| EVENT REPORT 03.24.09 8:30 AM |
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More From South by Southwest: Playboy, Perez, and Rachael Ray Host Parties and Sponsors
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 | Kanye West at Perez Hilton's One Night in Austin
Photo: Chad Wadsworth |
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FROM AUSTIN, TEXAS Plenty of brands and celebrities maintain a presence at South by Southwest each year without the commitment of a multiday, fully realized venue like Red Bull and The Fader. Playboy, Perez Hilton, and Rachael Ray all threw parties last week with the help of sponsors such as Jack Daniels, Dell Computers, and Rose’s Mojito.
Playboy's Rock the Rabbit party and Perez Hilton's One Night in Austin bash had people talking early in the week about the choice of venue. An old Safeway grocery store, which hadn't been used in years until the Obama campaign cleaned it up for its Austin headquarters, saw its SXSW debut as the home of both events. Playboy and local producers C3 Presents filled the space with Jack Daniels bars, a video gaming station for Namco's Afro Samurai, and a hot-ticket performance by Jane's Addiction at its Thursday party.
On Saturday night, Perez Hilton worked with New York's BMF Media, which produces the blogger's ongoing concert series, and Los Angeles-based Entertainment Fusion Group and Austin's Giant Noise to install a Dell "playground" in the venue he filled with acts such as the Indigo Girls, Ladyhawke, Solange, and the week's second suprise from Kanye West.
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Playboy, Jack Daniels, Namco, Perez Hilton, Dell, Rachael Ray, Rose's Mojitos |
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| NEWS 03.13.09 11:48 AM |
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South by Southwest Drawing Familiar Brands to Austin
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 | Playboy and C3's 2008 Rock the Rabbit party
Photo: Lacy Weathersbee/Playboy |
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The 2009 incarnation of South by Southwest, the eight-day festival of technology, film, and music in Austin, Tex., looks ready to go ahead relatively unaffected by the economy. Early attendees are already in town for today's kickoff of the interactive portion, and planners maintain that attendance will be on par with recent years. Most key sponsors, including IFC, have returned, and major brands such as Playboy, Red Bull, and a barrage of music magazines, all plan to host parties and other events during the music portion next week.
IFC will hold another public event for the last night of the film portion, with the Decemberists and Gomez headlining the concert. Crossroads, the network's party to bridge the film and music segments of the festival, moved venues this year, to international lounge chain Pangae. Before the party, though, IFC plans to boost interest in a festival screening of its new locally filmed documentary, New World Order, with an agressive stunt this afternoon. Staffers will parade the film's star, conspiracy theorist and radio host Alex Jones, around town in an vehicle outfitted with a bull horn audio system and film signage.
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Playboy, IFC, South by Southwest, The Fader, Filter, Blender, Rolling Stone, Red Bull |
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| NEWS 01.14.09 8:00 AM |
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Playboy Nixes Super Bowl Party
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 | Bunnies at Playboy's 2008 Super Bowl party in Arizona
Photo: Stephanie Fay for BizBash |
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Longtime Super Bowl party host Playboy has bowed out of this year's Tampa hoopla, citing the economy—and dwindling ad revenue in particular—as the reason. "Yes, the economy has played a role, marketers are holding tight to their budgets," said Playboy divisional senior vice president of marketing Lisa Natale. "For us, this wasn’t the most prudent event to produce given the financial climate. We explored smaller parties, parties with partners, but we didn’t want to compromise the integrity of our event. We didn’t want to scale it back."
After nine previous parties, Playboy's bash was known as one of the weekend's biggest, reeling in 2,000-plus attendees last year.
In order to have some presence during the Super Bowl weekend, the magazine is opting to sponsor DirecTV's Celebrity Beach Bowl tourney on Saturday, January 31, where bunnies will be on hand to represent the brand. Natale said that Playboy will "absolutely" be back in 2010, adding, "I don’t think anyone will be surprised to hear this. Every day you read the trades about other parties being canceled. No one's renting private jets. The spots during he game aren’t selling. It’s sort of expected."
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Super Bowl, Playboy, South by Southwest, Grand Am, N.B.A., N.B.A. All-Star Game |
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| EVENT REPORT 05.07.08 11:55 AM |
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Crown Royal, In Touch Host Friday-Night Derby Fetes in Louisville
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 | The Crown Royal Lounge
Photo: Playboy/James Trevenen |
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Several big-name brands showed up in Louisville over the weekend to host events surrounding the 134th running of the Kentucky Derby. Dubbed the Run for the Roses, the horse race has become a breeding ground for tabloid-friendly celebrities—and where celebrities go, endorsement-seeking brands follow. (Ubiquitous types like The Hills' Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, model Molly Sims, Entourage's Adrian Grenier, and former Miss USA Tara Conner were on the scene.)
