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We know you're always looking for new ideas, products, and strategies. So let us help. Whether you're looking for creative ways to present silent auction items, food trucks that serve tacos until 2 a.m., or performers who can juggle fire and sing opera, we want to hear your questions—however random or specific they may be. Email queries to style editor Lisa Cericola at lcericola@bizbash.com. Some may be selected—and answered—for upcoming stories.
Francine Socket Photo: Courtesy of Francine Socket
Having transformed a downtown parking lot into a party space for high-profile events such as the MuchMusic Video Awards, the Toronto International Film Festival, and the set for runway shows by the likes of Valentino and DSquared, Francine Socket says she can turn any space into an elegant, sophisticated venue. As director of special events for CHUM Ltd. (which was taken over by CTV Inc. in 2007), Socket spent more than 20 years planning executive conferences, premiere parties, client appreciation events, and functions for staff at a variety of venues, including the television station’s Queen Street West headquarters. “This was the challenge in that building: There was no loading dock, two skinny driveways in the downtown core, and over 100 vendors [for events like TIFF and the MMVAs], who couldn’t have shown up all at once—and there was one freight elevator,” Socket says. “It doesn’t get more challenging than that.”
For the 16th annual Venetian Ball, held Friday at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre to benefit the Villa Charities Foundation, members of this year's volunteer organizing committee drew a record crowd, used elaborate decor to recreate the Piazza San Marco, and hosted a surprise performance by Frankie Valli.
Although event committee members knew they had some financial challenges due to the economy, Laura Dal Bo, the foundation's executive director, said, "they just made a commitment to really ensure the Venetian Ball didn't suffer this year." Dal Bo worked with event co-chairs James Di Luca and Steven Muzzo to create the theme for this year's gala, which drew a crowd of more than 1,500 guests—up from 800 in 2008.
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Budgeting for the coming year is well under way, and planners seem to have good thoughts about what they'll be working with in 2010. In last week's poll, 41 percent of participants said they're expecting bigger budgets than they received in 2009, while another 33 percent think their budgets will be about the same. Fewer than 1 in 5 readers expect tighter budgets, and just 7 percent still aren't sure.
This week we'd like to gauge your feelings on invitations and which kinds feel most appropriate these days. Have your say in this week's poll, which is in the left column of the home page.
Taking a cue from Dancing With the Stars, the Baycrest Foundation enlisted six community leaders and created its own ballroom dance competition for the organization's annual gala, held at the Sheraton Centre on Thursday. Michael Rosen, Baycrest's director of special events and corporate sponsorships, used lighting and lots of sparkle to create the feel of a television studio for the event, dubbed the Dancing With Our Stars Gala.
"We wanted it to be fresh, sparkly, and clean. There are no programs on the tables, no gifting, not a lot of flowers. Really what we've done is we've created a television show within a hotel ballroom," said Rosen who called on Gary Topp of Toppnotch Services Inc. to produce the event. The company constructed a stage and dance floor for the competition and worked with Metalworks Productions Inc. on the audiovisual and lighting for the event. "The whole idea is sparkle. When the lights go, it's going to be wild," Rosen said.
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TV commercial star Kylie introduced Microsoft C.E.O. Steve Ballmer at the Windows 7 launch. Photo: Richard Koek
FROM NEW YORK Given Microsoft's enormous customer base—a January 2009 report put the technology giant's market share at 88 percent—when it launches a product, there's always a certain amount of buzz surrounding it. But rather than replicate the elaborate marketing stunt it produced for the debut of the Windows Vista operating system, Microsoft took a simpler approach to the press event introducing Windows 7. Inside Skylight Thursday, October 22, some 340 journalists, software testers, and executives from hardware manufacturing partners gathered for a six-hour launch that combined art gallery-style exhibits with live demonstrations and product vignettes.
