Fun ideas

The OC Fair & Event Center in Costa Mesa hosted the first Electric Run November 30, a trippy nighttime 5K run/walk set to electronic dance music that saw more than 10,000 participants dressed in glow-in-the-dark costumes surrounded by a million watts of lights.

Plastic red cups played heavily into Saucony's December 4 gathering at the Coppertank Events Center. A satellite event to the Running Event in Austin, the party featured a fence wall that spelled out the brand's name using Solo cups. The installation was meant to evoke a backyard or block-party feel.

At the AIDS Foundation of Chicago's "World of Chocolate" event on November 29, a silent auction let guests bid at different levels and choose a number on a punch board that corresponded to that level. Event staffers dressed as professional boxers would then punch a hole through that number and reveal a corresponding prize.

John Laraio of Mobius8 performed at the Fusion Fashion & Art Show December 6 at LMNT Contemporary Art Space in Miami. Mobius8 is electronica performance art that combines lighting, visual effects, and lasers that morph to the beat of dance music.

At the Miami Beach launch of William John Kennedy’s portraits of Andy Warhol December 7, guests ate roasted Peking duck moo-shoo rolls with hoisin-marinated scallions served in mini take-out boxes adorned with Warhol's portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong. Other Warhol-inspired bites from the Villa by Barton G. included tomato gazpacho served in mini iconic Campbell's soup cans and Kobe beef sliders served on a tray of Coca-Cola bottles.

A branded shuffleboard game at Harper’s Bazaar's ShopBazaar.com pop-up last week at the Buena Vista Building in Miami offered winners free T-shirts, cash prizes, and gift certificates. XA produced the space and its events.

For the season three premiere party for Portlandia, IFC took over New York’s American Museum of Natural History and created quirky displays to match the show’s offbeat portrayal of Portland. The Monday night event included miniature scenes of Portlandians everyday activities in glass terrariums.

The Children's Defense Fund's 22nd annual Beat the Odds award ceremony December 6 honored five Los Angeles high school students who overcame personal obstacles and achieved academic excellence. To incorporate the teenagers into the night's visuals, the organizers used a gallery of black-and-white portraits as the backdrop for the stage at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Art Arellanes produced the event; Revelry handled the scenic production and Richard Taylor provided the lighting design.

An inventive ploy for on-the-spot donations, Charity:Water invited guests at its seventh Charity:Ball in New York to buy helium-filled balloons for $5 a pop. The attendees at the Monday-night event then could release the inflatables in a net shaped like a giant jerry can—an image the nonprofit uses to symbolize its mission of bringing clean water to developing countries.

Bloor Street Entertains, a fund-raiser for CANFAR, took place in several venues on the Toronto street on November 28. Students from Seneca College worked with event producer Spinraduis to design a table with an Elegant Winter theme in the William Ashley china shop. At each place setting, Christmas tree ornaments shaped like glittering presents served as name cards, and guests took home the festive trinkets at the end of the night. Ecostems designed the lush centerpiece.

Hewlett-Packard marked the launch of its new portfolio of Windows 8 touch technology products with an event in October that had attendees controlling patterned projections. Stations set up around the perimeter of New York's Terminal 5 let guests play with touch-screen computers while simultaneously changing the look and color of the lighting that illuminated panels overhead.

UrbanDaddy's "white room" event—an affair created in partnership with Stoli to promote the vodka brand's new campaign and flavors—invited guests to create the night's decor using paint and brushes. The November party in New York also supplied its attendees with lab coats and goggles to protect clothes from their creative tasks.

Lifestyle images layered with infrared technology at Target's after-party for the MTV Movie Awards in 2008 allowed guests to interact with the images using the heat and movement of their bodies.

To encourage attendees to make on-site donations at its December Charity:Ball in New York, nonprofit Charity:Water sold yellow helium-filled balloons for $5 each. Guests could release their brightly colored inflatables into a 28-foot-tall, 20-foot-wide net rigged to the ceiling of the 69th Regiment Armory. As the inflatable orbs filled the structure, it started to resemble a giant yellow Jerry can, Charity:Water's signature symbol.

At the Design Industry Foundation Fighting AIDS' Dining by Design event in Chicago in November, the table for CS Interiors designed by Casa Spazio with Atelier Turner was reminiscent of an artist's studio. The vignette inside the Merchandise Mart had paper walls, ample brushes, and open jars of paint, and guests were encouraged to add to the background mural.

David Stark's design for Cooper-Hewitt's 2011 National Design Awards was dominated by the use of fluorescent tape supplied by 3M. In addition to an installation that displayed a scale version of the art institution's Upper East Side home, the cocktail hour had a wall where gala guests could draw or write about what design means to them using brightly colored adhesive strips.

Combining a live performance by Coldplay with digital components, the American Express Unstaged concert in October 2011 saw the stage decorated with a backdrop of butterflies. The video installation that was projected on LCD screens for the Madrid show was a collage of designs the audience members were invited to create online.

In 2009, Louis Vuitton debuted its new in-store boutique at Saks Fifth Avenue by building an indoor garden at the New York store. The centerpiece of the event's design was a wishing tree, where guests were invited to pen their answers to the question "Where will your journey take you?" and hang the messages on strands of ribbon dangling from its branches.

During the September 2010 run of New York Fashion Week, Chanel reopened its SoHo store with a big bash. To leave most of the retail space free of additional decor elements—and allow the 500 guests to move around—the producers erected two black tents outside and turned the inside walls into an interactive graffiti room. In this area, guests could use custom paint cans to digitally tag oversize LED screens.

To highlight the event's focus on children and fund-raising for a charter school, the 2006 Robin Hood Foundation gala had giant chalkboards in the reception area set up in New York's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. David Stark sketched local landmarks and iconic scenes on the walls, and, during the event, guests could add their own designs with chalk provided in bowls on the cocktail tables.