At the 2010 fund-raiser in Boston, guests were brought face-to-face with the cause they were supporting. Staffers from the Animal Rescue League circulated with cuddly creatures, including kittens.
At this year's TEDActive, the official simulcast of the TED conference, attendees' dogs were welcome at the host venue in Palm Springs as well as the event itself, adding to the easygoing vibe.
Produced by Extra! Extra! in New York in 2010, the cat-food companies' event displayed sustainable artwork submitted by more than 100 consumers from across the country. Each piece sat atop a podium covered with berber carpet, the same material used for cat scratching posts.
At the 2012 event in Miami, guests got keepsake drawings that memorialized their furry friends. Caricature artists drew pictures of guests and their pets during cocktail hour.
The event also included a pet-friendly fashion component. Pawpurrazzi co-chair Bunny Bastian and her family walked their dogs in the "Great Pets Who Walk in Front of Great People" show.
At Purina's gourmet dog food promotion at New York's Gotham Hall in 2010, the center of the room held four long serving tables where dogs were invited to chow down. Designers used hedging to keep the dogs from snacking off other guests' plates.
At Paws 4 You's pet-friendly concert in Miami in 2011, Cupcake.Love.Miami donated 500 miniature cupcakes—including ones designed for dogs to eat.
To help launch its downtown store in 2012, CityTarget turned Seattle's Plymouth Pillars Dog Park into a doggy wonderland. It was a fitting promotion for a brand whose mascot is a bull terrier named Bullseye. CityTarget worked with Seattle’s Rally Marketing Group to develop the experience, which included a “bonetender” at a stocked Bone Bar that offered complimentary treats and toys.
Chicago's Pets Are Worth Saving hosts an annual black-tie Fur Ball that guests can bring their dogs to. At the 2009 event, pet buffets had silver trays of decorated dog treats.
Kehoe Designs decorated the Fur Ball's bars with porcelain dogs in bow ties.
More than 800 gathered in Manhattan's Lower East Side for Thrillist's third annual Best Day of Your Life, celebrating the longest day of the year on June 21. The many attractions included Samsung's "Museum of Instagrammable Moments," which allowed guests to have their photos taken with live-artist exhibits, including a moving backdrop of an aerial view of New York City that prompted guests to jump on a trampoline.
In keeping with the positive vibe, event staffers meant to look like grannies handed out birthday cards with money and Prohibition Bakery's Beer & Pretzel cupcakes.
Guests walked through an interactive hallway entrance that previewed the content to come at Refinery29's "Driven, Not Distracted" event, the second in the media company's "Her Brain on Digital" series. Held at Industria Superstudio in New York City's meatpacking district on June 3, the event's theme focused on how technology is mobilizing and strengthening the community of millenial women. Refinery29 partnered with Glymmer to create software that took content from the presentation and added it to the interactive, multisensory video wall lining the entrance. Using Microsoft Kinects, motion tracking allowed guests to trigger custom animations, quotes, and videos from the research study.
The Power Ball, held at the Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto on June 4, did not have a typical bar setup. Instead, bartenders sat in theater chairs, wearing tuxedos and holding bottles that were ready to be poured. There were also staffers throwing potato chips from the rafters, and guests threw back pieces of bread, cheese, and meat. Partygoers could also snip pieces of octopus from a chandelier hanging overhead.
Instead of a traditional plated dinner, V.I.P. guests got an entirely different experience: an interactive experience from food artist Jennifer Rubell. Hands appeared through holes in the table, serving guests one morsel at a time.
The 2015 Wall Ball, a fund-raiser supporting the City of Mural Arts Program that was held on May 21 at Philadelphia's Electric Factory, gave guests an opportunity to make their own salad by ordering from a salad mural. Catering by Design created a mural wall of salad greens using an existing railed platform. Men dressed as painters used garden shears to cut down baby heads of lettuce, which were transferred to clear paint cans that guests could take to a salad bar to add toppings.
In the Unmanned Systems and Drone Pavilion at InfoComm June 13 to 19, held at the Orange County Convention Center, more than a dozen manufacturers demonstrated their products inside a 30-foot enclosed cube. Stampede Presentation Products introduced three xFold multi-rotor drones intended primarily for aerial video production with multiple cameras.
Ben & Jerry's recently kicked its gas-guzzling, boxy ice cream truck to the curb, trading it in for a set of hot wheels. As part of its Save Our Swirled campaign, which kicked off in April, the eco-conscious, Vermont-based ice cream company souped up an electric Tesla Model S for its 8,000-plus-mile road trip. The brand is currently touring the country, offering free scoops and spreading the word about the effects of carbon pollution and clean energy solutions.
At this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, popularly known as E3, Disney Interactive showcased Disney Infinity 3.0 Edition, the latest in the hybrid toy-game series. Attendees of the event at the Los Angeles Convention Center, held June 16 to 18, passed into the booth through a custom-built illuminated entryway known as the Disney Infinity Figure Arch, which displayed all of the figures that have ever been released.
The Activision booth promoted Guitar Hero Live, allowing attendees to journey from fans to performers. As guests got ready to go on stage, staff pretending to be stagehands and groupies pumped them up. They were guided to center stage—prominently at a visible and heavily trafficked area of the booth—where a live audience cheered them on. A green-screen stage dive was also part of the experience.
