Being pretentious, I normally prefer the fancier word when describing an item: privet for hedge, waiscot for vest (although they are technically not the same thing—I'm just waiting for someone to catch me). I like to say "Call me on my portable," not only because I abhor the incomplete and common-sounding "cell," but also because that's what my family called them in the old days, before everyone had one.
Maybe that is why I object to the word automobile. It is one of those terms that, while aspiring to be tony and convey some formality, actually seems more pedestrian. It's like couture—at one point this meant custom or handmade, and now when it's used to describe a garment or some such it means "brought to you by idiots."So despite the fact that I attended numerous functions related to the New York International Auto Show, known colloquially as Auto Week, the truth is: what I went to was CAR WEEK!
And I loved it.
CAR WEEK! is one of those Manhattan happenings that I know comes every year and can sense happening around me, yet know no one who has ever been or can tell me a single thing about it. It's like when the circus comes to town, and there's a picture of an elephant walking down Seventh Avenue in the paper. It's one of those things that in any other city in the country would be a huge deal but somehow, no matter how enormous, is overwhelmed by New York. Aliens could land here and New Yorkers would be determined to be blasé.
But CAR WEEK! doesn't care. CAR WEEK! isn't aimed at you and me, it's for the car people and freebie/boondoggle people, and there's plenty of 'em in them thar hills.
CAR WEEK! is, of course, a display at the Jacob Javits Center where you can walk through aisle after aisle to see the new GTs. (It runs through 23.) But there were so many worthwhile events surrounding the show that I focused on them. Here's what I saw—and learned:
CAR WEEK! is an excuse for auto executives to ignore their real responsibilities.
Everywhere I went there were more C.E.O.s than you could shake a stick at. The top exec of Bentley oh-so-slowly drove his new Bentley Continental GTC into the room (that's called a "reveal" for you non-car types), then proceeded to put the top down with a button for the dramatic conclusion. Every convertible I know now has this feature but people still oohed and aahed. After his (thankfully) brief speech, I watched the big guy wander around Skylight, clearly disappointed that there was no one at his level to talk to and no media clamoring for his sound bites.
At the debut of the new Land Rover at the Newspace, the head honcho of the Land Rover division (also of the Jaguar division, I think) certainly seemed like a big enough fish to anchor the festivities, but his boss from Ford was there and introduced to great fanfare. Now this was in a room of about 200 people, where maybe half were affiliated with the company.
We used to call this an industry talking to itself.
CAR WEEK! is the mother of all freebie-fests.
My favorite thing about attending a trade show or a multiday festival comes on the third or fourth day, when you start to recognize everyone from one thing to the next. But what makes CAR WEEK! fun at the beginning is all the people you recognize right from the start. Every party crasher and freebie moocher and gift bag grabber I remember from my days as an event planner is there with bells on. (Of course Shaggy was there.) This is their Mardi Gras. Let's be honest: a car party isn't really the first thing you think of when you're going out on the town (I could not get anyone to join me for even one of the six events I attended). So CAR WEEK! organizers need the moochers to validate their six-figure budgets.
Ground Zero for crashers and press fakers was the Porsche Turbo Lounge at Splashlight Studios, which was supposed to be the young and hip party, with swirling lights and arrow-shaped Lucite tables. (Apparently rented and certainly not new, they were all scratched. One had a primitively worded carving in it; if buried for millions of years, it could one day be the Rosetta stone of our culture.) The media alert I got upon arrival informed me of seven confirmed attendees, including Elton John, the actress who dated Hugh Grant (can't remember her name), and, slightly further down the list, socialite Tinsley Mortimer.
A gossip column fixture I recognized told me Elizabeth Hurley (a-ha! that's her name!) was not even in town. (Easily the most important person in the room full of poseurs, he told me it was S.O.P. to pay Page Six for mentions, although he admitted his info was a decade old.) As I left, I did a little checklist with the friendly girls of the greeting table brought to us by PR firm Harrison & Shriftman. As it turns out, zero out of seven of the celebrity V.I.P.s listed as confirmed attendees had shown up, not even poor Tinsley, nor did the girls have any other names to give me in their place. "The party still has an hour to go," one girl pointed out hopefully.
(After the event, Harrison & Shriftman confirmed that those folks didn’t show, but cited Lauren Bush and Ralph Lauren as some names that actually did, although the firm couldn't supply any photos of either at the event.)
The vendors get the gravy and the audience gets the beans.
The car companies are not cheap when it comes to shelling out for these things, but something happens on the way to the party floor: The budget gets sucked up by hungry vendors, leaving little for the actual guests to enjoy. You have never seen so many lights, displays, effects, or costumes in your life. But try to get something to eat.
My favorite was the aforementioned Bentley soft-top soiree, where an elaborate staging was complemented by massive French tulip displays with hundreds and hundreds of stems emerging from each giant urn. They reminded me of Robert Isabell—which makes sense, because I'm told they were done by one of his past staffers, Raul Avila.
