| NEWS 06.24.09 3:00 PM |
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In the News: Radio and TV Correspondents Love John Hodgeman, Sundance Still Bringing in Bucks for Utah
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John Hodgeman Wins Over Correspondents' Crowd: The White House Correspondents' Association Dinner may suffer from an annual inability to not offend some party with its divisive M.C.s, but that doesn't seem to be the case at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Dinner. Host John Hodgeman—of Apple commercial and Daily Show fame—won over the audience at Friday's event by skirting an actual roast and opting to label Barack Obama the country's first geek president. Obama seemed to please the crowd with his own speech, and come Monday morning, nobody was licking wounded egos on cable news. [Wired]
Fests Like Sundance Still Boosting the Economy: Festival-town locals might bemoan the congestion and hullabaloo associated with their annual events, but they sure do benefit from them. Despite an 11 percent drop in attendance this year, a study by a group at the University of Utah calculated that the Sundance Film Festival brought in $92.1 million to the state this year. The numbers broke down to $34,579,698 on accommodations, $14,976,306 on food, $4,693,682 on transportation, and $4,015,870 on "discretionary items"—which we'll assume includes booze. [NYT]
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White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, Radio and Television Correspondents' Dinner, Barack Obama, John Hodgeman, Sundance, Apple, iPhone, Virgin Atlantic, Richard Branson, Kate Moss |
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| Q & A 01.08.09 8:00 AM |
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Sundance's Sarah Pearce Adds Opening Gala While Fighting for Sponsor Dollars
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 | Sundance Film Festival's Sarah Pearce
Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Film Festival |
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Sarah Pearce is the director of operations for the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah—which opens next Thursday, January 15, and runs through January 25. Affiliated with the organization since 1999, Pearce oversees all operational departments, including ticketing, the filmmaker office, sponsorships, theater operations, security, production, and technical services.
Sundance opens with a gala next week. Why add it this year, and what’s in store?
The reason behind adding a gala is because we are having our 25th anniversary of the festival, and we wanted to create an event that was intimate that celebrated the anniversary, as well as an opportunity for us to raise some extra money in this hard economic time. It’s not formal—nothing is formal at Sundance—but it is intimate and high-end in caliber. We’re going to have a nice dinner, special programming, and performances and appearances by people and filmmakers who have been with us for a long time.
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Sundance, Proposition 8, Sponsorships, Gift Suites, Budgets, Economy |
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| EVENT INTELLIGENCE 06.15.07 10:45 AM |
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Who's Really Going Green?
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Heather Henderson has set an ambitious goal. As the operations manager for Cisco Systems' "Networkers at Cisco Live," a 10,000-head annual user conference, Henderson already has plenty on her plate: The conference packs in roughly 500 educational sessions, a trio of networking and entertainment evenings, and a trade show with more than 150 exhibitors. That's not stopping her, though, from forging ahead with a plan to make nearly every aspect of the conference—from paper to electricity to food—environmentally friendly by 2009.
"This year, we're moving to be more green," she says of Cisco's five-day program, which the network equipment manufacturer holds in a different city each summer. "We're taking small steps." Some of those steps include working with the caterer to provide biodegradable plates and utensils and saving paper by printing handouts only when users request them—and, in those cases, printing on recycled paper with soy inks.
"It's a pretty aggressive undertaking," she says, acknowledging that although awareness of eco-friendliness is up, many meeting and event pros aren't yet making the leap from awareness to action. "People are changing their behavior to some extent, but not to the extent it needs to be to make a huge impact."
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Going Green, Cisco, Environmental Media Association, Oscars, Domino Magazine, Prudential, Designers & Agents, Sundance |
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| Q & A 09.19.06 12:00 AM |
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Mixing Art and Profit
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Elizabeth Shaffer
What She Plans: Gen Art, launched by brothers Ian and Stefan Gerard in 1993, is a profit and not-for-profit hybrid that hosts events based around film, fashion, art, and music. Since starting as vice president of events in early 2005, Shaffer has been responsible for overseeing more than 100 annual events for groups of 50 to 5,000 people in New York, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, as well as other markets. Gen Art’s events roster includes shopping nights; art events in artist’s studios, private collector’s homes, or local galleries; advance movie screenings; concerts; runway shows of new designers; and more. In 2005, Gen Art’s events brought in more than $5 million in sales, and the company’s nonprofit arm gives more than $100,000 a year in direct grants for emerging talents.
Age: 30
Staff: New York-based Shaffer has two event staff members in each of the five markets.
Career Path: Born in Berkeley, California, Shaffer grew up in Washington, D.C., and majored in women’s studies at Brown University. Postgraduation, she landed a fund-raising position for Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign, and soon Clinton invited Shaffer to help plan the White House’s millennium celebration. “I clinked champagne glasses with Jack Nicholson at the turn of the millennium,” she says. “It was pretty crazy.” Next, Shaffer took a job with the Democratic National Committee and, in effect, Al Gore’s presidential campaign, and traveled all over the country. After a stint with Deloitte & Touche, Shaffer got an M.B.A. at NYU’s Stern School of Business, and then worked at Capitale before joining Gen Art last year.
Where She Lives: Union Square
Biggest Work Challenge: “The Gen Art Film Festival in New York is a huge undertaking. It’s seven days long. The premiere is at the Ziegfeld, and there are after-parties each night. We get the talent and directors to come, and there’s transportation to organize and lots of sponsor integration.”
Favorite Filmmaker: Steven Spielberg. “Jaws is my favorite movie of all time.”
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Gen Art, Sundance |
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