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Venue Focus Magazine Feature, Autumn 2005 - 'The Big Boutique'

Address:	The Chainstore, Trinity Buoy Wharf, Orchard Place, London E14
Tel	020 8874 7555
Fax:	020 8874 0011
Email:	Contact by email
Website:	Visit their website

Venue Focus Magazine Feature, Autumn 2005 - 'The Big Boutique' Information:

There’s nothing high street about The Chainstore, as Eleanor Maidment discovered during a recent visit to the truly unique Docklands venue

It’s one of the most dramatic Bond scenes ever filmed. 007, at the helm of a speedboat, weaves his way at full speed down the Thames, only to be thrown off course and end up careering head-first into a riverside restaurant, leaving diners fleeing their steak and chips. You’d never know it, but that ‘restaurant’ in The World is Not Enough was actually The Chainstore, a Docklands events venue that has true chameleonic characteristics.

With a totally blank canvas interior and an expanse of outdoor space, The Chainstore invites creativity and imagination, leaving organisers able to choose just about any style for their event, from the urban and industrial, flamboyant and flashy to the simple and sophisticated. Inside are two inter-connected rooms, crowned by gorgeous, heavy-beamed ceilings at one end, while a beautiful riverside terrace, with views spanning from the illuminated skyline of Canary Wharf to the Millenium Dome, makes the venue a must for alfresco summer parties. This space can also be canopied to create a third space in winter.

In the three years since the event management agency Progressive Events has held the exclusive events lease here, the large space has been transformed into everything from an olde English pub, fronted by a Covent Garden-style promenade, to a football training ground, spa and fully functional fairground, complete with dodgems and a ghost train.

‘It really is a versatile venue,’ confirms Jim Mee, who launched the mobile spa company Splash and Tickle at The Chainstore last year. Instrumental to this event, which saw hot tubs stationed on the terrace and a swimming pool set up indoors, was an accessible and flexible venue – and that’s exactly what the organisers found here. Set in an industrial yard just beyond Canary Wharf, The Chainstore offers plenty of parking, easy access for large vehicles, and three huge double doors that lead straight into the venue, making the loading and unloading of cumbersome pieces of furniture, flooring and, as in Splash and Tickle’s case, temporary swimming pools easy as pie.

Even when more modest outfits are required, The Chainstore’s built-in features can prove very impressive. As London’s only lighthouse, the Grade II-listed site is quite something to look at: not your stereotypical tower but a small turret attached to a stunning blasted-brick farmhouse-style building. ‘It is it a unique venue and you can also have the outside of the building lit up in any colour you desire so it’s ideal for corporate branding,’ says Giles Kidd, director of the Jupiter Group, who recently used The Chainstore for his company’s 20th anniversary celebrations.

At this event, some 220 guests were treated to music from an orchestra during the alfresco Champagne reception before heading inside for dinner and returning to the terrace for a tremendous fireworks display. Afterwards, they left by boat from the venue’s private pier and, although Kidd’s guests may not have braved the Thames at quite the same speed as Mr Bond, everyone was clearly both shaken and stirred by what the venue had to offer: ‘I received great feedback from that evening,’ he enthuses.

Store Manager
The Chainstore is operated by the event management agency Progressive Events, which means it has an in-house team capable of designing as well as managing events. ‘The guys who run the show know their venue inside out,’ says Jim Mee from Splash and Tickle – and he’s not wrong. Use them to help you with advice on the best themes and entertainment and to arrange anything from catering, furniture and flowers to the finer points of sound and lighting design.

Click here for more information about The Chainstore