The Minnesota State Fair, August 22 to September 2, just announced its latest gluttonous offerings. Included: Homemade meat loaf deep-fried and served on a stick with a red pepper wine glaze from Minnesota Wine Country.
At the annual BET Pre pre-award dinner at Milk Studios on July 7, Andre Wells's production and design included vibrant watercolors, peacocks, and an overall ethereal look and feel. At the cocktail reception, Wells's team used tones of red, butter, fuschia, purple, teal, green, navy, and midnight blue to create a vivid look. Club sofas, ottomans, and circle chairs from Revelry were all done in the vibrant tones. A live Twitter wall showed guests interacting on social media.
The South Beach sun gave a summery backdrop for Cosmopolitan en Español’s beach bash, which returned to Nikki Beach for the late-afternoon event June 22. The beauty-themed, indoor-outdoor event infused the beach property with Latin flavor. Event staff wore colorful tunics from sponsor Samsara Imports.
Procter & Gamble celebrated its "Everyday Effect" campaign—the largest consumer event in the company's 175-year history—by hosting a citywide sampling event on June 19. To easily shuttle consumers to pop-up experiences around Manhattan, event producers Citizen Paine and Gigunda offered custom blue pedicabs.
Clarks's annual award dinner took place at Boston's Royale Nightclub June 11. Max Ultimate Catering set the first course on wooden slabs that had the footwear company's logo burned into them. The course included a fire-roasted shrimp stake with heirloom tomatoes, cucumber, watermelon, radish, and asparagus, all drizzled with a wine vinaigrette.
On June 8, the Big Bang Bash took over the Royal Ontario Museum to celebrate the opening of the "Viktor & Rolf Dolls" exhibition; the gala also marked the opening of the Luminato multidisciplinary arts festival. A conveyer belt served everything from cocktails to cupcakes to poached lobster tails.
Building on last summer's campaign that brought branded bicycles mounted with water coolers to several regions, Fiji Water launched its latest initiative June 1. The new promotion, dubbed "Discover the Finer Things," still involves brand ambassadors on bikes, but this time the pedal-powered vehicles come with attached "vaults." As reps hand out bottles of the brand's water, participants also receive combination codes for a chance to unlock the vaults and receive prizes like Uber and Gilt City gift cards or a trip to the Venetian Las Vegas. If the code fails to unlock the vault, guests still leave with the new, reusable Fiji Straw.
The Chicago Botanic Garden hosted its ninth annual Summer Dinner Dance on June 21. For dinner, a tent decorated by HMR Designs created a garden-within-a-garden setting. Tucked into the venue's lush Rose Garden, the tent was draped in moss silk and strung with nine birdcage chandeliers. The cages, in turn, were strung with white lilies, and pillars were wrapped in trellises.
With a guest list dominated by children, the launch of JW Marriott's new kids' menu offered food geared toward keeping young ones entertained. The lively and colorful event, held last month at the JW Marriott Essex House, was hosted by nutritionist Keri Glassman, who created the menu. Nutritious snacks had easy-to-handle presentations for little hands and included colorful melon balls presented like cake pops.
As the sun went down in Cannes, France, June 17, Twitter fired up a 40,000-lumens Barco projector mounted on a roof 150 feet across a street from the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, the site of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. For the next several hours, a 3-D projection of tweets using the official event hashtag, #CannesLions, appeared on a 35- by 65-foot billboard located 30 feet above the venue’s entrance. The digital activation, created by Incredible Machines, ran for five hours that night and for the next three nights, while during the day the billboard showed a static image of the hashtag printed on canvas.
 From newly launched full-service San Francisco Âproduction agency Madrone Creative comes its flagship mobile venue, the Immersion Dome. The 2,000-square-foot space can hold 300 standing or 150 seated and comes with seamless 360-degree video projection. The Madrone team works with clients to create custom-branded video content, which can also include audio reactive projections or a customized interactive mobile app. The Immersion Dome can be shipped worldwide.
Safari-style tents are the new hot ticket: Under Canvas Events is now renting marquee teepee-style tents for events throughout the U.S. and Canada. As many as seven of the large canvas tents can be connected to Âaccommodate 315 seated or 700 standing. The company also rents teepee bathrooms with running water, accommodation teepees that sleep as many as four people, and a Âvariety of furniture and accessories for corporate retreats.Â
From the makers of Fashion GPS, an invitation, scheduling, and seating system used by the fashion industry since 2006, comes Events GPS. Launched in August, the service offers electronic invitations, mail merge, interactive seating plans, and on-site digital check-in that can be done with QR codes or with R.F.I.D. chips embedded in physical invitations. Events GPS has a Web-based system and a mobile app. Hosts can use the system to store contacts, including photos, and track which events people attended in the past, where they were seated, and other details. After the event, Events GPS can generate reports regarding attendee engagement.
PlanetNow is a cloud-based event management system that launched in March. Planners use the system to create an event Web site, process registration, oversee transportation, coordinate venues and vendors, manage sessions and special events, and conduct surveys. The system’s mobile app has a matching algorithm integrated with LinkedIn and GPS services that helps attendees discover other people at the event with common interests or backgrounds.
Available since March, Now Attending is intended to facilitate engagement at corporate and social events. Planners use the system to create a custom event site to manage R.S.V.P.s. If attendees connect their Facebook accounts when they register, the system will show which of their friends are also attending, their hotel selections, and more. The system will soon be integrated with LinkedIn, as well. At the event, attendees use the Now Attending mobile app to view their personalized agendas and communicate with the host and other attendees. To promote engagement, photos shared through the app can simultaneously be displayed on a large screen that can also include sponsor information and trivia about attendees, such as who traveled the farthest.
EventDay is an event management platform that launched last year. Planners create an event Web site to manage registration, attendee communication, badges, and coordination of speakers and exhibitors. The system can be integrated with digital signage at a venue to provide real-time updates to schedules and sessions. The system provides two mobile apps: one for the event host that provides information such as check-in status and sponsor management, and another for attendees that is focused on scheduling and session content. Hosts can also use EventDay to moderate questions during a session that attendees send via the app, texts, or Twitter; approved questions display on a large screen in front of the audience.
SignUp4 purchased RapidApp last year and has integrated it into its event management system. As planners build their event Web sites in SignUp4, the system automatically creates the identical elements in the mobile app. When attendees register on the Web site, the attendee list updates in the app. The app also provides location services integrated with Google Maps and allows attendees to share photos with one another. SignUp4 plans to link the app with its travel management system so planners can see attendees’ itineraries and attendees can receive real-time updates on flight delays or other changes on their mobile devices.
