Pictured above: (l-r) Adam Pardoe( director of drptechnicalservices), April Pearson-Myatt (group financial director), Richard Hingley (director of drpcreative), Jane Jones (director of drpevents), Ben Wallace (director of drpdigitalmedia), Dagmar Mackett (director of drpvideo) and finally Dale Parmenter (group managing director)

The drpgroup pulled out all the stops to host an extravagant £350,000 30th anniversary celebration on the 19th June at the West Midlands Safari Park. The event was attended by over 600 clients, friends and family who enjoyed both a day and evening event.

Guests were invited to the park during the day for a family fun event hosted in the giant private marquee Tree Tops, while also enjoying freedom of the parks attractions and of course the safari itself. The evening event took place in the splendour of the recently re-built Spring Grove House and saw a formal dinner before a spectacular production show and after show party took place.

The day's activities saw drpgroup clients enjoy attractions set up by the drpteam. This included the drpvideo green screen room where guests had the opportunity to step into their favourite film, the drpprint icon room where the group's image editing software was utilised to insert guests into posters alongside their 80s icons and the drptechnicalservices rock school, which saw guests take control of the sound mixing, lighting and technical side of a real live rock show. As a professional band played on stage, guests could tweak the levels, adjust the lighting and give directions.

Throughout the specially-converted Tree Tops marquee, the drpteam had erected numerous displays recounting the group's history and updating guests on the progress made through the ambitious Thirty 30s scheme, where the group set out to complete 30 challenges and projects in honour of its 30th year in business. Guests watched videos on the key CSR projects which had taken place throughout the year and were treated to a display outlining the key '30s' the group would be undertaking in the months to come. The drphistory tunnel took guests back in time to the 1980s where the drpgroup began. Dale Parmenter, Group MD escorted guests through the museum explaining the various pieces of antiquated kit on display and sharing stories of how the company had made anything possible for its clients over the last 30 years.

The evening event saw guests transported to Spring Grove house where a gala dinner was hosted. Guests were greeted by a string quartet on the terrace of the beautiful country house in the summer sunshine before being called to dinner by the sound of African drummers.

Over dinner guests enjoyed an emotional rollercoaster as three videos showed the work and success of the drpteam's CSR projects. This culminated in the presentation of a cheque to Macmillan Cancer Support and the finale of the company's Believe programme which has been helping long term unemployed to get in to the events industry there was a big surprise when one of the programme's participants was offered a job with drpgroup.

The Toast to drp was proposed by Thomas Cook CEO of group destination management Pete Constanti, and all clients in attendance joined in raising their glasses to the agency. Following dinner, guests were invited into the Gardens of the country house to witness the surprise entertainment for the evening.  The spectacle included production elements from all the drpdivisions. Over £1.5M worth of equipment was used utilising the latest in HD projection technology, the latest LED and Intelligent lighting, a 40ft Articulated truck, a 150 foot crane, stuntmen, four huge dancing water fountain tanks, 15 dancers and a state of the art 15m LED screen. The spectacular production show demonstrated the exceptional technical, staging and creative capabilities the group possesses.

The evening ended with an after show party with dancing into the small hours of the morning capping off a hugely successful event. Pete Constanti commented: "Thomas Cook have enjoyed a relationship with the drpgroup for 27 years and it is events like this here today which remind us all exactly why we choose to work with them. The whole team pulled out all the stops to put on an event of the highest standard."

Dale Parmenter drpgroup managing director said. "What the whole team have achieved here today is exceptional. Everyone has pulled together to deliver the kind of event we stake our reputation on. Seeing the culmination of months of work, some of our 30th projects and the exceptional level of creativity demonstrated here today serves only to reinforce my belief that the drpgroup will continue to go from strength to strength in the next 30 years as it has done in the last 30."