| EVENT REPORT 04.28.08 4:02 PM |
|
New Slate of Coachella Party Hosts Increases Nighttime Offerings
|
 | Anthem magazine's Coachella pool party
Photo: BizBash |
|
FROM INDIO, CALIF. Since the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which wrapped yesterday after a three-day run at the Empire Polo Field in Indio, dependably reinvents itself every year, it's perhaps not a surprise that the brands that host piggybacking parties in the desert also change and evolve.
DKNY Jeans, which set up a multiday pool party at a luxury home last year, sat out this year's go round, as did Hugo Boss. "It's just hard to find the right house very close to the fields," said Hugo Boss Fashions' New York-based vice president of marketing and PR, Katja Douedari, who oversaw Boss's event series in 2007. "Loved the Mod Resort last year, but it's a long drive. And if you can't do it right, then better not do it all." (Nevertheless, Douedari made the trip out to the desert for some non-work-related fun.)
So what brands did have the strongest presence in 2008?
MORE >>
RELATED TOPICS
Coachella, GQ, Anthem Magazine, Gap, Etnies, T-Mobile, Sidekick, Condé Nast, Heineken, Newcastle, Belvedere Vodka, The Fader, Boost Mobile, Le Sportsac, Levi's, Wet n Wild, Adidas, Jeremy Scott |
 |
| NEWS 04.18.08 3:40 PM |
|
Coachella to Feature New Amenities On Site, New Brands for Parties Off Site
|
 | The crowded festival grounds in 2007
Photo: BizBash |
|
Next weekend, many of the Los Angeles residents who fall into a certain demographic (loosely defined as young and music-minded, most with hipster affiliations and some disposable income), will flee the city for the desert in the annual pilgrimage known as the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
The festival at the Empire Polo Field, which noticeably works to reinvent itself annually, will bring with it some first-time initiatives (not to mention the last-minute add of Prince to the lineup). New for this year will be an expanded lobby area at the entrance, which will offer lockers, vendors, restrooms, and water fountains; the area will leave more room on the main polo field for people to mingle, as the space has become increasingly crowded. Also new: Coachella will offer fancy camping packages—tent options including beds, a breakfast buffet, and even air conditioning against the desert heat. Also, as we already reported, festival organizer Goldenvoice has partnered with Amtrak on a shuttle for campers between L.A. and Indio, one of many environmentally friendly projects underway for the festival.
MORE >>
RELATED TOPICS
Coachella, Amtrak, GQ, Condé Nast, Anthem Magazine, Gap, T-Mobile, Sidekick, PlayStation, SingStar, Goldenvoice, Going Green |
|
| EVENT REPORT 09.10.07 4:46 PM |
|
MTV VMA Parties Embrace Vegas Style
|
 | Held at the Pearl Concert Theater in the Palms Hotel and Casino, the VMAs were more intimate this year, and shorter, coming in at a little over two hours.
Photo: Getty Images |
|
FROM LAS VEGAS In hopes of revitalizing a franchise that has seen considerable drops in ratings and reputation in the past few years, MTV took its Video Music Awards to Las Vegas on Sunday for the first time since the awards’ 1984 inception.
With its own reputation as a glittering, all-night, no-holds-barred city, Las Vegas proved to be an appropriate milieu for the 72-plus-hour barrage of bashes related to the main event. And flush with new nightclubs, the city—which embraces its reputation for wild antics as much as the show does—provided plenty of party-ready locations.
During the show itself, MTV found that along with the celebrities, publicists, and marketers that followed its move to the desert came a series of gaffes. Although Britney Spears’s amateurish opening performance certainly got people talking, it was widely considered a bomb. Later, technical glitches and mic failures abounded.
Producers reinvented the show’s format, flipping between the ceremony in the new Pearl Concert Theater in the Palms hotel and live video snippets from a series of satellite concert-house party hybrids filmed throughout the property. (With the broadcast’s coverage of so much of the Palms’s space, viewers could hardly be blamed for thinking they were watching a two-hour commercial for the hotel.) One highlight of the proceedings was Chris Brown’s performance, which had the singer and his backup dancers leaping among the glowing circular platforms on the main floor of the Pearl.
Going on around the show was a weekend-long party lineup managed largely by New York- and Los Angeles-based planners and vendors—perhaps not surprisingly, given that many of the events’ hosts were magazines and brands based in those cities. The majority of event organizers relied on Las Vegas’s wealth of over-the-top, highly publicized new venues to impress guests, rather than use heavy production to make a big impact.
MORE >>
RELATED TOPICS
MTV, MTV Video Music Awards, Rolling Stone, Maxim, GQ, Xbox, Samsung |
|
 |
|
| EVENT REPORT 05.09.07 12:00 AM |
|
Stoli Pop-Up Hotel Books Month of Parties
|
 | | Photo: BizBash |
|
The kickoff party for the Stoli Hotel pop-up felt like the grand opening for a hot new boutique property. That ’70s Show actor Danny Masterson DJ’ed for a sampling of celebs (the likes of pre-jail Paris Hilton, Andy Dick, Bai Ling, and James Blunt), some guests lounged on ottomans and lingered around the Stoli-only bar, and others opted for spa services. But this isn’t a real hotel—it’s a smart marketing idea from the Stolichnaya vodka brand.
MORE >>
RELATED TOPICS
Pop-Ups, Stolichnaya, Gen Art, GQ, Los Angeles Confidential, Playboy, In Style Magazine, AIDS Project Los Angeles |
|
|
