08.05.08 1:43 PM
Sponsors and "Free Sh*t" Abound at Metromix.com's Lollapalooza Music Lounge
Metromix.com's Music Lounge Photo: Red Eye Productions
From August 1 through August 3, otherwise known as Lollapalooza weekend, Chicago's Hard Rock Hotel became "the Music Lounge Presented by Metromix.com," a crowd-and-heat respite for artists, media, industry folks, and V.I.P. ticket holders. Open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, the lounge was produced by BMF Media and located across the street from Grant Park .Guitar Hero to complimentary tattoos and gifting suites. At the temporary Eastsport Café, sponsored by the bag manufacturer, guests took advantage of free China Grill -catered lunches, Bustelo coffee drinks, and Ciroc-spiked cocktails with thematic names like the Diddy. Rock the Vote Nights, also presented by Metromix.com, overtook the Music Lounge from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. each evening, featuring performances from the likes of Samantha Ronson." This whole experience makes me feel like a kid in a sweets shop. I'm just taking in everything with a little look here, a little taste there. My favorite part of the gifting suite? I'd say the bling [Skullcandy gave out necklaces with silver or gold skull-shaped charms.] That's what we all need: bling, bling, bling." Satin Singh, percussionist for Mark Ronson
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Bustelo , Ciroc , Eastsport , Metromix.com , Rock the Vote
05.21.08 5:13 PM
Truffled Lollipops and Caviar Hit it Big at StarChefs' Rising Stars Revue
Chef Christopher Nugent Photo: BizBash
On Monday night, 14 local chefs, each of them named "Rising Stars" by Starchefs.com, set up shop on Trump International Hotel and Tower 's 16th floor for the Rising Stars Revue. Kerrin Albert, events manager for the culinary Web site, planned the traveling event in four cities. (Besides Chicago, the revue takes place in Palm Beach, New York, and Las Vegas.) Working from her home base in New York required "a lot of phone calls, emails, and organizing from our end," she said, adding that "the Trump property is an amazing partner, and they've made it an easy planning process." Arranging for guests to follow a walk-around tasting path of lightest to heaviest foods and pairing each food station with a wine, Albert said that she intended for everything "to flow like a track." We asked guests what stood out for them most about the event. (Spoiler alert: A lot of feedback was food-related.) —Gus Holt, marketing manager, Icon —Suzanne Carmel, freelance food writer
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Trump International Hotel and Tower , Rising Stars Revue , Starchefs.com
05.31.07 6:30 PM
A Media Buyer Gives Her Take on Upfront Week
Our Upfront Week mole posing with Justin Chambers of Grey's Anatomy at the ABC after-party.
FROM NEW YORK
We gathered lots of
media buyers’ impressions of Upfront Week , and as a whole, they tell a hectic, fun,
sometimes contradictory story of the television networks’ annual sales pitches.
For more consistent (yet just as subjective) view, we asked a supervisor at a
major media buying firm to share her thoughts, day by day. Here's her take. Monday Journeyman . They didn’t touch
on their extensions like late-night and morning programming too much, and I
think everyone was kind of grateful for that. They cut to the chase with the presentation.5 p.m., NBC
after-party, the Rink at Rockefeller Center Friday Night Lights , The
Office , Heroes , and new shows
like Journeyman and Life . The party was like it’s always
been: It’s really nice because it’s at Rockefeller Center, and it’s never too
crowded. When I walked in, four people from The
Office were just standing there.
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Upfront Week , ABC , CBS , NBC , Fox , The CW
05.31.07 5:33 PM
Media Buyers Like Shrimp, Debate Whose Is Best
ABC opened its upfront with an Ugly Betty musical number. ABC/Donna Svennevik
FROM NEW YORK
Every May, a swarm of media buyers, ad execs,
talent, and other assorted television-industry types hits New York for Upfront
Week, the broadcast networks’ yearly presentations of their fall schedules. In
the hope of snagging millions in advertising dollars, the usually hard-sell
presentations are star-studded, and often stat-studded. And the parties that
follow are staged to wow, with plenty of photo ops with network talent,
mountains of shrimp, and free-flowing booze. While both attendees and the press
noted some fiscal restraint on the part of the networks this year, the
broadcasters weren’t exactly serving Saltines and cold cuts. After all, Advertising Age called Upfront Week a
“$9 billion annual event that is the financial pivot of the prime-time TV
business.” CSI: Miami star David Caruso, who was
happy to make fun of his on-screen persona. Pushing the multiplatform angle,
the net also aired a YouTube video of Caruso’s over-the-top one-liners on CSI and had ad sales president JoAnn
Ross address the crowd as an avatar. At Avery Fisher Hall, ABC staged a boffo
opening musical number starring the cast of Ugly
Betty and wrapped the presentation by giving away a plasma-screen TV (a
tie-in to the net’s upcoming show National
Bingo Night ) and filling the theater with a thunderous marching band. Fox
kept it short and sweet, enlisting Keifer Sutherland to pretape a presentation
addressing Fox entertainment president Peter Liguori as 24 ’s Jack Bauer. (“Keep it to an hour. ... You’re on the clock, Mr.
President.”) In possibly a record for any upfront presentation, that’s all the
network took. (Perhaps it was a mea culpa: Last year’s clocked in at an
agonizing three hours.) Among the other networks vying for attention and ad
buys were Telemundo, Univision, the CW, ESPN, and Broadband Enterprises. MORE >>
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Upfront Week , ABC , CBS , NBC , Fox , The CW , ESPN
