Forbes Women's Gala 2026 – open-air gala dinner in the courtyard of Brevnov Monastery for 183 guests

Case study

Forbes Women's Gala at Brevnov Monastery

183 of the most influential women in Czechia, five spaces of the monastery estate and one flawless evening.

Client: Forbes Czechia
Location: Brevnov Monastery, Prague
Date: 17 June 2026
Guests: 183
Dress code: Garden Party Chic
Partners: IN CATERING, Marvels Events

A demanding venue as a challenge, not an obstacle

Brevnov Monastery is one of those venues not every player in the events industry dares to take on.

No lifts. Complex logistics. Technical constraints. A working monastery in daily operation, history dating back to 993 AD and strict heritage protection. All of this is why such a venue places far higher demands on organisation.

And this is exactly where the difference between a supplier and a partner shows.

A demanding venue is not a problem to be endured. It is an asset that creates an atmosphere no modern event centre could ever offer: baroque surroundings and a genius loci that guests feel from the very first step. The price for that unrepeatable atmosphere is called meticulous planning.

Planning down to the last detail.

Context

In June we welcomed the most demanding of guests to Brevnov. Forbes Women's Gala is a celebratory gathering of the women from the Most Influential Women in Czechia ranking, which Forbes Czechia has compiled for fifteen years.

Despite the name, this was not a classic gala dinner with a seating plan, but a more informal cocktail event.

An afternoon full of side programme, workshops, inspiring talks, networking and an evening afterparty. 183 guests from among the country's most influential women came together.

Solution

Preparation began weeks in advance.

The first meetings and site visits took place weeks before the event, not only with Forbes Czechia but also with the organisers of the individual workshops who were preparing their programme in the Theresian Hall. As a result, we had every zone, every service route and the sequencing of the technology resolved well in advance. We then set up the venue itself the day before. That one extra day is the reason guests saw no improvisation on the day.

The versatility of the venue as the main asset.

Brevnov's strength lies in the fact that it is not just a single hall, but an entire estate of interconnected scenes, and that is exactly what we built the dramaturgy around. The space in front of the prelature served as a welcome moment, where the atmosphere of the place greeted guests before they even stepped inside. The afternoon workshops ran in parallel on the first floor and in the Theresian Hall, so every guest could compose her own programme. The guided tasting took place directly in the Brevnov monastery brewery, the oldest in Bohemia, which, like the monastery itself, dates back to 993 AD and today brews in the baroque Dientzenhofer stables. The highlight of the evening was an open-air dinner in the courtyard, closed by an afterparty with networking.

Dramaturgy across the entire estate.

The programme ran from 3:30 PM into the night, and every transition between parts of the evening had its own script. One space turned into a workshop zone, another into a cocktail scene, the courtyard into an evening hall under the stars. This variability is exactly what a modern event centre can never offer.

Logistics with no lifts and no compromise.

Where technology is missing, a plan steps in. We designed the delivery routes, catering service timing and the placement of service teams so that the heritage-protected spaces remained untouched and guests never sensed how much coordination lay behind the seamless flow of the evening.

Partners in sync.

A flawless evening is a team effort. Marvels Events production, Forbes Czechia and IN CATERING worked to a single schedule in which everyone knew their role on site and the exact script.

Result

The event for 183 of the most demanding guests ran across the full breadth of the programme, from workshops through cocktails to the afterparty, with no gap in service.
The event resonated strongly on LinkedIn and reached a visible audience among the guests from the ranking of the most influential women in Czechia.
The demanding heritage venue became the event's main asset, not its limitation.

For event managers

An exceptional location does not mean higher risk, provided you have a partner beside you who handles the demands of the venue for you. Brevnov Monastery is proof that it is precisely the spaces with the toughest logistics that give an event what cannot be arranged after the fact: a unique atmosphere and a story.