"The Derby is one of our favorite events," said Hi-Fi Marketing Group partner Brian Gefter, who produced Friday's In Touch Weekly Parlor party with his partner Mike Satsky. "We do all of these parties around national event properties like Super Bowl, but the reason the Derby is appealing to us is that it’s very celebrity-driven but it’s less cluttered. There's a real chance to make a huge impact in an area where there aren’t as many events going on, as, say, the Super Bowl."
Playboy division vice president of creative services Donna Tavoso, who produced the Crown Royal Lounge on Friday night, said, "I think as more and more people realize that the Derby is a celebrity event and a great consumer event, they are drawn to the whole idea. It's not surprising that others want to throw a party [on the Friday night before the Derby]. That said, we know the level and quality of the party we throw, and we rest on that reputation."
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Kentucky Derby, Barnstable Brown Gala, Playboy, In Touch Weekly, Pama, ProFlowers, Crown Royal, Grey Goose |
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| EVENT REPORT 03.14.08 4:23 PM |
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Playboy Brings Moby—and Port-a-Potties—to South by Southwest
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 | Playboy bunnies danced on stage to the Heavy.
Photo: Lacy Weathersbee/Playboy |
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FROM AUSTIN, TEXAS For confirmation that Austin’s yearly indie-music fest is officially a hotbed of mainstream branding, one had to look no further than the stage at the 301 last night, where up-and-coming artists performed wide-eyed alongside dancing Playboy bunnies in velvet onesies.
Playboy and Austin-based event marketing firm C3 once again teamed up for their annual late-night party at South by Southwest on Thursday, this year dubbed “Rock the Rabbit,” and 1,000 guests—including Elijah Wood, Lance Armstrong, and Carson Daly—showed up for the five hours of live music provided by Justice, Moby, MGMT, the Heavy, and the Rub.
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South by Southwest, Playboy, Jack Daniels, Austin |
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| NEWS 02.25.08 12:12 PM |
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What NBA All-Star Party Hosts Thought of New Orleans
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 | Playboy bunnies at the Crown Royal Barbershop event
Photo: James Trevenen/Playboy |
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Some big-name brands flocked to the NBA All-Star Game on Sunday, February 17. We touched base with several planners to see what they thought of New Orleans as a host city.
“As far as proximity goes, you couldn’t ask for anything better. Everything is within walking distance or a five-minute cab ride. The footprint of this city is much easier to get around than [last year’s host city] Vegas.”
—Timi Jordan, senior manager of special events marketing, ESPN
“The people of New Orleans couldn’t have been nicer to deal with. They were so genuinely grateful that the NBA chose their city, and they really wanted to showcase how great New Orleans is. They went out of their way to be accommodating.”
—Janet Abbazia, vice president of event marketing, Turner Sports
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N.B.A., Playboy, ESPN the Magazine |
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| EVENT REPORT 02.20.08 12:14 PM |
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TNT, Wrigley's, Playboy Flock to NBA All-Star Weekend
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 | Common performed at ESPN the Magazine's party.
Photo: Steve Kashishian |
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Dubbed by "a mini Super Bowl" by more than one planner, the NBA All-Star Game and its surrounding festivities descended upon New Orleans last weekend, bringing along an entourage of piggybacking events. Catering to the bevy of athletes in town (who weren’t nearly as stressed as, say, the Giants or the Patriots were in Arizona), planners from entities such as Playboy, ESPN the Magazine, and Wrigley’s enticed with big-name performances, high-profile guests, and intimate late-night parties.
Turner Sports vice president of event marketing Janet Abbazia bucked the Super Bowl's trend of booking rappers, instead booking Barenaked Ladies to perform at the annual NBA on TNT Celebration Party, held at House of Blues on Saturday. “We always look at our audience, and while the NBA demographic may be different, the people attending our event are businesspeople covering a wide range of ages, so we tried to find a band that appealed to everyone,” she said, adding that the event grew this year, hosting some 1,600 guests (compared with last year’s 1,200).
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N.B.A., Playboy, ESPN the Magazine, Jordan Brand, Nike, Crown Royal, Wrigley's Doublemint, Miller Beer, Old Spice, Gatorade, American Express, BET Networks |
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| EVENT REPORT 02.03.08 5:43 PM |
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Playboy and Victoria's Secret Compete for Super Bowl Saturday-Night Share
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 | Playboy bunny gobos shined on the event's tent.
