The Fashion Design Council of Canada (FDCC), which launched L'Oréal Fashion Week eight years ago, is set to present the spring 2009 collections from October 20 through 25 in the tents at Nathan Phillips Square. This season's shows, being held over six days, will be Toronto's biggest presentation yet.
"It’s growing in every way—in awareness and attendance, in designers and sponsorship," said FDCC president Robin Kay, who noted that more than 35 sponsors have signed on to support Fashion Week, during which more than 70 designers will showcase their work in 38 shows on two runways (a first for L'Oréal Fashion Week). We asked Kay how the event has evolved and how she envisions its future.
You have implemented some major changes within the past year. What's your goal? To be a really great Fashion Week that designers want to come to and show at and sell product. Fashion Week is a calling card for the industry, for designers to sell clothes, for reporters and writers and photographers, and retailers and buyers. It’s a huge, huge industry that was absent in Canada…I came to realize it because I was a designer, and when I stopped and looked up and saw there was nothing happening in this country, I really thought a Fashion Week would be the best attention grabber. It’s been inspirational for the city. It’s wonderful to link art and commerce, to link sponsors with the event and to build our country’s fashion economy. That’s what’s exciting for me.
MTV Games senior director of promotions Kelley Electa is overseeing the Rock Band Live Tour—a traveling concert program to promote the video game Rock Band—which kicks off this weekend in San Diego. A new marketing concept for MTV Games (a division of MTV Networks that creates interactive products for its target audience) and partner AEG, the tour will visit 28 cities across the U.S., plus Toronto, ending in Texas in November. Before the kickoff weekend, we asked Electa about the strategy behind the new program.
Why did you pick the tour format to market the game? We really feel that Rock Band is an authentic music experience, and we wanted to give fans and families a chance to really experience what it's like to perform live rock 'n' roll. We think that can be achieved by partnering up with some great bands whose songs are featured within our game and have a pretty broad appeal to our consumer base and let our consumers get involved with the show from playing Rock Band in their living rooms to playing Rock Band in an actual arena.
Although not all companies are jumping in with both feet, many are producing green events on a one-time basis, to tie into the launch of an eco-related product or service, to promote an earth-friendly theme, or as a way to test a larger-scale green initiative. Here are 10. 1. For a 450-guest holiday party last December, Annika Dukes, marketing manager for Berkeley, California-based architecture firm Noll & Tam, brought Johanna Walsh of Twirl Management on board to give the annual blowout a greener spin. Guests were encouraged to take local commuter train service to the stop nearest Noll & Tam’s office, where shuttles ferried them the remaining two miles to the party. For many menu items, Walsh tracked down local and organic sources. To cut down on waste, she ordered locally brewed beer in kegs rather than individual bottles, and purchased all nonalcoholic drinks in bulk. Biodegradable plates and flatware as well as reusable china and glass tableware were used, and leftover food was either composted or donated.
ABC, like most networks, finds itself in an interesting position this fall. Not only has the departure from the traditional television schedule changed the way audiences think about the new season, the lengthy break in programming caused by the writers’ strike forced some shows off the air for almost a year. Promoting the fall lineup demanded a different strategy, so ABC vice president of advertising and marketing Darren Schillace and his team focused on ways to reacquaint the public with ABC's returning series. The onslaught included a mobile pie shop for comedy Pushing Daisies (whose main character is a pie maker), buying all of the ad pages in a September issue of TV Guide, and creating a seven-day celebration in honor of ABC's new programming. On the eve of the network’s big week, we asked Schillace how he is bringing the many initiatives together.
ABC is calling its big fall campaign "National Stay at Home Week." What are some of the elements you're incorporating into that program? In light of our world today—people not getting on planes or driving as much—we wanted to have some fun in announcing the week of great TV. Stay home, save the gas money, and just enjoy some great ABC television because we’re premiering pretty much our entire network in a week and a half. We wanted to concentrate it all into one pretty package.
This is the last of four profiles of planners who are committed to eco-friendly events.
"I spent a lot of time to understand what running a socially responsible meeting includes,” says Angie Pfeifer, assistant vice president of corporate meetings, travel, and incentives for Investors Group, a Winnipeg, Manitoba-based financial firm. “There’s a lot more time you have to invest up front [for green events].”
Pfeifer plans internal conferences and sales meetings as well as sales incentives, and was recently charged with creating a plan to make the company’s meetings and events sustainable. That includes looking over everything from hotel contracts to banquet menus to vendor credentials to find ways to go green. It’s also her job to delegate specific green-research tasks among the seven-person department: For instance, one staffer might get the task of finding the most cost-effective green printer, while another will create green criteria for hotel RFP forms.
