Inside the secret world of Melbourne’s high society parties created by A-list event maestro Bruce Keebaugh

From elephants to a 1.6km dessert buffet and an unexpected guest at a lavish Toorak party, Melbourne hospitality king Bruce Keebaugh has drawn back the velvet curtains on his incredible career in a new book.

Bruce Keebaugh, the founder of The Big Group. Picture: Jason Edwards

For more than 30 years Bruce Keebaugh has been the king of parties in Melbourne, making the impossible possible and being an architect of experiences.

As the founder of Australia’s largest privately-owned catering and events company, The Big Group, Keebaugh has crafted, created and catered for society weddings, private dinners, milestone celebrations, corporate dining, business client experiences, and significant moments in the lives of thousands in Australia and internationally.

From celebrities to royalty to rich listers he has worked with everyone.

At the same time he has also been at the forefront of the elevation of Melbourne’s major event corporate hospitality with The Big Group having catered or project managed numerous marquees and opportunities across sporting, cultural and business events, including in the famed Birdcage at the Melbourne Cup Carnival.

Keebaugh, his wife Chyka – an author, Real Housewives star and style leader – and their Big Group team are noted for creating lavish worlds, often for one night only, that allow guests to escape the ordinary.

Bruce and Chyka Keebaugh. Picture: Richard Dobson

“When you work in the world of the temporary you are selling dreams, you are creating moments, you are creating memories; we are architects of experience,” event maestro Keebaugh said.

“These events only last a moment in time.

“It is like a woman with an amazing fragrance on, you smell it and it is gone but the memory is incredible.

“Looking after those clients and ensuring those memories are intact for a lifetime is very nuanced.

“Part of getting it right in our industry is listening and watching and then making sure you surprise and delight because if you just serve up to someone what they could do themselves, then you kind of have not done your job.”

Keebaugh is pulling back the velvet curtain on the discrete world of luxury and extravagance that The Big Group inhabits with the release of his book, By Invitation Only.

Growing up in Melbourne, Keebaugh loved a party from an early age.

“My dream was to be an international diplomat. I thought I would zip around the world, go to parties and save the world at the same time,” Keebaugh said.

“But as I often say, instead of becoming an international diplomat I became a suburban diplomat.”

An event designed and created for a private client in Kuwait by The Big Group. Picture: Designlab Experience.

He learnt the art of hospitality from Melbourne’s best.

After finishing school at Xavier College, he completed a hotel management degree while working at iconic Melbourne cafe Pellegrini's’s for Nino Pangrazio and the late Sisto Malaspina.

“The Italianality of it all, the joy, the passion for food, the dedication to service and the pride in hospitality are things at Pellegrini's’s that I learnt in spades,” he said.

“I also learnt that generosity is a very important thing. Our job as hospitalitarians is to look after people, knowing what that guest needs before they need it.”

His hotel management career stopped before it started after he landed a role with legendary event planner and caterer, Peter Rowland.

“I used to drive the van, I used to cook the chicken sandwiches, I used to go to Harry The Hirer and put up tents, I used to go to Kevin O’Neill (florist), and at night I would go and be the waiter (at dinners or events),” he said.

“One of Peter’s clients was Christopher and Pixie Skase; the Bonds, the Packers, they were all clients of Peter’s.

Keebaugh is taking readers into a private world of lavish events in his book, By Invitation Only. Picture: Jason Edwards

“Every second or third weekend when the Bears (Brisbane Bears, AFL team owned by Skase) were playing at Carrara (on the Gold Coast) I would go on a private jet to prepare lunch at the football for Christopher and Pixie.

“I think I was 19, and I would fly up with a bag of linen, a turkey, or whatever food they wanted that day, and a lady who would come up with me to cook the food.

“One weekend the lady who normally came with me could not travel, so got on the plane and who is sitting there but Chyka Siney. That is how Chyka and I met.”

Sharing a love of adventure, food and events, the pair immediately clicked.

With $500 in savings, Keebaugh soon suggested to Chyka, “let’s just start a business and go for it.”

In 1990 they established Big and Small Catering and Event Management, he and Chyka building it from scratch from the phone book.

“We started at A for advertising in the Yellow Pages,” Keebaugh said.

“That is how we started knocking on doors and how we picked up the work.”

Keebaugh’s event flair saw the business grow quickly and evolve into The Big Group.

Keebaugh has come to expect the unexpected. Picture: Jason Edwards

“By 1992 we had done the opening of Southgate which was for 7000 people, we had done all of the work for Lend Lease and Opera Australia, we were doing balls for 600 people,” Keebaugh said.

“We had moved pretty quickly and then we did our own wedding in October of 1992 for 350 people in a surprise location in five marquees.”

Over the years Keebaugh has learnt to expect the unexpected.

“Anytime the phone rings, that is opportunity knocking,” he said.

“About 15 years ago we got a call from a woman in Dubai who said she wanted to have a meeting there in 24 hours for a forthcoming event. I went to Dubai and met with her and she became a really great collaborator of ours who we worked with throughout the whole UAE.

“The first wedding we did there was for 1800 people, all the women in incredible haute couture.

“When the former ruler of Dubai’s daughter got married we did a wedding for her for 4500 guests.

“We did an event in Abu Dhabi and created a dessert buffet that was 1.6km long.”

Keebaugh hasn’t had a request yet that he has not been able to fulfil.

“Elephants, I know a little bit about them,” he said.

“We had a client some years ago who we were doing a very big wedding for at Heide (Museum of Modern Art in Bulleen), the most gorgeous bride, the most handsome groom.

