Nancy Shaffer, founder and C.E.O. of Washington, D.C.-based Bravo! Events by Design, produced the event and said that this year's 350 guests outnumbered last year's crowd by nearly 100. Tom Nelson, C.O.O. of AARP, started the evening by thanking everyone for coming out in spite of the concurrent presidential debate. “Tonight is essentially the Emmys, the Grammys, and even the presidential debate, all rolled into one,” he said.

The theme of the event was “A Renaissance of Simplicity,” meant to evoke the salon-style gatherings of bygone eras, during which guests discussed important issues. Attendees included a group of influential people across various industries, including designer Diana Resnick, Nanette Lepore C.E.O. Heather Pech, Interscope Records marketing head Chris Clancy, and Modern Luxury president Alan Klein, who assumed hosting duties.

Guests were dropped at the shipping entrance to a downtown building and taken through a subterranean tunnel of sorts to enter the event space, the the bank vault in the basement of the Suites at 1 King West. (The building, now a hotel, once housed the head office of the Dominion Bank of Canada.) “This location was so indicative of Secret Obsession. When we found this it was extremely intriguing to us. There’s a lot of caged elements and the idea or concept of unlocking something. It was really very fitting for this particular brand," Mahshy said.

Designer George Argyropoulos collaborated with Andrea Gray Design on the venue, which includes four distinct areas. The restaurant's main room, overlooked by a small bar, is filled with zebra wood tables and cream leather seating. Two curved banquettes sit against a stone wall at the rear of the room. The space seats 130 and holds 250 for cocktails. A separate, dimly lit bar—with walls covered in dark paisley wallpaper—is accessed through the main room. The intimate space has a small bar and custom metal tables.

The multilevel venue has 22,000 square feet of event space and holds 1,800. The ground floor has indoor ponds and a bar and lounge with several semiprivate tables, as well as a banquet hall with room for 250.

There are also 26 breakout rooms that can accommodate between 50 and 150 people, as well as an outdoor terrace for 75. Diamond Tavern, the property's restaurant, seats 220 inside and an an additional 95 on the outdoor patio. An on-site perk for convention-goers: A fully enclosed pedestrian walkway runs through the center of the Hilton to the Baltimore Convention Center.

"It’s growing in every way—in awareness and attendance, in designers and sponsorship," said FDCC president Robin Kay, who noted that more than 35 sponsors have signed on to support Fashion Week, during which more than 70 designers will showcase their work in 38 shows on two runways (a first for L'Oréal Fashion Week). We asked Kay how the event has evolved and how she envisions its future.

You have implemented some major changes within the past year. What's your goal?
To be a really great Fashion Week that designers want to come to and show at and sell product. Fashion Week is a calling card for the industry, for designers to sell clothes, for reporters and writers and photographers, and retailers and buyers. It’s a huge, huge industry that was absent in Canada…I came to realize it because I was a designer, and when I stopped and looked up and saw there was nothing happening in this country, I really thought a Fashion Week would be the best attention grabber. It’s been inspirational for the city. It’s wonderful to link art and commerce, to link sponsors with the event and to build our country’s fashion economy. That’s what’s exciting for me.

Why did you pick the tour format to market the game?
We really feel that Rock Band is an authentic music experience, and we wanted to give fans and families a chance to really experience what it's like to perform live rock 'n' roll. We think that can be achieved by partnering up with some great bands whose songs are featured within our game and have a pretty broad appeal to our consumer base and let our consumers get involved with the show from playing Rock Band in their living rooms to playing Rock Band in an actual arena.

Production: "ELS is really great because we can [get full service from] them instead of reaching out to a bunch of different vendors. We are able to go to them and do everything from working with the fire marshall all the way down to lighting, carpeting, and sound systems. If they don’t have it, they would probably get a better rate [for us] than going directly to different vendors."

"Vox Entertainment is good because they cover San Diego, Orange County, Los Angeles—they are able to travel to events. We did an event with Vox in a cruise ship terminal in San Diego. There was nothing there; we had to bring everything in from scratch and we turned an [unexpected] venue into something that worked out really well."

Invitations: "Constant Contact creates printable electronic invites that don’t show up as junk mail in inboxes, and people can bring the printed invites to the door. Members of the insurance industry often have many e-mail blockers, so it’s easy for exciting invites to get rejected and sent into junk mail. Constant Contact enables our invites to reach the right people and not get lost."

The alleged unpreparedness—and more directly, 89-degree heat—caused one fatality among the runners, and 300 were taken to the hospital or medical tents. Ultimately, organizers canceled the event mid-race in an unprecedented move. So what's on tap for this year's marathon on Sunday?