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We know you're always looking for new ideas, products, and strategies. So let us help. Whether you're looking for creative ways to present silent auction items, food trucks that serve tacos until 2 a.m., or performers who can juggle fire and sing opera, we want to hear your questions—however random or specific they may be. Email queries to style editor Lisa Cericola at lcericola@bizbash.com. Some may be selected—and answered—for upcoming stories.
Jessica Welle, president of Green Planet Events Photo: Gary James for BizBash
After 13 years at Maritime Telecommunications Network, Jessica Welle left her post as the satellite communications company’s director of purchasing and logistics in January to pursue a career in the event business—an interest she’d cultivated working on parties for friends and family. A self-proclaimed “green freak,” Welle opened Green Planet Events in February. “I didn’t want to be the same event planner as everyone else [in the market], and [green events] was a good niche for me,” she says. “There is so much waste produced from events that this seemed like a natural way to help the planet.”
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Saab's exhibit space displaying its 2010 Saab 9-5 Photo: BizBash
Yesterday the South Florida International Auto Show wrapped up its 10-day exhibition, which began on October 23, at the Miami Beach Convention Center. The 39th annual show's total square footage shrank by about 40,000 square feet—to approximately 350,000 square feet—from last year, and organizers saw an increase of nearly 45 percent in discount ticket sales.
"Historically, about 20 to 25 percent of people [attending the show] use a discount ticket," said Richard Baker, president of the South Florida Automobile Dealers Association, which organizes the trade show every year. "This year more than 65 percent of people are using our $2-off ticket. They're going out of their way to get it."
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Budgeting for the coming year is well under way, and planners seem to have good thoughts about what they'll be working with in 2010. In last week's poll, 41 percent of participants said they're expecting bigger budgets than they received in 2009, while another 33 percent think their budgets will be about the same. Fewer than 1 in 5 readers expect tighter budgets, and just 7 percent still aren't sure.
This week we'd like to gauge your feelings on invitations and which kinds feel most appropriate these days. Have your say in this week's poll, which is in the left column of the home page.
TV commercial star Kylie introduced Microsoft C.E.O. Steve Ballmer at the Windows 7 launch. Photo: Richard Koek
FROM NEW YORK Given Microsoft's enormous customer base—a January 2009 report put the technology giant's market share at 88 percent—when it launches a product, there's always a certain amount of buzz surrounding it. But rather than replicate the elaborate marketing stunt it produced for the debut of the Windows Vista operating system, Microsoft took a simpler approach to the press event introducing Windows 7. Inside Skylight Thursday, October 22, some 340 journalists, software testers, and executives from hardware manufacturing partners gathered for a six-hour launch that combined art gallery-style exhibits with live demonstrations and product vignettes.
"We wanted to create an event that represented the product and be mindful of the current state of the economy and the broad consumer mindset. So we set a tone that was simple, approachable, and authentic while demonstrating the excitement we all feel for Windows 7," said Windows group marketing manager Ed Chase, who led the planning of the project. To pull it off, Chase collaborated with Pinnacle Exhibits and a crew of other local and West Coast companies.
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Mustachioed participants at a 2008 Movember party Photo: Courtesy of the Movember Foundation
Movember, an Australian nonprofit that raises money and awareness for men's cancers via mass mustache growth each November, comes from fairly fortuitous beginnings. In its first year, founders just sprouted their whiskers for fun, before realizing the conversations started by ironic facial hair could have a positive effect.
"It just came to us over some beers on a Sunday night in Melbourne," said Movember co-founder Adam Garone. "The original idea was just to bring them back for a joke, and 30 of our friends participated for no particular reason that November. Every guy had a lot of fun, but all of us had gotten grief from bosses and girlfriends over the month."
That was 2003. Garone and his friends had enough fun with their month of mustaches to try it again the next year, but to placate their friends and colleagues, they decided to make it a fund-raising effort.
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Stay at Lincoln, a boutique hotel and temporary residence, offers a unique location on Miami Beach for cocktail parties, intimate outdoor events, and overnight stays. Within a residential area of South Beach, the hotel is located just a block from Lincoln Road and within walking distance to the beach.
With just nine units, the former condominium building caters to executives with stays for a night, a week, or multiple months. Each room is outfitted with a full kitchen, living area, desk, and sleeping area.
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Helen Devore Waukazoo on the podium with Maria Shriver at the Minerva Awards Photo: Gold/Wong
FROM LOS ANGELES It might be said that 2009 is a year that created a particular need for inspiration and community support—especially in a state like California, where budget shortfalls and the unemployment rate have become notorious. Either in spite of or because of that climate, California's first lady, Maria Shriver, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Women's Conference once again drew masses of women from all over the state to join a packed roster of about 70 high-level speakers and participants at the Long Beach Convention Center.
This year, the program ballooned from a single day to two full days—to accommodate the increasing number of would-be attendees. (Each year, full-day passes to the conference sell out in record time. Tickets this year sold out in less than two hours, beating last year's record of three.) The first day's program, a Day of Transformation, served as somewhat more informal programming, with two 1,500-attendee sessions and six 400-person breakout sessions. "We were getting so much feedback from people who wanted to participate and have access," said executive producer Alexandra Gleysteen. "It's a way to get more hands-on information—how to get a new job, start a nonprofit—all in a spiritual context and a serene environment. It's on a different scale, more intimate, than the main program."
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Waterford Targets More Marketing Mileage With New Year's Ball: Since bringing its signature bling to the New Year's ball drop in New York in 1999, Waterford has been an active partner in the globally watched event. But now the Irish crystal company wants more recognition for that contribution. An upgraded six-ton ball—made of 2,268 Waterford crystals and backlit by 32,256 Philips LEDs—will debut this December after a $2.5 million print advertising campaign. Waterford also committed to an upgraded sponsorship deal, in hopes that some of the one billion people who catch the ball drop this year will also notice who made it. [BrandFreak]
Events Boost Essence Image: Not all magazines are downplaying events, and Essence is even earning praise for them. The title was chosen as one of Advertising Age's top 10 for the year, and the trade credits the Essence Music Festival for being such an appealing brand to marketers. The New Orleans concert series, held over Independence Day weekend, saw 428,000 attendees—up significantly from the already impressive 270,000 it hosted the year before. [AdAge]
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Models preparing to unveil new Porsche Panamera Photo: Seth Browarnik/Red Eye Productions
Luxury cars took center stage in Miami last week as Porsche launched its newest model and Infiniti unveiled a concept car at separate events within 24 hours of each other. To host their parties on October 21 and 22, respectively, the brands partnered with brands such as Piaget, Jimmy Choo, and W Hotels.
On Wednesday, Coral Gables luxury car dealership the Collection hosted the South Florida launch of the Porsche Panamera, the company’s first four-door model, with a party for nearly 500. “The Panamera is a very substantial entry into the [luxury car] marketplace, so it’s very important to showcase the car and launch it to this market,” said Ken Gorin, president of the Collection. Gorin added that the Collection is one of the largest Porsche dealerships in the world and highest in sales.
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