| 08.28.08 3:10 PM |
ISES Eventworld Goes On Despite Tropical Storm Threat
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 | Event professionals from across the world gathered in St. Petersburg for ISES Eventworld, despite the nearby tropical storm.
BizBash |
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FROM TAMPA BAY
Tropical Storm Fay may have made things a bit soggier, but the International Special Events Society's Eventworld, the organization's annual international conference, continued last Thursday through Saturday at the Renaissance Vinoy Resort & Golf Club in St. Petersburg and received rave reviews from attendees:
"It was a wonderful success for us as a company and personally. We showcased our products, including the launch of our new InterAct TV, and had a great response from attendees." -J.C. York, director of client services, Wise Guys
"I was actually the entertainment chair for Eventworld, so I got to work with committee to plan the three days, served as entertainment sponsor for the opening session and Esprit Awards Gala, and was there as an attendee; so I was really involved from all sides. Overall, I thought it was very well coordinated by event staff and the Vinoy and extremely well attended, despite the tropical storm and travel issues." -Dorene Collier, president of Event Show Productions
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| 08.05.08 2:43 PM |
Sponsors and "Free Sh*t" Abound at Metromix.com's Lollapalooza Music Lounge
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 | Metromix.com's Music Lounge
Photo: Red Eye Productions |
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FROM CHICAGO
From August 1 through August 3, otherwise known as Lollapalooza weekend, Chicago's Hard Rock Hotel became "the Music Lounge Presented by Metromix.com," a crowd-and-heat respite for artists, media, industry folks, and V.I.P. ticket holders. Open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, the lounge was produced by BMF Media and located across the street from Grant Park.
Daytime activities, which took place on two levels, included everything from Guitar Hero to complimentary tattoos and gifting suites. At the temporary Eastsport Café, sponsored by the bag manufacturer, guests took advantage of free China Grill-catered lunches, Bustelo coffee drinks, and Ciroc-spiked cocktails with thematic names like the Diddy. Rock the Vote Nights, also presented by Metromix.com, overtook the Music Lounge from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. each evening, featuring performances from the likes of Samantha Ronson.
With the Ciroc cocktails flowing and the music pumping, guests seemed to be in high spirits; some even offered hugs in lieu of comments. Those who did speak up, however, had plenty to say about swag, sponsorship, and the lounge's "vibe."
"This whole experience makes me feel like a kid in a sweets shop. I'm just taking in everything with a little look here, a little taste there. My favorite part of the gifting suite? I'd say the bling [Skullcandy gave out necklaces with silver or gold skull-shaped charms.] That's what we all need: bling, bling, bling."
—Satin Singh, percussionist for Mark Ronson
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RELATED TOPICS
Bustelo, Ciroc, Eastsport, Metromix.com, Rock the Vote |
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| 05.31.07 7:30 PM |
A Media Buyer Gives Her Take on Upfront Week
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 | | Our Upfront Week mole posing with Justin Chambers of Grey's Anatomy at the ABC after-party. |
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FROM NEW YORK
We gathered lots of
media buyers’ impressions of Upfront Week, and as a whole, they tell a hectic, fun,
sometimes contradictory story of the television networks’ annual sales pitches.
For more consistent (yet just as subjective) view, we asked a supervisor at a
major media buying firm to share her thoughts, day by day. Here's her take.
Monday
3 p.m., NBC
presentation, Radio City Music Hall
It was fair. No one was really buzzing about the shows
except Journeyman. They didn’t touch
on their extensions like late-night and morning programming too much, and I
think everyone was kind of grateful for that. They cut to the chase with the presentation.
5 p.m., NBC
after-party, the Rink at Rockefeller Center
All the talent was at the party. [The casts] of Friday Night Lights, The
Office, Heroes, and new shows
like Journeyman and Life. The party was like it’s always
been: It’s really nice because it’s at Rockefeller Center, and it’s never too
crowded. When I walked in, four people from The
Office were just standing there.
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RELATED TOPICS
Upfront Week, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, The CW |
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| 05.31.07 6:33 PM |
Media Buyers Like Shrimp, Debate Whose Is Best
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 | ABC opened its upfront with an Ugly Betty musical number.
ABC/Donna Svennevik |
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FROM NEW YORK
Every May, a swarm of media buyers, ad execs,
talent, and other assorted television-industry types hits New York for Upfront
Week, the broadcast networks’ yearly presentations of their fall schedules. In
the hope of snagging millions in advertising dollars, the usually hard-sell
presentations are star-studded, and often stat-studded. And the parties that
follow are staged to wow, with plenty of photo ops with network talent,
mountains of shrimp, and free-flowing booze. While both attendees and the press
noted some fiscal restraint on the part of the networks this year, the
broadcasters weren’t exactly serving Saltines and cold cuts. After all, Advertising Age called Upfront Week a
“$9 billion annual event that is the financial pivot of the prime-time TV
business.”
NBC kicked off the week at Radio City Music Hall, promising
to “skip the song and dance” and get people out in under an hour and a half
(they did). CBS showed its wares at Carnegie Hall, with help from CSI: Miami star David Caruso, who was
happy to make fun of his on-screen persona. Pushing the multiplatform angle,
the net also aired a YouTube video of Caruso’s over-the-top one-liners on CSI and had ad sales president JoAnn
Ross address the crowd as an avatar. At Avery Fisher Hall, ABC staged a boffo
opening musical number starring the cast of Ugly
Betty and wrapped the presentation by giving away a plasma-screen TV (a
tie-in to the net’s upcoming show National
Bingo Night) and filling the theater with a thunderous marching band. Fox
kept it short and sweet, enlisting Keifer Sutherland to pretape a presentation
addressing Fox entertainment president Peter Liguori as 24’s Jack Bauer. (“Keep it to an hour. ... You’re on the clock, Mr.
President.”) In possibly a record for any upfront presentation, that’s all the
network took. (Perhaps it was a mea culpa: Last year’s clocked in at an
agonizing three hours.) Among the other networks vying for attention and ad
buys were Telemundo, Univision, the CW, ESPN, and Broadband Enterprises.
So how did they do? Did the networks get their money’s
worth? Well, our opinions don’t really matter, so we sought out the ones that
do: those of the attendees who slosh through the overcrowded week each year.
(“If you cut my finger off,” one high-level ad buyer said, “you can count the
rings of how many upfronts I’ve been to.”) Here’s what they had to say,
sometimes on the record, sometimes under the cover of anonymity, and sometimes
as they spoke to another guest, not realizing we were listening.
MORE >>
RELATED TOPICS
Upfront Week, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, The CW, ESPN |
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