Washington DC Guest Questions is an archive of questions from Event Planners at recent past Benefit Galas, Public Promos, Launch Parties, Movie Premieres, Fashion Shows and New Releases by BizBash

FROM CHICAGO From August 1 through August 3, otherwise known as Lollapalooza weekend, Chicago's Hard Rock Hotel became "the Music Lounge Presented by Metromix.com," a crowd-and-heat respite for artists, media, industry folks, and V.I.P. ticket holders. Open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, the lounge was produced by BMF Media and located across the street from Grant Park.

Daytime activities, which took place on two levels, included everything from Guitar Hero to complimentary tattoos and gifting suites. At the temporary Eastsport Café, sponsored by the bag manufacturer, guests took advantage of free China Grill-catered lunches, Bustelo coffee drinks, and Ciroc-spiked cocktails with thematic names like the Diddy. Rock the Vote Nights, also presented by Metromix.com, overtook the Music Lounge from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. each evening, featuring performances from the likes of Samantha Ronson.

With the Ciroc cocktails flowing and the music pumping, guests seemed to be in high spirits; some even offered hugs in lieu of comments. Those who did speak up, however, had plenty to say about swag, sponsorship, and the lounge's "vibe."

"This whole experience makes me feel like a kid in a sweets shop. I'm just taking in everything with a little look here, a little taste there. My favorite part of the gifting suite? I'd say the bling [Skullcandy gave out necklaces with silver or gold skull-shaped charms.] That's what we all need: bling, bling, bling."
—Satin Singh, percussionist for Mark Ronson MORE >>

Bustelo, Ciroc, Eastsport, Metromix.com, Rock the Vote

06.30.08 5:14 PM

Rammy Revelers on Their Favorite Haunts, Industry Gossip, and a Cooler Venue

The Rammy Restaurant Awards at the Marriott Wardman Park
Photo: The Photographers Gallery

The Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington held its 26th annual Rammy award show at the Marriott Wardman Park last night. The black-tie event brought most of the city's chefs and foodies—1,600, to be exact—under one roof. After the ceremony (and a few cocktails), we asked guests about the new restaurants they love, D.C. chefs, and their favorite nominees.

"I love [this event]. I never actually knew something like this happened in D.C. I didn't know the city had such a good foodie culture, and it's pretty amazing to see.”
—Spike Mendelsohn, contestant on Top Chef and owner of soon-to-open Good Stuff Eatery

"Oh, boy. I have to say my favorite that's opened recently is Proof. Another restaurant that I really like is Rasika. [This year's event] actually seems a little more organized and a little more elegant [than in years past].
—Jamie Leeds, co-owner, Hank’s Oyster Bar (winner of 2008's Neighborhood Gathering Place of the Year) and soon-to-open CommonWealth MORE >>

Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington, Rammy awards, Top Chef

04.28.08 5:37 PM

Correspondents Dinner Prepartiers See More of the Same, Look Forward to New Administration

Guests mingled during the preparties.
Photo: Lara Shipley for BizBash

Several thousand guests descended on the Washington Hilton around 6 p.m. on Saturday for a couple of hours of pressing flesh before heading into the White House Correspondents Association dinner in the hotel’s International Ballroom at 8 p.m. While making the rounds ourselves, we polled some attendees about which party was best, what an Obama-, Clinton-, or McCain-run dinner could be like next year, and which after-party they were most looking forward to.

“[These parties] are like the Olympics, so they always say it’s the best ever. This is my first time and it’s amazing. But I challenge them next year to top it.”
—Joel McHale, host of E!’s The Soup

“All the parties blend together, but the guests make a difference. It’s the best people-watching in Washington all year.”
—Carrie Foster, public relations executive, Linda Roth Associates MORE >>

White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, E! Entertainment, HBO, Army Wives

03.26.08 6:25 PM

Rammy Nomination Party Low on Decor, High on Industry Bonding

The official Rammy cocktail winner: the Lo-Le Cherry
Photo: Photographer's Gallery

The Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington’s Rammy award gala is slated for June 29, but last night chefs and foodies came together for the no-frills nomination party at the Ritz-Carlton Washington. Most of the 250 guests were still reeling from the previous night’s Taste of the Nation event but seemed to enjoy the causal vibe.

“Each year the crowd grows exponentially,” said the evening's planner, Kelly Morris of KSM Marketing. Last year was the first at the Ritz, after the event outgrew its previous restaurant venues. This year, for the first time, several mixologists competed to create the official gala cocktail, using Christiania vodka. The winner: the Rammy Lo-Le Cherry (lo-le translates to basil in Chinese), a concoction of sour cherries, basil, ginger, and lemons from Tallula bartender Gina Chersevani.

