited to see what we did and was there to reassure us.”
The second capstone group under Gillespie’s direction will host their event, Trip to the North Pole, at The Atrium on 10th on Dec. 8, and she’s excited to continue working with hospitality management students.
“I think no matter where you are in your career, there’s always learning you can do,” Gillespie said. “So at the same time I’m teaching them, they’re teaching me too.”