BizBash | Events * Meetings * Marketing * Style * Strategy * Ideas

Film Independent, the nonprofit arts organization that produces the Spirit Awards and the Los Angeles Film Festival, announced Thursday that the 2010 Spirit Awards will be held on Friday, March 5, in a tent on the event deck at L.A. Live—a departure from the show's typical home on the day before the Academy Awards and its most recent Santa Monica location. This time the awards will be handed out two days before the Oscars, which are scheduled for Sunday, March 7.

Over the past 25 years, the event has been held at various locations in Los Angeles, including the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, Beverly Hills Hotel, Hollywood Palladium, and the Santa Monica beach.

"We wanted to do something very special and different for the 25th anniversary by holding the only late-night awards show, where our audience can tune in live at 11 p.m. on the East Coast," said Film Independent executive director Dawn Hudson in the announcement. "Our new venue will still have the laid-back, no-holds-barred atmosphere that only the independent film community can create." Some are nevertheless already speculating the move could change the independent character of the event. MORE >>

Film Independent, Spirit Awards, L.A. Live, Netflix, Elle, Piaget, Acura, Jameson, IFC

FROM THE EDITORS 06.16.09 11:01 AM

The 2009 BizBash L.A. Event Style Award Winners

Ellen DeGeneres's 50th Birthday Party
Photo: Courtesy of Warner Brothers Special Events

On Friday, we posted a list of winners of BizBash's 2009 Event Style Awards, which were announced on Thursday at a ceremony following our annual expo at the L.A. Mart. Here's more on the winning work.

Best Corporate Event Concept (Over $50,000)
Ellen DeGeneres's 50th Birthday Party
Submitted by Warner Brothers Special Events
To celebrate the TV host’s birthday and her move from NBC to Warner Brothers Studios, Telepictures Productions hosted a celebration that doubled as a segment for the comedian’s show. Organizers designed a vintage carnival and incorporated her favorite things, including dancing and games, as well as some celebrity guests. MORE >>

Warner Brothers, Emirates Airlines, The Simpsons, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Stanford Cancer Center, Marriott International, Essilor, Autry Museum, Recording Academy, Grammys, Target, Converse, MTV Movie Awards, Chevy, Netflix, Film Independent, Spirit Awards, Event Style Awards

Q & A 12.17.07 2:18 PM

Netflix's Ken Ross Woos Nascar Dads With Concerts and Screenings

Netflix's Ken Ross
Photo: Courtesy of Ken Ross

All this month we're bringing you Q&As with our 2007 Event Strategists of the Year. Here's the third.

Events have proven to be an effective weapon in Netflix’s fight against the entertainment giant Blockbuster. They add a real-life component to an online-only service, giving members and non-members alike an opportunity to experience the brand. This year, Ken Ross, 54, Netflix vice president of corporate communications, and his five-person team launched an offensive with its summer concert series entitled “Netflix Live! On Location,” which paired movie classics with musical performances by the films’ featured stars—in the cities where the movies were filmed. (Think Dennis Quaid performing in New Orleans, followed by a screening of The Big Easy.) The event achieved two of Ross’s strategic objectives: bringing Los Gatos, California-based Netflix to a mass audience, and generating national buzz.

What was the evolution of Live! On Location?
In 2006, we launched Netflix Rolling Roadshow, a series of outdoor screenings in locations made famous by the movies that we were screening. For example, we screened Jaws on the beach in Martha’s Vineyard and Field of Dreams on the baseball field in Iowa where the movie was filmed. We were lucky enough to persuade Kevin Costner to bring his band to Dyersville and do a concert before the screening. We had 6,000 people there, and the Iowa Highway Patrol had to close the roads. It was the first time in the 18 years since Kevin made the movie that he was back there. It was the perfect blend of brand, star, and consumer experience.

In the process of working with Kevin, we discovered that there are a number of celebrities who are pursuing a musical avocation as well. So this year we decided to build a program around that. And we decided on fewer events. As wonderful as Rolling Roadshow was, it wasn’t lost on us that the Field of Dreams event swamped all of the other events combined from a news standpoint, and that’s an essential component of our strategy. So we had three events this year, versus 10 last year. MORE >>

Event Strategists of the Year, Netflix

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