| Q & A 04.30.09 12:41 PM |
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Joel Hock Takes Celebrity Car Rally to L.A., Miami to Raise Funds for Kids With Cancer
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 | Solutions With Impact's Joel Hock
Photo: Charlie Gallay/Getty Images |
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FROM TORONTO
Last fall, Joel Hock, founder and president of the Toronto-based event management firm Solutions With Impact, produced an event to benefit the Hospital for Sick Children. Called the Car Rally for Kids With Cancer, the two-day event, held during the Toronto International Film Festival, paired luxury-car owners with celebrity navigators for an interactive scavenger hunt across the city. Drivers had to raise $25,000 to enter the contest, and the event raised more than $1.2 million for the hospital.
This weekend, Hock hopes to duplicate that success in Los Angeles, where Eva Longoria Parker is the event chair for the city's first Car Rally. The benefit—in support of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and Padres Contra El Cáncer, a nonprofit organization that supports families of Latino children with cancer—kicks off with a launch party at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel Friday and concludes with a gala dinner Saturday night at a $30 million private home in Beverly Hills (owned by Bill Phillips of Transformation.com). With another Car Rally slated to run in Toronto this September, and Las Vegas and Miami incarnations in the works, we spoke with Hock about expanding the event.
Why did you decide to take the event national this year?
I think the event itself works from a fund-raising standpoint. People, once they understand it, want to get involved. And kids with cancer is a cause that hits home whether it’s in L.A., Vegas, Miami, or Toronto. In my opinion, the cure is just around the corner and all it takes is money. This event is driven by the participants.
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RELATED TOPICS
Hospital for Sick Children, Eva Longoria Parker, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Wonderwall, MSN, E! Entertainment, Access Hollywood, L.A. Confidential Magazine |
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| NEWS 11.19.08 5:25 PM |
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Corporate Holiday Party Update: L.A. Live Will Host Comcast Celebration for Thousands of Employees Plus Celebs
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One major Los Angeles-based company still planning a holiday party is Comcast Entertainment Group, parent of the E!, Style, and G4 cable networks. Invitations are not yet out, but the party will take to an L.A. Live venue on December 9 at 8 p.m. Employees may each bring a guest, so the total guest count is likely to be in the thousands. (Ahead of last year's party, Comcast president and C.E.O. Ted Harbert circulated an email to staffers inviting their opinions on whether the company should allow them to bring guests.)
"Everyone is looking forward to it," a network employee told us about the December 9 celebration. "Last year they had casino games, which was totally fun. People are actually really excited, and they do dress up and everyone looks pretty hot. Everyone's on the lookout for celebs, who sometimes snag an invite to the party if they've worked with E! I do think it's important for employee morale. Spouses are invited, which is always fun to introduce your co-workers to your partner, and they've done a good job with the party in the past." —Alesandra Dubin
RELATED TOPICS
Comcast, E! Entertainment, Style Network, G4, Corporate Holiday Parties |
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| NEWS 09.12.08 3:15 PM |
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KITT Car Stolen During Knight Rider Fan Event
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FROM TORONTO
A KITT car—the vehicle originally made popular during the 1980s television series Knight Rider—was stolen during a free public event outside Union Station today. A video posted on YouTube this afternoon shows footage of a man running towards the car after a driver positioned it for a stunt performance. The man jumped into the driver's seat and sped off, heading east along Front Street.
A Canwest employee confirmed the auto theft in an email. The car made several appearances—sponsored by E! and Canwest Broadcasting—around town this week to promote the new Knight Rider series that debuts later this month.
The theft could, of course, be part of the stunt; when we called the Toronto police, the officer we spoke to could not confirm that the car had been stolen. —Susan O'Neill
RELATED TOPICS
E! Entertainment, Canwest Broadcasting, Knight Rider |
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| ASK BIZBASH 09.08.08 9:00 AM |
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Who Can Produce a Cool Tribute Video?
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 | Stills from a variety of tribute videos.
Photo: Courtesy of Lifefilm (top), Courtesy of Madprops (middle), Courtesy of Raw Films (bottom) |
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Honoring a retiring exec or an award winner with a video about their life’s work is a great idea, but only if the piece doesn’t move guests to check their BlackBerries or sneak off to the restroom. Here are three companies that specialize in these types of films and, if asked, will travel to make it happen.
With more than 20 years of combined film and television industry experience, Lifefilm Productions co-founders Peilin Chou and John Brancaccio use the same production professionals they worked with at companies such as Walt Disney Studios, MTV Networks, ESPN, and Bravo to craft their celebratory docs. The firm prides itself on delivering broadcast-quality, story-driven films that are truly entertaining. Past clients include C-level execs from Hasbro and real estate developer S.R. Weiner. Rates start at $5,000, with longer and more intensive projects ranging from $10,000 to $20,000.
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RELATED TOPICS
Walt Disney Company, MTV, ESPN, Bravo, Academy Awards, Saturday Night Live, VH1, A&E, E! Entertainment, NBC, Clinton Global Initiative, Miramax, Hasbro |
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| ASK BIZBASH 07.30.08 11:00 AM |
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How Do You Make Out-of-Towners Feel Welcome?
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 | The Orange County Museum of Art's "The Birth of Cool" exhibit.