“I think it was the groom’s sister who wanted to give them a fun gift as they left, which was having them leave the wedding on an elephant.

“I said ‘no problem, we will ring the circus and arrange an elephant’.

“When it came time for the bride and groom to leave, I radioed, ‘bring down the elephant’ and my assistant said ‘there it is not elephant, it is elephants. You can’t have one, the whole family has to come or they get angry.’

“So all of a sudden down the hill come six elephants.”

The epic wedding of Guillaume Brahimi and Tamie Ingham in France. The wedding was designed and managed by The Big Group. Picture: Alli Studio

Another memorable wedding was on the Mornington Peninsula where The Big Group created a Balinese resort for an extremely private family.

“It was the biggest wedding we have done in Melbourne,” Keebaugh said.

“The wedding was a Balinese theme for 700 to 800 people. We built an entire Balinese environment. There were kilometres and kilometres of marquee walkways, dining rooms and ceremony areas. We flew in from Bangkok massive hand made floral leis for everyone and flew in the most perfect Tuberoses from Singapore. I have never seen anything like them in my life.”

Then there was the private dinner party client in Toorak notable for her mysterious 13th dinner guest.

“The first time we did the dinner for her, we set the table for 13,” he said.

“She came down stairs in her ball gown and said ‘what is going on? It is not for 13, it is for 12’.”

“I said ‘but you told me 13?’.”

It soon emerged the other meal was for her dog.

“She said ‘you will set her table exactly the same as for the other guests’,” Keebaugh said.

“So for the dog we had to put out the silverware, the crystal, the Wedgwood, the Christofle and we had to serve each course at the same time as the guests were having their dinner.”

A bar built inside a private marquee for a Melbourne wedding by The Big Group. Picture: Marcel Aucar

Teaming with various brands, including Lexus, The Big Group’s work has been prominent in the Flemington Birdcage for decades.

“Our first client at Melbourne Cup was Louis Vuitton, our first client we put onto scaffold in the Birdcage was Perri Cutten, so they could see a horse, and then we put Myer on scaffold,” Keebaugh said.

“In those late ‘90s early 2000s we worked on 48, 50, 60 marquees at Flemington during the Melbourne Cup Carnival, all decorated, all different, Chyka painting the floor, bringing the furniture from home and hanging a chandelier.

“It is called brand activation now, but back then we were creating environments where our food and staff looked good and the brand came to life.”

The Lexus Marquee in the Flemington Birdcage. Picture: Marcel Aucar

From a private event perspective, Keebaugh said Melbourne’s geography was part of the reason why Melbourne society often celebrated occasions, big and small, at home.

“We were called the garden state for a reason,” he said.

“We have large mansions and big gardens and so in the Peter Rowland and Kevin O’Neill era – without them there would be no Big Group – a smart thing to do was to put up a marquee from Harry The Hirer and you would have a fabulous party at home.

“That became sort of what the well to do Melburnian does; they have a very smart party, it could be for a 21st, 30th, 40th, 50th birthday, a wedding, or a bar mitzvah, at home in a marquee.

“These are very orchestrated, highly detailed environments because we are literally building a hotel ballroom or we are building a restaurant for one night only in a marquee.”

With The Big Group marking its 35th anniversary this year, Keebaugh has chosen to celebrate the milestone with the release of By Invitation Only, a luxe coffee table book that showcases some of the extraordinary private and corporate moments and experiences The Big Group has orchestrated.

The book is also a sumptuous pictorial tribute to the many collaborators who have worked with The Big Group over the years including Guillaume Brahimi, Richard Christiansen, Paul Bangay, Brigitte Hafner, Amanda Henderson, Designlab Experience, Joost and Koichi Takada.

“It’s been really fun to curate the images with Robyn Lea, who went through just under one million images to arrive at the published selection,” Keebaugh said.

“We serve over two million people a year, so if you can imagine how many parties that is over 35 years. Each party sometimes has 2000 or 3000 photos.

“I never take for granted the great privilege of helping orchestrate some of the most important moments of other people’s lives.”

A private event in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Picture: The Big Group.

Keebaugh said the key to a great event was not money, it was people.

“If it is a personal occasion you want joyful, fun fabulous people who make you happy and if you are doing a corporate event you have to get the right mix of guests and that is an art form in its own right,” he said.

“It does not matter what bells and whistles, how many flower walls are there, how many chandeliers hang, if you do not have the right people in there nothing at that event will work.

“It is about feelings, emotion and connection, they are the things that will create a memory, they are the things that create great networking.”

Passionate about the Victorian event economy Keebaugh believes the art of Australian hospitality should be taken to the world.

“The Victorian event industry is an incredibly unique asset for Victoria and Australia,” he said.

“Nobody in the world can walk from a city hotel to watch a Grand Slam or get on a train and in 10 minutes be at a major horse event, and it is rare to be able to walk to an F1 race, but to have all of these events so close to the CBD is extraordinary.

“What we have to do is capitalise on this unique Victorian events industry – which really is the Australian events industry.

“I would like to see an event training academy built in Melbourne. We need to be training people in the art of Australian hospitality events, which is very different to restaurants and bars. We need to be sending event producers, stylists, planners and event managers all around the world using skills they can only learn in Melbourne.”

By Invitation Only by Bruce Keebaugh and Robyn Lea is available from March 19.

Originally published as Inside the secret world of Melbourne’s high society parties created by A-list event maestro Bruce Keebaugh