| EVENT REPORT 10.30.09 3:47 PM |
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Baycrest Foundation Stages Ballroom Dance Competition for Annual Gala
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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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RELATED TOPICS
The Baycrest Foundation, Dancing With the Stars, RioCan, Royal de Versailles, Rolex, Deloitte, KIK Custom Products, RBC Capital Markets, RSM Richter, Scotiabank, Cineplex Entertainment, Fabricland, Great Gulf Homes, the Rose Corporation, Onex, Harry Rosen |
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| EVENT REPORT 10.06.09 12:45 PM |
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Midway Rides, Interactive Exhibits Draw Crowds at Fourth Annual Scotiabank Nuit Blanche
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 | A light installation lit up City Hall
Photo: Emma McIntyre for BizBash |
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Thousands of people took to the streets from sunset Saturday until sunrise Sunday to take part in the fourth annual Scotiabank Nuit Blanche—the City of Toronto’s all-night contemporary art festival. This year’s event saw more audience participation than ever before with interactive art projects offering the chance for the public to get in on the action. “That’s one of the pieces that makes Nuit Blanche so magical—the interactive portion,” said Miki Stricker-Talbot, a programming supervisor with the city.
At the Toronto Coach Terminal, about 400 people seized the opportunity to stand blindfolded inside a steel cage where 20 professional wrestlers participated in Shaun El C. Leonardo’s “Battle Royal.” At Brookfield Place, 750 people volunteered to be suspended in cloth sacks from the building’s rafters at part of the California-based Center for Tactical Magic’s multimedia installation “Witches’ Cradles.”
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RELATED TOPICS
Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, Scotiabank, City of Toronto |
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| NEWS 10.01.09 4:42 PM |
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New iPhone, Web Tools to Help People Navigate Scotiabank Nuit Blanche
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Attendees at the fourth annual Scotiabank Nuit Blanche—the City of Toronto's all-night celebration of contemporary art that takes place from 6:55 p.m. Saturday until sunrise on Sunday—will have access to a brand new interactive tool designed to help them navigate the event. Known as the Night Navigator, the tool is an app available to iPhone and BlackBerry users that combines camera and GPS capabilities.
When a participant takes a photograph of the Capturefy icon on a project sign at one of the 130 installations throughout the city, the Night Navigator will then track the individual's location and link them to specific event content. Users will be able to access project details and nearby transit routes, receive directions to nearby projects, post reviews of installations, and plan their itinerary.
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RELATED TOPICS
Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, Scotiabank, City of Toronto, POIfriend, Simply Good Technologies |
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| EVENT REPORT 08.26.09 3:09 PM |
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BuskerBall Debuts With Street Performers, Balloon Dress Fashion Show
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Scotiabank BuskerFest—a four-day street festival in support of Epilepsy Toronto that begins Thursday and runs through Sunday—gave a preview of its festivities at the inaugural Scotiabank BuskerBall at the St. Lawrence North Market on Tuesday evening. “BuskerFest is our signature event and our way, from an agency perspective, of raising awareness about epilepsy in the public at large," said Epilepsy Toronto executive director Geoff Bobb. "It’s also our primary fund-raiser."
Bobb said the organization decided to forgo a traditional black-tie gala and auction (which the charity has held for several years) in favor of a new fund-raiser for the festival's 10th anniversary. “This year we married the two of them together,” he said. “It’s just smart...we’re not paying for anything here tonight. All of the food vendors that you see here, all of the performers, they’re all donated because those people are also involved in the festival."
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RELATED TOPICS
Epilepsy Toronto, Scotiabank |
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| EVENT REPORT 02.05.09 11:21 AM |
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Jewish Youth Group Promotes Volunteerism With Auction at Anniversary Party
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 | A violinist performed for guests
Photo: Courtesy of Jump |
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More than 500 guests and members of the Jewish Urban Meeting Place (JUMP) helped the organization mark its one-year anniversary at the Steam Whistle Brewery Saturday during an event intended to inspire volunteerism. In keeping with JUMP’s missions and goals—it's a nonprofit organization that provides social, volunteer, and educational programming to young people between the ages of 22 and 34—organizers aimed to instill the value of community involvement by hosting a silent auction where guests had the opportunity to bid for items with volunteer hours, rather than money.
JUMP director Debbie Osiel reported that prizes were awarded to guests who bid the highest number of volunteer hours. The donations collected will directly aid organizations across the city.