Photo: Carla Rhea Photography |
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Whether it’s a C.E.O. or hundreds of attendees coming to L.A., guests always appreciate a little local hospitality. Here are ways to thank people for coming, entertain them, or simply help them get oriented.
For Mattel’s third annual Leading Edge Seminar meeting held in December at the toy manufacturer’s El Segundo offices, senior manager of meeting and planning services Kelly Johnsen welcomed 45 of the company’s vice presidents from three states and five countries. After a day of back-to-back seminars, Johnsen took the group to Orange County, where she arranged for stays at the St. Regis Hotel and booked the Orange County Museum of Art so that guests could peruse its “The Birth of Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury” exhibit in private. “Most of our attendees don’t have the time to take a trip down south when they are in our corporate office for business, so this is a nice getaway for them, as well as a productive meeting,” she says. As a memento, Johnsen left a 300-page book about the exhibit in each guest’s hotel room.
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RELATED TOPICS
Mattel, E! Entertainment, Sundance, Toyota |
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| GUEST QUESTIONS 12.13.07 4:42 PM |
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CEG Employees Like Holiday Party Games, Snoop Dogg
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 | Guests gambled at the CEG holiday party.
Photo: BizBash |
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It’s corporate holiday party time, so we’re checking in with employees to see what they think about their company’s bashes. (That’s the point, right?) Here’s our first report of the season.
About 2,500 Comcast Entertainment Group employees and their guests converged at the Sony Pictures Studios on Tuesday. The event marked the first holiday party under the consolidated company CEG—which joins E! Entertainment, the Style Network, and G4—and treated attendees to casino games using fake money, margarita bars (featuring drinks made according to CEG president and C.E.O. Ted Harbert's personal recipe), and some star sightings (Snoop Dogg made an appearance and wished guests happy holidays toward the end of the evening).
Some guests shared their opinions on the party, as well as their thoughts on how it compared to their last corporate bash:
“It’s been very hard to get everybody in the Comcast company together at one time, so it’s great to have everybody in one room. Clinton Sparks is always a phenomenal DJ. We had him at the summer party as well, and he’s always awesome to have. We have Snoop Dogg in the house tonight, which is kind of random and fun and everybody seems to be really excited about that. The lights are pretty, the atmosphere is very festive, and the drinks are great. Everyone’s getting crunked.”
—Jacey Dupree, assistant to the producers/talent, E! News and Daily 10, E! Entertainment
“Oh, my god, this is about a bajillion times better than last year’s G4 party. It’s a large atmosphere with fun gaming, great drinks, and food. The desserts have been amazing. Pumpkin cheesecake is awesome. I have one negative: The Style Channel people are way too fashionable. All the people from the Style Channel are so hot. They make the people from G4 look like the nerds that we really are.”
—Chris Gore, host, Attack of the Show, G4, 32
“At the last holiday party we had for G4, they opened the doors to the public at 10 o’clock. We were there for a couple of hours and then the general public comes in and it’s like, ‘What happened to our party?’ It’s like night and day with this party. This is a real party and it makes you feel good because we deserve this. We work hard.”
—Robert Medina, G4 and E! Entertainment, camera operator, 37
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RELATED TOPICS
C.E.G., E! Entertainment, Style Network, G4, Corporate Holiday Parties |
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| EVENT REPORT 11.07.07 11:35 AM |
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Wish Night Gala Resuscitates Monkees Music
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 | Micky Dolenz of the Monkees.
Photo: John Heller |
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If heartstring-tugging wasn't enough incentive for guests to turn up at the Make-A-Wish Foundation's eighth annual Wish Night gala at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Friday, there was at least one rarely seen entertainer in the room to keep things interesting: Monkees veteran Micky Dolenz. “We wanted to spice it up this year, and we had a dance floor—something that we haven’t done in the past,” said the org's special events director, Tessa Bowser. M.C. Joel McHale also brought his controversial, cheeky sense of humor to the mix.
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RELATED TOPICS
Make-A-Wish Foundation, E! Entertainment |
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| EVENT REPORT 11.01.07 7:12 PM |
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Environmental Media Awards Grow TV Broadcast
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 | The awards' colorful stage set.
Photo: Alex Berliner/Berliner Studio/BEImages |
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The Environmental Media Association has always been about congratulating Hollywood. Now, with its 17th annual Environmental Media Awards ceremony on October 24, the EMA is going more Hollywood than ever by growing its E! broadcast. (Last year's broadcast was only 30 minutes, and the show had previously not been televised.) The event kicked off with a two-hour taping of the award show hailing film, television, and entertainment-industry activists for spreading the word about green living. The ceremony at the Ebell Club of Los Angeles will be shown on the E! network on November 7. Debbie Levin, the nonprofit’s executive director, and Ian Stewart of Done and Dusted served as executive producers of the event.
The star-spangled ceremony, which honored Al Gore, Trudie Styler, Sienna Miller, and longtime event sponsor Toyota, began an hour later than its scheduled 6 p.m. start, to allow hip-hop band the Roots time to rehearse. But event producer Patie Maloney, the organization’s vice president, steeled the 950 guests for the long slog ahead with organic raisins and chips from event sponsor Earthbound Farm.
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RELATED TOPICS
Environmental Media Association, Environmental Media Awards, Going Green, Toyota, E! Entertainment |
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