What Makes a Good Networking Event? Lessons from a Taylor Wessing Wine Series

Most client events are pleasant. Very few are memorable.

The problem isn't effort or budget — it's that the same familiar formats rarely give guests a reason to properly engage with each other, or with the firm hosting them. People arrive, exchange pleasantries, drink something perfectly nice, and leave without having had a single conversation they'll remember on Monday morning.

One of the most effective event series I hosted recently took a completely different approach, and it's worth unpacking why it worked.

Designing the tasting around the firm, not the wine list.

The event was for Taylor Wessing, a law firm with strong transatlantic connections between London and the US. Rather than selecting wines purely on price or prestige — the default approach for most corporate tastings — I built the entire tasting around the identity of the business itself.

Two English wines. Two American wines.

A simple structural decision, but the effect on the room was immediate. Guests had something bigger to connect to than just what was in the glass. The wines became a conversation tool, not just a beverage.

When wine becomes a conversation tool.

Within the first twenty minutes, guests were debating English versus American styles, discussing which wines reflected different markets, and noticing why certain tables gravitated towards certain bottles. One group became quietly obsessed with the English sparkling. Another fixated on the Pinot Noir. A partner announced, entirely unprompted, that he "could bathe in Pinot Noir" — which promptly became the running joke of the evening and a line several guests were still quoting on the way out.

None of this was scripted. None of it required name badges, ice-breakers, or any of the slightly awkward exercises that corporate events sometimes resort to. The structure of the tasting did the work.

Interactivity without gimmickry.

This is the part many firms underestimate when planning client events: interactivity doesn't need to feel gimmicky to be effective.

When an event is designed thoughtfully — with structure, narrative and genuine relevance to the audience — it creates natural conversation, movement and shared moments without forcing anything. Guests engage because they want to, not because they've been instructed to.

The Taylor Wessing tasting worked because every element pointed back to something the guests already cared about: their firm, their markets, their clients on both sides of the Atlantic. The wine was the vehicle, but the conversation was about identity, business and the relationships in the room.

What I'm actually there to do.

I'm not there simply to choose wines. I'm there to design experiences that feel intelligent, commercially appropriate and genuinely engaging for the people in the room — experiences that give partners a reason to introduce clients to colleagues, give clients a reason to stay for the second hour, and give everyone something specific to remember the firm by.

A good networking event isn't measured by how many cards were exchanged. It's measured by whether anyone is still talking about it a week later.

Elizaeth Hawthornthwaite