The event started early, at 5 p.m., to accommodate working chefs and their tight schedules before dinner service. By 6, the room was already beginning to empty, with food stations closing. The early arrivals got a chance to taste samplings from the six New Restaurant of the Year nominees: Brasserie Beck, Central Michel Richard, Hook, Proof, The Source, and Westend Bistro by Eric Ripert. But before they ran out the door, we asked guests about their favorite bites of the evening, the D.C. restaurant circle, and their expectations for foodie events. MORE >>

Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington, Rammy awards

03.05.08 3:23 PM

Wine and Food Festival Ticket Holders Like PS 7's Rockfish

PS 7 chef Peter Smith held court at the festival's kickoff party.
Photo: Scott Braman

The Washington, D.C., International Wine & Food Festival’s annual Grand Cru Wine Lounge kickoff party took place last Friday at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Center pavilion, where guests got up close and personal with local chefs and vintners.

“We wanted the food and wine to be the stars,” said show director Ed Hurley of ResourcePlus Shows and Events. In doing so, Hurley took a minimalist approach to the event, covering the highboy tables in gray-checked linens and supplying subtle Latin background music from Verny Varela Project.

The party featured 20 or so food and wine stations, allowing the 250 ticket holders (who paid $175 a pop) to try out specialty dishes like rockfish cured in sugar and hot smoked with cherrywood (from PS 7), sliced salt-cured venison (from Todd Gray of Equinox), and mini crab sandwiches (from Reagan Building chef Xavier DeShayes).

While the wine got guests talking (a good thing for us), the focus of the night was clearly on the food. We asked the crowd—guests, chefs, and vintners included—what they thought of the event, and, more importantly, what their favorites were. MORE >>

Wine and Food Festival

12.14.07 3:22 PM

Chamber of Commerce Guests Like Gingerbread Houses and Pigs in Blankets

Last night the United States Chamber of Commerce held its annual holiday party for members of Congress and Hill staffers, and the usual twentysomething suspects abounded. To find out what guests thought of the party, we waited outside the Chamber of Commerce headquarters to catch smokers or partygoers running for a cab.

Several guests stopped to comment about the decadent holiday affair, filled with carolers and loads of Christmas trees. Others, however, were wary about speaking with a reporter of any kind. (One even started screaming loudly the moment a recorder was produced.) This might have been a night for revelry, but most of the crowd stuck to their workplace mantra: “No comment.”

Partially thanks to the open bar, we were able to get a few guests to dish. Here’s what we gathered.

“There’s lots of red and gold. It looked very dignified. I don’t have a bad thing to say about it. I used to work on Capitol Hill and go to this every year. I remember always thinking that it’s one of the best events, especially since the actual building is gorgeous.”
—Executive branch employee, 32

“The building is incredible. It’s the only one that faces the White House, actually. The sweets are really delicious. There’s a guy, Roberto, he runs the catering department in there, and he’s banging. There was also a gingerbread house. [“Not for eating,” added a nearby friend.] There are a lot of decorations in there, with huge Christmas trees everywhere. This place does decorations like none other. But last year was a lot cooler: It was the theme of Rockefeller Center, so there was a big ice sculpture of the statue that’s right above the ice rink. I don’t think there’s a theme this year.”
—Chamber of Commerce employee, 26 MORE >>

United States Chamber of Commerce

07.19.07 4:31 PM

Guests Dish on Slow Summer at Tasting Party

A painted Buddha accented Mie N Yu's tasting event.
Photo: BizBash

Georgetown’s Mie N Yu restaurant hosted its third annual Silk Road Celebration last night, adding lots of interactive details to what could have been a run-of-the-mill tasting event—we’re talking geishas, kung fu performers, Chinese dragons, a gold-painted model posed as a Buddha statue, and a graphologist who analyzed guests’ handwriting. The food sampling, dubbed an Asian food bazaar, included a mix of Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Japanese specialties, such as roasted squid, duck vermicelli, and green tea soba noodles (all of which were served with matching wine pairings).

