| EVENT REPORT 06.03.09 1:55 PM |
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Spin and Canon Give Readers Cameras to Document Free Girl Talk Concert
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 | Girl Talk (a.k.a. Gregg Gillis) on stage at Hiro
Photo: Courtesy of Spin |
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As the suffering magazine industry looks for ways to get more out of relationships with advertisers, Spin and Canon capped off a long-gestating project on Thursday. About 250 readers got free tickets to a performance by the sample-dependent DJ who goes by Girl Talk (a.k.a. Gregg Gillis) at Hiro Ballroom, where 50 even received free Canon cameras to chronicle the dance party.
When the show concluded just before midnight, the camera-wielding guests lined up at two notebook computers to share their images with the magazine. "The entrants who submitted the best Girl Talk and live music images were chosen by the editors at Spin," said the magazine's event director, Barbara Lang, who'd been involved with the advertising program since its inception in early 2009. "Now they get to see their work on Spin.com."
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Spin, Canon, Girl Talk, Coachella |
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| NEWS 04.22.09 2:16 PM |
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In the News: Coachella Attendance Stays Strong, TARP Wife Reveals Event Secrets
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Event Professionals Plan Rally: Event advocacy group Keep America Meeting will participate in demonstrations in support of travel, meetings, and events during the upcoming National Tourism Week. The U.S. Travel Association is staging a U.S. Travel Rally Day on May 12 in cities throughout the United States. Organizers at both U.S.T.A. and Keep America Meeting hope the first in-person showing of the grassroots initiative will raise awareness about the local economic value of meeting and event travel. [TIA.org]
Coachella Attendance Up: Due in part to a new layaway plan for ticket purchases, this weekend's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California, saw its second highest attendance since starting a decade ago. According to promoter Goldenvoice, 160,000 showed up over the course of three days, pulling in 25,000 fewer than 2007 but more than in 2008. The numbers are good news for weary sponsors and promoters of big summer festivals like Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo. [NYT]
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U.S. Travel Association, Keep America Meeting, Coachella, Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, TARP |
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| EVENT REPORT 04.20.09 3:33 PM |
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Marketers Consider Coachella Too Important to Skip in Lean Times
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 | T-Mobile's late-night hangar party
Photo: Polk Imaging/FilmMagic |
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FROM LOS ANGELES
Ask any marketer with a presence at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and he’ll tell you that the opportunity to promote in the desert during the festival weekend is unmissable and nonnegotiable—even in a downturn. Chalk it up to the sheer concentration of well-connected and enthusiastic music industry folks, fans, and friends captive in the middle of the desert, or to the extreme temperatures and terrain, or to the totally immersive quality of the whole thing—but the attendant brands felt they couldn't afford to be left out, even if this year's economic climate made sponsorship participation and overall budget dollars tougher to wrangle. The festival kicked off on Friday and wrapped Sunday night in Indio.
“This year was really difficult. Sponsors are putting each event under a microscope, and they want to make sure it’s the right type of event for the right R.O.I.,” said Andreas Herr, publisher of Anthem magazine, whose desert party has developed a reputation as the most authentically hedonistic and bacchanalian of the weekend. “But the reason it’s so important for us is that it’s all about contributing to the lifestyle that we cover inside of the magazine. So many people look forward to this event throughout the year. At a time like this, it’s really important to give our fans and our readers something to really look forward to. That one weekend when you can really escape reality and go out there and have fun. It’s our biggest event that we do throughout the year, and we have a lot of fun doing it.”
This year, Anthem’s signature event included a Saturday pool party at a sprawling five-acre ranch property with a three-acre lake. (Herr characterized it this way: “The rough theme is '70s porno ranch meets disco. Does that even make sense? It makes sense to me.”)
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Coachella, T-Mobile, Anthem Magazine, Levi's, Ray-Ban, Urb Magazine, Filter, Vitaminwater, Goodlife.com, Going Green |
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| EVENT REPORT 04.20.09 1:11 PM |
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Signs of the Times: Coachella Returns With a Layaway Plan and an iPhone App
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 | A fire-breathing serpent art installation at Coachella
Photo: BizBash |
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FROM LOS ANGELES
Here’s the thing about the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival: It’s completely implausible. The Empire Polo Field venue in Indio is more than 100 miles from metropolitan Los Angeles—in a place where temperatures can soar above 100 degrees in April. Plus, at a time when other concerts are cutting prices to lure crowds, the cost of Coachella has not decreased: The three-day festival now costs $269, not including service fees, or $300 at the door, which means the cost for an average attendee’s weekend with lodging and food could easily hover around $1,000. And that’s in a recession.
Nevertheless, the tenth annual incarnation of the festival—which began on Friday with a sold-out program headlined by Paul McCartney that appealed to an older crowd on a mild-for-the-desert day and wrapped Sunday—drew thousands of its faithful into the desert, where acts including the Cure, the Killers, M.I.A., and Morrissey also got top billing among about 150 acts. To encourage attendance, festival organizer Goldenvoice—led by Paul Tollett—offered fans the opportunity to purchase their tickets on a layaway plan for the first time, paying either with 50 percent down or in three installments. Goldenvoice also offered camping passes on layaway. (Goldenvoice does not release official attendance numbers until after the show concludes and the official figure is tallied.)
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Coachella, Goldenvoice, Going Green, Global Inheritance, AT&T, iPhone |
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| BEST OF 2008 11.24.08 8:00 AM |
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New Ideas for Step-and-Repeats, Activities, and Entertainment
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 | Cry-Baby's kitschy cake ladies
Photo: Alison Whittington for BizBash |
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RELATED TOPICS
Cry-Baby, John Waters, Coachella, Anthem Magazine, Target, Converse, MTV Movie Awards, Inter-Pacific Bar Association, Gen Art, Nokia |
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| EVENT REPORT 04.28.08 4:02 PM |
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New Slate of Coachella Party Hosts Increases Nighttime Offerings
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 | Anthem magazine's Coachella pool party
Photo: BizBash |
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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?
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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 |
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| EVENT REPORT 04.28.08 12:44 PM |
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Coachella Festival Boosts Art Factor, Green Initiatives—and Comfort Level
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 | The scene on the Empire Polo Field
Photo: BizBash |
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FROM INDIO, CALIF. For a nearly decade-old festival with a storied history including financial woes, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival has an uncanny way of reinventing itself and keeping its offerings fresh every spring. Goldenvoice, the Los Angeles-based producer of the festival, which began on Friday and wrapped yesterday at the Empire Polo Field in Indio, amped up programs geared toward environmental friendliness, artistic expression, and—most noticeable to the hordes who made the pilgrimage to the desert—concertgoers' comfort.
This year Goldenvoice introduced an expanded lobby area that featured lockers, vendors, restrooms, and water fountains, leaving more room on the main polo field for concertgoers to mingle. Over the three-day weekend, an estimated 150,000 people meandered through the bustling expanse of grass, with the biggest crowd on Saturday, the day with the most buzzed-about lineup. Prince, added late to the schedule, drew the most enthusiastic crowd and performed such unexpected songs as Radiohead's "Creep" (and more expected ones like "1999" and an encore including "Let's Go Crazy").
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RELATED TOPICS
Coachella, Amtrak, Goldenvoice, PlayStation, SingStar, AT&T, Virgin, Going Green |
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