"We wanted to create an event that represented the product and be mindful of the current state of the economy and the broad consumer mindset. So we set a tone that was simple, approachable, and authentic while demonstrating the excitement we all feel for Windows 7," said Windows group marketing manager Ed Chase, who led the planning of the project. To pull it off, Chase collaborated with Pinnacle Exhibits and a crew of other local and West Coast companies.
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The new Thomas Sabo watch collection Photo: BizBash
Thomas Sabo invited 250 journalists, stylists, and local celebrities to Ultra for the launch of the brand’s new line of watches Wednesday. The company, which also has a collection of charms and sterling silver jewelry, worked with Faulhaber PR to produce the event. “They flew their own merchandisers in to work with us and they shipped in all of the product and displays,” said Christine Faulhaber, who traveled to London for the international market launch at Somerset House on July 1. “We’re recreating [the event] here.”
Product displays surrounded the room, and a long table topped with jewelry, dark red roses, black candelabra, and black feathers sat in the centre of the space. “It’s very important for us to have a look for our brand. It’s important that the audience gets to know about the world of Thomas Sabo,” said international PR manager Sonja Opel. "The new sterling silver collection for fall/winter is very dark. The inspiration is the theatre and the stage, so we have created atmosphere and played with the lighting."
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Mustachioed participants at a 2008 Movember party Photo: Courtesy of the Movember Foundation
Movember, an Australian nonprofit that raises money and awareness for men's cancers via mass mustache growth each November, comes from fairly fortuitous beginnings. In its first year, founders just sprouted their whiskers for fun, before realizing the conversations started by ironic facial hair could have a positive effect.
"It just came to us over some beers on a Sunday night in Melbourne," said Movember co-founder Adam Garone. "The original idea was just to bring them back for a joke, and 30 of our friends participated for no particular reason that November. Every guy had a lot of fun, but all of us had gotten grief from bosses and girlfriends over the month."
That was 2003. Garone and his friends had enough fun with their month of mustaches to try it again the next year, but to placate their friends and colleagues, they decided to make it a fund-raising effort.
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Helen Devore Waukazoo on the podium with Maria Shriver at the Minerva Awards Photo: Gold/Wong
FROM LOS ANGELES It might be said that 2009 is a year that created a particular need for inspiration and community support—especially in a state like California, where budget shortfalls and the unemployment rate have become notorious. Either in spite of or because of that climate, California's first lady, Maria Shriver, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Women's Conference once again drew masses of women from all over the state to join a packed roster of about 70 high-level speakers and participants at the Long Beach Convention Center.
This year, the program ballooned from a single day to two full days—to accommodate the increasing number of would-be attendees. (Each year, full-day passes to the conference sell out in record time. Tickets this year sold out in less than two hours, beating last year's record of three.) The first day's program, a Day of Transformation, served as somewhat more informal programming, with two 1,500-attendee sessions and six 400-person breakout sessions. "We were getting so much feedback from people who wanted to participate and have access," said executive producer Alexandra Gleysteen. "It's a way to get more hands-on information—how to get a new job, start a nonprofit—all in a spiritual context and a serene environment. It's on a different scale, more intimate, than the main program."
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Waterford Targets More Marketing Mileage With New Year's Ball: Since bringing its signature bling to the New Year's ball drop in New York in 1999, Waterford has been an active partner in the globally watched event. But now the Irish crystal company wants more recognition for that contribution. An upgraded six-ton ball—made of 2,268 Waterford crystals and backlit by 32,256 Philips LEDs—will debut this December after a $2.5 million print advertising campaign. Waterford also committed to an upgraded sponsorship deal, in hopes that some of the one billion people who catch the ball drop this year will also notice who made it. [BrandFreak]
Events Boost Essence Image: Not all magazines are downplaying events, and Essence is even earning praise for them. The title was chosen as one of Advertising Age's top 10 for the year, and the trade credits the Essence Music Festival for being such an appealing brand to marketers. The New Orleans concert series, held over Independence Day weekend, saw 428,000 attendees—up significantly from the already impressive 270,000 it hosted the year before. [AdAge]
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