July 20, 2018: Artist-Run Events On the Rise in Shaky Music Festival Market, Event Management Start-Up Gather Partners With Yelp to Make Event Planning Easier, Airports Are Providing Unexpected Wedding Venues

1. ARTIST-RUN EVENTS ON THE RISE IN SHAKY MUSIC FESTIVAL MARKET: Launching a first-time music festival isn’t easy and often results in a loss in money, unless the festival is curated by a high-profile artist. One of the most recent examples is Posty Fest, an upcoming festival that was launched by rapper Post Malone and sold out in two hours even though a lineup hadn’t been announced. Billboard: “Malone joins a number of artists launching their own music extravaganzas this year, including Florida Georgia Line, whose FGL Fest at the Indianapolis Speedway on Sept. 8 features Cole Swindell and Nelly. J. Cole's Dreamville Festival in Raleigh, North Carolina, is scheduled for September 15, and Australian indie-pop duo Client Liaison's new event, Expo Liaison, will play four dates Down Under in August. The launches follow the success of festivals like Chance the Rapper’s 2016 Magnificent Coloring Day, which broke the attendance record at baseball stadium Cellular One Field in Chicago; MAC Presents helped nab Bud Light and Lollapalooza as show sponsors and H&M and Nintendo as retail sponsors, while Citi sponsored the presale. Tyler the Creator recently announced that his six-year-old Camp Flog Gnaw will move to Dodgers Stadium in November, outgrowing its hold home at LA's Exposition Park. Though the artist-curated festival isn’t new, such events have become exponentially more attractive to advertisers recently as companies struggle to connect with fragmented young consumers. Not only do such festivals get brands closer to the artist in charge, they also include increasingly valuable promotion on the act’s social media feeds, which boast far better engagement than a traditional festival’s social accounts. … Artist-led events are capturing sponsorship money and ticket sales in an increasingly cutthroat festival market, with a slew of other fests both old and new going belly-up. ‘There’s just a lot of competition out there for dollars,’ said Kevin Lyman of 4Fini, which produces the Vans Warped Tour, one of the longest-running festivals in North America that is coming off the road this year. Lyman says his decision to retire the brand after two decades isn’t ‘based on any one particular reason,’ but an overall sense that the ‘live music business is changing, and to survive you have to change with it.’ While the amount of festivals launching in 2018 has grown significantly, the number of ticket buyers hasn’t kept up: Los Angeles’ long-running FYF Fest and the second-year, Phoenix-based Lost Lake festival announced cancellations months before they were set to take place, citing slow ticket sales and lack of consumer interest.” https://bit.ly/2O1ISYU

2. EVENT MANAGEMENT START-UP GATHER PARTNERS WITH YELP TO MAKE EVENT PLANNING EASIER: Gather, an event management software company founded in 2013, has partnered with Yelp and EventUp to launch its Gather Booking Network, which is a program developed to help event planners, venues, and attendees connect in an easier way. TechCrunch: "Since its creation, Gather has teamed up with more than 12,500 venues and restaurants across the United States and expanded its three-person team to 95 Atlanta-based employees. The company helps coordinate a wide range of events, from corporate gatherings to full-blown weddings. As part of its expansion and to refine its services, Gather raised a $2.5 million Series A round in 2016 led by Ryan Floyd of Storm Ventures and a strategic investment and partnership with Vista Equity Partners in 2017. Now, the company’s sights are on growing its booking network to provide a one-stop shop for event planning needs. After the company acquired the venue and event space company EVENTup in June—a move that more than doubled the number of venues and restaurants in its roster—the announcement today of its collaboration with Yelp is bringing its services to the average party-goer as well. 'The Gather partnership gives Yelp users a single destination to search and book restaurants and venues, no matter the party size or time frame,' Chad Richard, Yelp’s senior vice president of Business and Corporate Development, told TechCrunch in an email. 'Diners on Yelp have been able to book reservations weeks in advance or snag a table at the last-minute using Yelp Nowait, but to date we haven’t had a solution for diners looking to reserve for large groups or special events.'" https://tcrn.ch/2mt050W

