Wise Guys Events in Los Angeles has launched a Minute to Win It-style teambuilding event. Teams of eight face off against one another at stations each featuring a different timed task like stacking five apples. The company stages events in California and Las Vegas.
In 2012, Hanami After Dark in Washington raised money for disaster relief in Japan by showcasing a Maguro-Kaitai ceremony, the traditional ritual of breaking down an entire 150-pound tuna for sushi. Master sushi chef Toru Oga of Oga’s Japanese Cuisine in Boston performed the rite, which involves custom-designed knives carefully carving the fish so no part is wasted.
On Tuesday night, the W Chicago City Center hosted a Valentine's Day bash in its new EWow Suite. In keeping with the theme, the hotel's in-house mixologist, Lauren Parton, created personalized love potions at the bar. After asking guests a series of questions about cocktail preferences, Parton prepared a specialized drink. She also wrote down the recipe and bottled up a portion of the cocktail mixer as a gift.
Svedka vodka took over DBA in Los Angeles for an early celebration on February 4. At the promotion, which was more cheeky than schmaltzy, starlets such as Vanessa Hudgens and Nikki Reed created their own voodoo dolls at a craft station.
Groups can catch a wave on dry land with the new Surf Break option at Southern California’s Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel. During the 15- to 30-minute meeting break, instructors teach guests how to ride specially designed skateboards that simulate riding a wave.
As is true with most event pros looking to promote their products to event guests, Lorne Cousin, the West Coast ambassador for Balvenie, aims to create interactive experiences. "I have all our guests rub some of the DoubleWood 12 Year Old on the backs of their hands to burn off the alcohol, which, to their amazement, releases a stream of delicious aromas, which they all love."
For a highly visual—and Instagram-friendly—photo opp, social media prompts served as props against a grassy wall decorated with Veuve bottles at the fourth annual Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic at Will Rogers State Historic Park in Los Angeles on October 5. Working with Veuve director of communications Christine Kaculis, BrownHot Events produced the event once again with the chic, subtly branded details that characterize the annual sporting event.
Ben & Jerry’s dished out about 16,000 cups of free Bonnaroo Buzz, Late Night Snack, and other flavors of its ice cream—and gained more than 2,000 new Twitter followers—during its Summer Scoop Truck Tour in Miami in 2011. The program, managed by Gigunda Group, invited the brand’s fans on Twitter and Facebook to help determine where the truck would stop each day, with the goal of raising the brand’s profile in the Miami market and attracting new customers.
In an effort to find an innovative way to encourage tweeting at AT&T-sponsored events, Team Epic worked with Brightline Interactive to develop what it calls a “Twitter balloon”: a balloon six feet in diameter connected to an air compressor that is activated by tweets with a particular hashtag. “There are a lot of Twitter walls that show tweets as they come in, but this performs a physical action and it happens within less than a second,” said Andrew Knutson, manager for Team Epic. “As soon as you tweet, you hear the air going to the balloon, which is pretty cool. You’ll see crowds forming, especially as the balloon gets bigger.” AT&T unveiled the balloon at the N.C.A.A. Final Four men's basketball championship last spring and has since used it at events such as the Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival in San Francisco, the College World Series in Omaha, CMA Music Festival in Nashville, and Music Midtown in Atlanta. Signage at the events encourages attendees to tweet with a particular hashtag. Each tweet triggers a burst of air into the balloon, and the person whose tweet causes the balloon to pop wins a prize such as an AT&T phone.
As the 80,000 attendees at last year’s Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival celebrated on a Tennessee farm, news of their daily activities was posting to Facebook, creating nearly 1.5 million social impressions. But the attendees weren’t pulling out their smartphones to connect to Facebook; instead they were swiping wristbands with R.F.I.D. technology at one of 20 check-in portals around the 700-acre venue.
Guests will be more inclined to snap selfies if they feel they're looking their best—so events are coupling beauty treatments with other encouragement. At the Colgate Optic White beauty bar ahead of the Golden Globes in Los Angeles earlier this year, decals bearing the appropriate handles and hashtags decked mirrors near the beauty stations where guests were captive during hair and makeup services.
At the BMF Music Lounge during Coachella, sponsor Tide gave guests all the elements needed to take a selfie and easily share it. In a poolside suite at Palm Springs's Ingleside Inn, the brand decked out a mirror with floral appliques as well as the appropriate hashtag #TidePlus.
Event Farm and HyperVocal hosted the "2.0: The New Media Party" at the Carnegie Library last weekend during the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. At the event, the "Selfie Squad" sponsored by Microsoft facilitated quality selfies with guests, decor, the band, and other details of the party. The team then immediately posted the snaps to social sites using the hashtag #NewMediaParty.
During the holidays, fashion brand Ted Baker used the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe to encourage selfies that promoted the brand. At the Ted Baker Fifth Avenue store in New York, Kin Design created a 20- by 20-foot aluminum sculpture to serve as a modern twist on mistletoe, and guests shared kiss pics on Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag #KissTed. With the help of a specially designed app, photos then fed two 90-inch monitors inside the store’s front windows for passing shoppers to see. On Christmas Eve, the brand selected one participant to receive a free four-night stay for two at the St. Regis Hotel in Abu Dhabi.
Online magazine xoJane hosted a party at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, this year that rewarded guests with fame at the event for snapping selfies. In an upstairs portion of the party space, guests were encouraged to take selfies with mirrors. The shots were then printed to add onto the "Shameless Selfie" wall and were projected in the event's main space, where MKG used neon masking tape and ultraviolet lighting for pops of bright color. The event promoted the pub's "Shameless Celebrity" list.
OtterBox gave out its new Symmetry Series phone case to guests at the Kari Feinstein Style Lounge at Coachella. But the free stuff came with a not-so-gentle reminder to help proliferate the brand’s message on social media: A dedicated mirrored “selfie station" allowed guests to share their snaps (with their phones clearly pictured, of course) using the appropriate hashtags.
Offering guests extra props or backdrops to inspire selfies can sometimes seal the deal. During a holiday event, the W Fort Lauderdale placed mirrors in nine spots throughout the property, each embedded in elf-theme vignettes. After snapping their festive shots, guests could then upload the images to Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter using the hashtags #WFortLauderdale and #BringtheBright.
Not all selfies are spontaneous; offering a reward can incentivize guests to take and post them. The New York International Auto Show gave out free tickets to opening night to the first 100 people who posted a selfie with a show poster, found in New York's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.