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RELATED TOPICS
Jewish Urban Meeting Place, Scotiabank, Source Imaging, Perennial Asset Management, TransGlobe, Yogenfruz, Icerok Jewelry, SpinMaster, Shalom Toronto, Cambridge Mercantile Group |
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| Q & A 11.05.08 4:26 PM |
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Carole Boughannam Is Planning the Launch of Toronto's Holiday Festival—and the 2009 Edition of Nuit Blanche
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 | City of Toronto event programming manager Carole Boughannam
Photo: Courtesy of Carole Boughannam |
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Each year, thousands of tourists and Toronto residents descend on Nathan Phillips Square to mark the start of the holiday season and watch the official tree lighting. This year, the 42nd annual Cavalcade of Lights, presented by Scotiabank, returns to the Square from November 29 to December 31. (The official tree, a 68-year-old white spruce that stands 62 feet high, is already in position outside City Hall.) Spearheading the citywide festival—which includes fireworks displays, neighborhood tours, skating parties, and weekly concerts by the likes of Serena Ryder, the Canadian Tenors, and the Dragonettes—is Carole Boughannam, the programming manager for the City of Toronto's special events. Boughannam talked to us about the objective of the event, how the festival has evolved over the years, and what residents and visitors can expect this season.
What is the objective of the Cavalcade of Lights?
Our main goal is to create civic pride in the city and engage residents to come out and celebrate together. The holiday season is a really good time to do that. We also like to enhance the visitor experience. There are a lot of people who are in the city, whether they come from border states or just outside of the GTA. It’s really nice when they come to shop and dine during the holiday time to actually have something that really feels alive in the center of the city. I think it also helps to profile the city, so when people go back out to where they’re from they can really talk about Toronto as being a dynamic place.
The other thing we talk about is motivating travel—we really do want people to be motivated to come to Toronto and come here to shop instead of maybe going to some of the other cities around us. That, in turn, generates an economic impact.
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RELATED TOPICS
City of Toronto, Tourism Toronto, Scotiabank, The Bay, Brian Gluckstein, Nuit Blanche |
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| INFLUENCES 10.01.08 9:00 AM |
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Artists Transform the City for Nuit Blanche Projects
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 | Katharine Harvey's "Waterfall" project
Photo: Courtesy of Katharine Harvey |
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Saturday at 6:52 p.m. marks the beginning of the third annual Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, the all-night contemporary art party that's become one of Toronto's most popular public events. Spread over three zones—downtown north, downtown south, and southwest—the event features a total of 155 works, a mix of curated exhibitions and independent projects in places like museums, galleries, and parks.
This year, Yoko Ono's three-part installation Imagine Peace will be displayed at Liberty Village, and Kaeja d'Dance will hold performances, accompanied by video and art, in the stables at Casa Loma. Berlin-based Project Blinkenlights will create "Stereoscope," which will transform 960 windows of Toronto City Hall into a constantly changing screen of graphics which are automatically generated as well as affected by public interaction through a variety of interfaces located in Nathan Phillips Square.
For a new twist on repurposed materials, artist Katharine Harvey will hang a blanket of water bottles on the Ontario Power Generation building to create the look of a waterfall. To make the night more manageable, the event's Web site has six suggested itineraries, with categories including TechnoArt (focusing on technologically-based works), small-scale projects in the Intimate Encounters collection, and Art on a Grand Scale, which may be viewed by large numbers of people from numerous vantage points. —Erin Letson
RELATED TOPICS
Nuit Blanche, Scotiabank |
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| EVENT REPORT 07.29.08 3:02 PM |
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Calypso Music, Caribbean Food Set Tone at Inaugural Caribana Gala
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 | The outdoor cocktail reception
Photo: Gary Beechey for BizBash |
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Organizers of the inaugural Scotiabank Caribana Gala, held Friday at the Liberty Grand Entertainment Complex, used music, dancers, and food to create an island feel for the event, which paid tribute to the festival's founders and launched the Caribana Arts Foundation to fund yearly scholarships for students in the Toronto area. "Tonight not only will you be entertained by many talented carnival artists, you will learn more about the history of the Caribana Festival,” said festival chairman and C.E.O. Joe Halstead.
Event manager Bobby Adore reported that the sold-out event for 650 guests was intended "to set the tone and the mood for the rest of the festival." He also noted that Scotiabank, title sponsor for the 41st annual Caribana Festival, was heavily involved, which helped to attract additional sponsors. “They really led the way for other sponsors coming aboard. It accelerated conversations [with other companies], from liquor to media," he said. The list of sponsors eventually included Amarula Cream, Van Ryn's, Drostdy-Hof Wines, Pepsi, Grace Kennedy Foods, and Air Jamaica.
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RELATED TOPICS
Scotiabank, Van Ryn's, Drostdy-Hof Wines, Pepsi, Grace Kennedy Foods, Air Jamaica |
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