Photo: Stephanie Fay for BizBash |
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FROM SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. Last night, longtime Super Bowl weekend party host Playboy found itself going up against a new brand (and considerable competition): Victoria’s Secret. While Sports Illustrated, Fox, and Penthouse were also hosting parties, in addition to concerts by 944 magazine and the Bud Bowl, the general consensus around town was that Playboy and Victoria’s Secret were the tickets to land.
While the two brands' titillating content is similar in genre, the parties themselves were vastly different. Playboy’s 2,000-plus guest list forced the magazine to head outside of town, to the recently relocated Rawhide venue in Chandler, some 25 miles from the resorts and nightclubs of Scottsdale. “At this point, after nine years, we’ve built a rep as the best party on Saturday night, so we have a comfort level that we didn’t have to be in the heart of Scottsdale,” said Playboy division vice president of creative services Donna Tavoso. (She told us about her Arizona venue hunt here.) “And we have experience to back that up—we weren’t in South Beach in Miami, and we were 25 minutes outside of Detroit, and people were waiting in line 90 minutes early in a snowstorm. And that even shocked me.”
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Super Bowl, Playboy, Victoria's Secret, Josh Kelley |
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| TREND SPOTTED 02.02.08 12:24 PM |
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The Hip-Hop Won't Stop: Super Bowl Parties Present 50 Cent, Snoop, and Luda
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 | 50 Cent performed at the 944 Super Village.
Photo: Courtesy of 944 Magazine |
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FROM SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. While the NFL plans to offer the masses a dose of Tom Petty at the big game tomorrow, corporate planners are heading in the opposite direction this weekend, giving the packed Arizona parties a whole lot of rap. The 944 Super Village at SouthBridge kicked off the concert-heavy festivities on Thursday night with a 50 Cent performance. The artist rapped on a gigantic stage in an (unheated) tent, with Paris Hilton gyrating alongside him. Pontiac sponsored the evening—and, not surprisingly, its 2008 G8 car (which 50 codesigned) on stage was impossible to miss.
In a more exclusive turn, Jenny McCarthy and Holly Robinson Peete hosted the "Best Damn Super Bowl Party Period" on Thursday (a play on Peete's' husband's Best Damn Sports Show Period on Fox Sports), with Ludacris entertaining a crowd of 300 at the private Rockridge estate in Phoenix. Next up for the HollyRod Foundation: an invitation-only Chris Rock performance tonight. Diddy also took the stage on Thursday, at Scottsdale nightclub Axis/Radius for Anheuser-Busch's Bud Bowl.
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Super Bowl, 944 Magazine, Pontiac, Playboy, Penthouse, Anheuser-Busch, Maxim, ESPN the Magazine, Sports Illustrated, DirecTV |
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| NEWS 01.30.08 4:11 PM |
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Super Bowl XLII: Who's Going Where
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FROM SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. As New York and New England football fans head west, so are the corporate types planning Super Bowl-inspired events. Trading last year's Miami beach locale for a sprawling desert landscape, many planners are calling Arizona a breath of fresh air, with most everyone agreeing that anything is better than Detroit. Here's a rundown of some of the week's biggest to-dos.
Audi is kicking off the week with an invitation-only hole-in-one charity tournament today, with former NFL players and celebrities lining up to win an Audi R8. The auto brand has taken over a nine-acre estate in Arizona's luxe Paradise Valley neighborhood, which will be home to a series of events, including a Kate Hudson-hosted dinner and a Marquis Jet daytime party. Also on-site at the estate is a satellite hub for Los Angeles club Hyde, which will open at 11 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. Relevent's Tony Berger is producing.
Tomorrow, DirecTV stages its second annual Celebrity Beach Bowl, an event that pairs current and former NFLers with celebrities and models in a semi-competitive, semi-comical flag football game. Matt Leinart, Doug Flutie, Pamela Anderson, and David Spade are among the players, with Fall Out Boy performing afterward. The sand-filled event is taking over a corner of the new SouthBridge Waterfront area, which is also home to the bevy of 944 Media goings-on (including nighttime concerts by 50 Cent, Velvet Revolver, and Wyclef Jean, and a less-than-shocking appearance by Paris Hilton).
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Super Bowl, DirecTV, Maxim, Audi, ESPN the Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Playboy, Penthouse, Victoria's Secret |
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