3. AIRPORTS ARE PROVIDING UNEXPECTED WEDDING VENUES: Out-of-the-box venues can always make a wedding more memorable, and lately, airport tarmacs and terminals have been providing couples with a new location to get hitched. New York Times: “Several airports welcome weddings. A special department of V.I.P. services at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm, for instance, will arrange weddings in the control tower. There’s even a wedding package for same-day departures—just in case the newlyweds want to leave right away for their honeymoon. In California, Chris Robinson, a lawyer and a notary, regularly performs weddings in public spaces at Los Angeles-area airports. “I’ve been part of dozens of weddings in L.A., Burbank and Orange County airports,” he said, adding that passersby are always charmed. Weddings are also popular at airport hotels with views of the runway, like the Sheraton Hartford Hotel at Hartford Bradley International Airport, where more than half a dozen couples each year celebrate their union from a ballroom overlooking the tarmac. As couples personalize the occasion, ‘unique venues are on the rise,’ said Kristen Maxwell Cooper, the editor in chief of the wedding website the Knot. Hangars and air museums are also selected as wedding sites, though not just by couples involved in aviation. Catherine Harbove, an event director at a restaurant in Houston, and Alejandro Capetillo, who works in finance, both 31, decided to hold their wedding this past April in a former terminal building of Houston’s Hobby Airport. ‘He’s been flight obsessed his whole life,’ Ms. Harbove said of her new husband’s interest in aviation. ‘He doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that the movie, Top Gun came out the year he was born.’” https://nyti.ms/2uztiLV

* LOCAL NEWS *

BOSTON:  Breast Cancer Research Foundation’s Boston Hot Pink Luncheon & Symposium will take place November 2 at Boston Harbor Hotel. 

CHICAGO:  Chicago Marriott Magnificent Mile is partnering with food delivery service Imperfect Produce to host a rooftop event on July 26. The event will celebrate Imperfect Produce’s accomplishment of saving 2.6 million pounds of produce in Chicago since it launched in December.  

HOUSTON:  The Woodlands Resort has appointed Ryan Adams general manager. 

LAS VEGAS:  Caesars Entertainment has broken ground on Caesars Forum, a $375 million, 550,000-square-foot conference center that will open on the Strip in 2020. 

Live events agency G.E.S. has appointed Chip Carman director of business development, re-appointed Lori Chester director of business development, and Taina Wolters account executive. 

LOS ANGELES:  The Sheraton Gateway Los Angeles Hotel has opened its new meeting area, the 7,523-square-foot Hub Conference Center.

Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort has completed a renovation of its 40,000 square feet of meeting and event space, which includes two ballrooms. The renovation includes a modernized design with a blue color palette inspired by Santa Barbara’s scenery. Design elements include hammered rock tables, found objects from the beach, blue-hued chairs, and ocean-inspired artwork. 

Greta Vanhersecke, senior vice president of DKC Public Relations, is leaving the firm to launch her own PR firm called GV Public Relations. 

For information on upcoming events in Los Angeles, visit Masterplanner: http://www.masterplanneronline.com/losangeles

NEW YORK:  The 19th annual Hudson River Park Blues BBQ Festival will take place August 18 at Pier 97. The event will serve food from Mighty Quinn’s, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, and Pig Beach. 

For information on upcoming events in New York, visit Masterplanner: http://www.masterplanneronline.com/newyork

TOKYO:  Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants will open its first Tokyo property, Kimpton Tokyo Shinjuku, in 2020. The hotel will have 162 guest rooms and three meeting spaces that will hold as many as 300 guests. 

WASHINGTON, D.C.:  Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp’s has appointed Andrea McFadden and Antrice McNeil to lead regional sales for the Washington market. McFadden serves as director of the Mid-Atlantic regional office and McNeil is director of national accounts. 

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With contributions from Claire Hoffman in Los Angeles and Beth Kormanik, Michele Laufik, Ian Zelaya, and Kristine Liao in New York.

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