This is the third of four profiles of planners who are committed to eco-friendly events.
For Melissa Gellman Weiss, the toughest part of creating eco-friendly events for fashion brand Theory is finding green products that look as high-end as their conventional counterparts.
“The invitation issue is a big one,” says Weiss, vice president of communications for the New York-based apparel company. “There’s nothing more lauded than engraved or letterpress invites. That’s how you denote how important an event is. If I send you an E-vite, it seems less important.” She tries to split the difference by going for recycled paper and soy inks—classier than email, but not as wasteful as traditional printing.
A big part of her green endeavors is trying to break preconceived notions that elegance needs to be synonymous with conspicuous consumption. “The role we’ve tried to play is that of educating people and acting as a paradigm to illustrate some of the little things you can do,” she says.
This is the second of four profiles of planners who are committed to eco-friendly events.
Julie Lindsey, director of corporate events at the Gap, started looking for ways to green her meetings and events after realizing it was a topic often discussed but rarely tackled. “I participate in a benchmark group of corporate planners,” she says. “We had identified green meetings as a hot topic and no one had a program around it, so I started pulling articles from every magazine and put them into a binder to show people in our company how we can make events greener.”
Getting fellow planners and even higher-ups at the clothing giant on board wasn’t difficult—but vendors have been another story. “Sometimes we have to push harder because hotels aren’t into it,” Lindsey says. Boutique properties, with their smaller vendor networks and ability to be more flexible in their sourcing, tend to be more receptive than some of the bigger players. “We have to ask them for clearly marked recycling containers, for glasses instead of disposable cups, and for nontoxic housecleaning materials,” she says.
This is the first in a series of four profiles of planners who are committed to eco-friendly events.
In 2007, Hollace Davids created an eco-friendly premiere for the Steve Carell comedy Evan Almighty. After the event, though, the senior vice president of special projects at Universal Pictures realized she had the chance to make all of the studio’s events more eco-friendly. “Once we set that precedent we didn’t want to go backwards,” she says. “These high-profile events are excellent opportunities to highlight the fact that going green is doable.”
The 4,000-guest Evan Almighty premiere used recycled paper and soy ink for invitations and other printed materials, and recyclable and biodegradable tableware. Fresh fruit and baby trees in the centerpieces were distributed to guests after the event. Guests also got the chance to purchase a tree that would be planted to offset the carbon footprint of their attendance, and the reusable gift bags included a sheet of eco-friendly tips and a CFL lightbulb, donated by Universal’s parent company, General Electric.
FIRST STEP INSIDE THE KITCHEN Chef Adam Votaw's love for the restaurant business began at an early age, when his father made a drastic career change from engineer to restaurateur in his hometown of Dayton, Ohio. Owning a number of mom-and-pop-style establishments, Votaw's father immersed his son in the business, taking him to work daily and encouraging him to learn the ins and outs of every aspect of operations, experience that would prove vital in years to come. Upon graduating from New York's Culinary Institute of America in 1984, Votaw furthered his education by working abroad under master chefs Albert and Michel Roux at the esteemed Le Gavroche in London, where he received classic French training, including learning the art of creating sophisticated pastries. A return to the States landed Votaw a short stint as executive pastry chef at the venerable Le Chardon D'or in Alexandria, Virginia, before he assumed the position of executive chef at Cafe L'Europe in Palm Beach. This move to Florida proved pivotal, as Votaw became enamored with Latin cuisine and South Florida's cornucopia of fruits and vegetables. Now with more than 25 years' experience, Votaw takes his progression naturally. BASIC STATS Corporate Chef: Adam Votaw Company: Noble House at La Playa Beach & Gulf Resort in Naples Years in the Industry: 25 How long have you been with Noble House? I've been with Noble House for five years now and am currently working on to develop Circa 59 inside the renovated Riviera Hotel and Spa in Palm Springs for the Noble House Collection.
This Sunday the Primetime Emmy awards move to the Nokia Theater from the Shrine. Renato "Ron" Basile is in his fourth year of producing the show; we asked him about moving the ceremoney to its new home.
What production changes or challenges have you faced due to the move? Any time you go into any new venue, there’s always going to be a challenge because you have to conform. The show has been at the Shrine for the past 20-something years, and it conformed to that space. There are pros and cons—there’s no proscenium at the Nokia like there would be at the Shrine—it’s basically a square box on a stage. There’s no close-down curtain. But then there’s a larger stage and three access points. It’s a balance. There’s a triple loading dock at the Nokia, and one at the Shrine. There’s parking for 8,000 across the way [at Nokia] and there were [a hodgepodge of smaller parking lots serving] the Shrine.