“There’s not too much going on in the middle of July, so people can come out and have fun,” said Mie N Yu operation manager Victoria Graham, who held the event in the restaurant's seven private dining rooms (including a birdcage hanging from the ceiling that seats eight). In between tastings, we polled the 500-plus attendees (including local event planners and media types) for their take on business entertaining, and what events they’re looking forward to hitting up this summer. MORE >>

06.18.07 5:22 PM

Rammy Guests Like Beck and Barbecue Biscuits

Sue Palka of Fox 5 and James Adams of NBC 4 served as co-M.C.s.
Photo: Fredde Lieberman

Chefs from all over the Washington area swapped their clogs and whites for much more fancy (and cleaner) tuxes and dresses at the silver anniversary of the Rammys, the area culinary scene’s equivalent of the James Beard Awards in New York. Sponsored by the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington, last night's ceremony featured 1,800 chefs, restaurant staffers, hospitality industry reps, and food cognoscenti at the Marriott Wardman Park who clearly enjoyed a night out of the kitchen—and in the spotlight. What do you feed the city’s top foodies? None of the usual rubber-chicken staples of the Washington dinner circuit were to be found; instead, hors d’oeuvres during the cocktail hour included a full oyster bar, and dinner featured a pistachio-crusted rack of lamb with barley risotto served alongside Chilean wines. Also on the menu: star guests including D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty and a video of Senator Hillary Clinton praising award recipient and DC Central Kitchen founder Robert Egger. MORE >>

05.31.07 7:30 PM

A Media Buyer Gives Her Take on Upfront Week

Our Upfront Week mole posing with Justin Chambers of Grey's Anatomy at the ABC after-party.

FROM NEW YORK We gathered lots of media buyers’ impressions of Upfront Week, and as a whole, they tell a hectic, fun, sometimes contradictory story of the television networks’ annual sales pitches. For more consistent (yet just as subjective) view, we asked a supervisor at a major media buying firm to share her thoughts, day by day. Here's her take.

Monday
3 p.m., NBC presentation, Radio City Music Hall
It was fair. No one was really buzzing about the shows except Journeyman. They didn’t touch on their extensions like late-night and morning programming too much, and I think everyone was kind of grateful for that. They cut to the chase with the presentation.

5 p.m., NBC after-party, the Rink at Rockefeller Center
All the talent was at the party. [The casts] of Friday Night Lights, The Office, Heroes, and new shows like Journeyman and Life. The party was like it’s always been: It’s really nice because it’s at Rockefeller Center, and it’s never too crowded. When I walked in, four people from The Office were just standing there. MORE >>

Upfront Week, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, The CW

05.31.07 6:33 PM

Media Buyers Like Shrimp, Debate Whose Is Best

ABC opened its upfront with an Ugly Betty musical number.
ABC/Donna Svennevik

FROM NEW YORK Every May, a swarm of media buyers, ad execs, talent, and other assorted television-industry types hits New York for Upfront Week, the broadcast networks’ yearly presentations of their fall schedules. In the hope of snagging millions in advertising dollars, the usually hard-sell presentations are star-studded, and often stat-studded. And the parties that follow are staged to wow, with plenty of photo ops with network talent, mountains of shrimp, and free-flowing booze. While both attendees and the press noted some fiscal restraint on the part of the networks this year, the broadcasters weren’t exactly serving Saltines and cold cuts. After all, Advertising Age called Upfront Week a “$9 billion annual event that is the financial pivot of the prime-time TV business.”

NBC kicked off the week at Radio City Music Hall, promising to “skip the song and dance” and get people out in under an hour and a half (they did). CBS showed its wares at Carnegie Hall, with help from CSI: Miami star David Caruso, who was happy to make fun of his on-screen persona. Pushing the multiplatform angle, the net also aired a YouTube video of Caruso’s over-the-top one-liners on CSI and had ad sales president JoAnn Ross address the crowd as an avatar. At Avery Fisher Hall, ABC staged a boffo opening musical number starring the cast of Ugly Betty and wrapped the presentation by giving away a plasma-screen TV (a tie-in to the net’s upcoming show National Bingo Night) and filling the theater with a thunderous marching band. Fox kept it short and sweet, enlisting Keifer Sutherland to pretape a presentation addressing Fox entertainment president Peter Liguori as 24’s Jack Bauer. (“Keep it to an hour. ... You’re on the clock, Mr. President.”) In possibly a record for any upfront presentation, that’s all the network took. (Perhaps it was a mea culpa: Last year’s clocked in at an agonizing three hours.) Among the other networks vying for attention and ad buys were Telemundo, Univision, the CW, ESPN, and Broadband Enterprises. So how did they do? Did the networks get their money’s worth? Well, our opinions don’t really matter, so we sought out the ones that do: those of the attendees who slosh through the overcrowded week each year. (“If you cut my finger off,” one high-level ad buyer said, “you can count the rings of how many upfronts I’ve been to.”) Here’s what they had to say, sometimes on the record, sometimes under the cover of anonymity, and sometimes as they spoke to another guest, not realizing we were listening. MORE >>

Upfront Week, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, The CW, ESPN

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