Need replicas of Big Ben or a Polynesian statue for your next party?

When Sharon Gall needed to plan a wedding reception at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel that involved turning a table into a runway for the bridal party’s grand entrance, she turned to BTB Event Productions for help.

The company came through for Gall, helping to create not only a catwalk from the tables, but then figuring out how to raise a 60-foot-long head table to the ceiling, which was lowered to the theme song of the “2001: A Space Odyssey” when dinner service was ready.

“I do this horrible chicken scratch on paper, and somehow they get my vision and they make it come to life,” said Gall, owner of Once Upon a Time Weddings and Events in Rancho Santa Margarita. “I’m just amazed that they can do that.”

What began as a collection of props stored in a station wagon more than 40 years ago has become BTB Event Productions, a full-service event production company that its owner expects to extend beyond Orange County in the coming years.

The Costa Mesa company has done events for clients such as the Huntington Beach-based surfwear company Quiksilver, TED (technology, entertainment, design) conferences and the Anaheim Ducks hockey team, as well as various schools, hospitals, museums and other businesses.

“We do everything from someone calling us up for a dozen chairs and a couple of tables to full-fledged events where we’re going to some high-end ranch in Malibu and doing setups for a large wedding,” said Robert Bates, BTB’s vice president of sales and business development.

The company’s founder, Bob Traxel, started as a bartender in Hollywood who needed tables and chairs for parties he hosted.

He started to amass quite a collection, storing props and furniture in his garage and toting them from venue to venue in a station wagon.

Traxel eventually left Hollywood for Orange County and founded the company in 1972, moving his growing inventory into a warehouse in Fountain Valley.

Before retiring, Traxel transferred ownership of BTB to Chris Chapin, an Irvine businessman who specialized in finance.

Chapin, who encountered the event production company through a friend who wanted to visit BTB’s office, recalled his first meeting with Traxel as being rather awkward.

“I was standing in the hallway not knowing what to do, and my eye caught this office with files stacked 3 feet high,” Chapin said. “I said to myself — I didn’t think anyone was around — ‘What kind of moron would get their filing so far behind?’

“All of a sudden, I heard, ‘Excuse me?’”

Embarrassed, he saw Traxel approach the office. The two eventually brushed off the awkwardness, with Chapin accepting Traxel’s gentleman’s bet of doing the filing within two weeks and having a good laugh and dinner when Chapin completed the task and won the bet.

“I like a good challenge,” Chapin said. “It’s something I really enjoy.”

Chapin, who ended up staying on to learn the business for more than a decade, came to own the company in 2013.

Last March, Chapin moved the office into a 28,000-square-foot facility in Costa Mesa, much of it dedicated to a mishmash of props that include oversized holiday ornaments from Macy’s, carousel horses and a model of the Hollywood sign.

“It was mind-blowing to tour their ginormous (and I do mean, ginormous) warehouse of all-things event-related,” according to a blog post by Platinum Weddings by Kerrie, a full-service wedding planning company. “They have just about anything you could dream up as far as event decor and design goes, and if they don’t have it, they have a workshop where they can make it in a jiffy.”

On a recent Tuesday at BTB, a man was hard at work on a towering replica of a castle for a client.

“We can make anything,” Bates said as he walked past a replica of Big Ben, a Polynesian statue, a massive light switch and aisles loaded with tables, chairs and swaths of fabric in nearly every color.

“The props and customization of things is what makes us unique,” Bates said. “We have to be on our top game to make sure we do what we need to do to make it happen.”

Chapin said he hopes to franchise the company in the next five years.

“It’s great being able to run the company,” he said. “It’s fun. You can be creative. It’s a blast.”