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.
Target's "Best.Snowday.Ever"
Submitted by Deutsch
Residents of Southern California got an unexpected sight last holiday season: snow. Target teamed up with AEG and L.A. Live to bring a free public event to downtown Los Angeles, filling L.A. Live with 180 tons of snow, carnival games, a giant sledding hill with a 30-foot snow castle, and—the main motivation for the winter wonderland—a “Giving Station.” Guests received a token for each event they participated in and later used their tokens to vote for one of four local charities at the Giving Station. Target donated money from the three-day event to all four charities; the one with the most tokens received $10,000.
For the massive gala's 2014 iteration, planners chose a "Bridge to Possibility" theme. Held at the cavernous Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, the event featured screens printed with the New York City skyline and bridges. The screens enclosed the entry hallway that led to the reception space. David Stark Design designed the event.
Desserts emporium Popbar offers a do-it-yourself drink dubbed hot chocolate on a stick. Available in dark, milk, or vanilla chocolate, the sticks are intended to be stirred into a mug of steamed milk. The New York-based business caters events, but also offers the treats in gift boxes.
Jukely Unlimited describes itself as the "Netflix of concerts." For $25 per month, users can attend one free show per day in their area. The system, accessible on the Web and via a mobile app, currently includes listings in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Austin, Texas, Miami, Chicago, Seattle, and Toronto, with plans for more cities in the coming months. Users can sync their music libraries with the app so it can recommend concerts based on individual tastes; over time it also recommends concerts similar to ones the user has attended. The app also shows friends who are going to a show and allows users to earn points toward free concert tickets by inviting friends to events.
YPlan calls itself the “spontaneous going out app.” The app, currently offering listings in London, New York, and San Francisco, unveiled several new features in March. A curated list of recommended events is grouped in categories, for example date-night suggestions. Users can also search for specific venues or event types by location, category, or keyword. The app is also now integrated with maps, so users can see what’s happening in real time in specific locations, and new filter options allow users to refine selections by date and price.
Events.com is a new cloud-based mobile app that launched in February. Users can search for events, purchase tickets, and share events on their social networks. The system also displays Twitter and Facebook posts about the event and a map of the event location.
Eventjoy is an event management platform now owned by Ticketmaster that allows users to find events and buy tickets through the app. In January the app added new features, including the ability to chat with event organizers and view a live stream of social buzz around the event from Twitter and Instagram. Each listing in the app can include things such as maps, venue photos, and profiles of speakers, sponsors, and exhibitors. Users can also find out which of their friends are going and send personal invitations to those who are not.
Fever launched in 2013 and is currently live in New York and Madrid, Valencia, and Barcelona in Spain, with London launching soon. The app creates a personalized list of things to do based on the user's interests and the friends and trendsetters they follow. Fever provides “tastemaker intel” based on partnerships with trendsetters in each city who allow the app to show where they are going and what they are doing. As users purchase tickets and attend events through the app, the system learns their preferences and customizes suggestions based on those past behaviors. As of February the app has more than one million users worldwide.
Vuevent uses tags such as art, live music, food, and fitness to categorize events. In the coming weeks the system will add deeper levels of filtering, for example specific types of music. Each suggested event also shows other similar events. Users can add events to their calendar, share events with friends, and favorite an event, which saves it to their profile. The app currently displays events in Denver and Boulder, Colorado, and in Austin, Texas, and the company plans to expand to more cities.
Hypestarter currently lists events in Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with plans to add Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and several other cities later this year. The free app includes details from online event postings such as live music, festivals, 5K races, comedy events, sporting events, art shows, author events, and speaker series. Users can filter events based on those categories or calendars of specific venues and organizations, or by following what their friends are doing. Each listing includes social sharing tools, and hosts have the ability to add a link to online ticketing.
The nonprofit hosted its annual gala on March 5 at the University of Illinois at Chicago Forum. The evening had a "Mission: Possible" theme that inspired a unique presentation of raffle tickets. During the cocktail hour, "Change Agents" wearing suits and sunglasses sold raffle tickets bearing numerical codes. One guest's ticket had a code that unlocked a suitcase displayed on the silent auction table. Within the suitcase was a ticket for the evening's grand prize: a week-long stay in Hawaii.