And while the champagne was passable (Moet White Star, what I call a good mixing champagne, and they had pomegranate juice so one could fashion a royale of sorts) the only food I espied were tiny kugel topped with tiny pieces of filet mignon. I need to be clear about the use of the word tiny, as some readers have accused me of exaggerating. These kugel steaks were the size of a nickel in diameter and maybe twice the width. The meat on top was the size of a dime. They tasted fine. But by my math, the actual food costs for this particular offering appeared to be about $40 in total.
At the Land Rover event, product was hero. The new car was centered on a giant stage in the center of the room. I learned it is, after all, the only car on display at the Louvre (indicating that somewhere in Paris is a curator who desperately needs to be canned). This layout forced guests and car executives to stumble around the dark edges of the room. I've already commented on the questionable guest economics, but I have to point out that in the midst of the presentation, despite very cramped quarters, an aggressive crew cleared a significant path for Land Rover sports marketing spokesplayer Maria Sharapova. My whole experience at the Land Rover left me wondering: why have guests at all?
The food and drink was at least ample at Saab's elaborate event. Match Catering had their mini-hamburgers out (don't ask why; I just won't say "sliders") with a new idea (to me at least), mini-Philly cheese steaks. While a tad chewy for my taste, this was real food. But the disdain for guests in favor of vendor spoils was fiercely on display.
When I arrived a few minutes after the party call time, I joined an already sizeable corral at the Altman Building. The wait was made more entertaining by the venue's large open windows, which were open, allowing a clear and audio-enhanced view into the high-octane world of car marketing. Apparently run-throughs of the concept car reveal had not been going well. (Note that a concept car is one that is made for PR purposes only and will never be made or sold, but concept cars are a huge part of CAR WEEK!)
Inside a woman was rushing around angrily telling people on her headset to "get it right." The reveal was supposed to climax when a female model emerged from the gull-winged car wearing a racing helmet, pulled off said helmet to reveal her luxurious locks whilst keeping headset mike in place, then gave her hair a meaningful twirl and finally purred her inane line. Well, "getting it right" seemed beyond her. Once the mike came off with the helmet and another time she forgot the line, so each time the car would have to be rolled back behind the scrim, the dry ice fog all blown away, and the lighting cues reset back to square one.
We watched this rehearsal—after the call time of the party, I remind you—four times, in the relative safety of the street. Mob camaraderie had set in. One lady gleefully told me the name of the PR firm involved, Manning Selvage & Lee. Two union crew guys who had worked on the set explained that the timing of the lights and the smoke had not gone correctly once the whole day. A helpful fellow journalist filled me in on his theory, "They're trying to create buzz by keeping us out here."
Well, I'm not sure what kind of buzz you get from rehearsing in plain sight of guests kept waiting, but they got it. Buzz, baby, buzz.
A lackluster new model calls for pulling out the stops.
You may question the logic of that statement, but there was no questioning the sheer joy of eating the fruits of the labor at my favorite event of the week. The party for the Lexus 430, held, like the Bentley party, at Skylight (nee Ace Gallery) on Hudson Street, was a truly lavish affair.
Where to begin? I started at the artisanal cheese station. On a groaning rental table, far from the madding crowd, lay enormous wheels of cheeses tended by a well-briefed but improperly tooled (butterknives!) attendant. Despite not knowing what artisanal means, the fellow knew lots of other stuff. I did learn about artisanal cheesemaker Mary Keens, who had a U.S. cheddar and a London Gloucester. (Can an artisan really work two continents? Oh, let's move on.)
Then I sauntered over to the equally well-stocked dim sum table, where you could plate or pick your dim sum from a dozen different chafers. If that didn't suit you, there were cold noodles served in the now-standard issue (though still better than mini plates) Chinese food containers. And look, right nearby: tall standing cocktail tables where you could stand and eat your food. Caterer Sonnier & Castle may have been paid a pretty penny, but they showed awareness of guests' needs.
There was plenty of passed food, too, but I wanted to save room for the dessert tables. The first showed what chocolate was made from, Food Network style, with piles of cocoa beans and various half-manufactured bits of chocolate (with no display of cocoa fat, a crucial element—wisely, I thought, because the stuff is gross).
Then, once you'd earned the right, you were invited to meet a chocolatier (now there’s a word I can get behind) from Santa Barbara Chocolate, from California by way of Europe, and plate up some line art-decorated, filled chocolates.
Despite their beauty (well, intricacy), I declined, but was pleased to get a small but generously packed box in my gift bag, the only actual gift I received the whole week despite carrying 30 pounds of car books and brochures. (Unless you call a heavy silver-tone folding frame with a picture of Maria Sharapova a "real" gift.)
I headed over to the choose-your-own cupcake topping station, and asked for a briefing. "These are Magnolia cupcakes," explained the eager attendant, referring to the yuppie-friendly white sugar-and-lard emporium in my neighborhood. Now I deplore the Magnolia Bakery, its oversweet confections, and the faux down-hominess it represents, but was still tickled by the idea that Magnolia had gotten into the branding business.
"Could I speak to anyone from Magnolia Bakery about this clever collaboration?" I inquired.
"Well, they're not from Magnolia Bakery, they're Magnolia-style cupcakes." Cupcake brand theft, who knew?
I cannot wait for CAR WEEK! 2007.
Posted 04.19.06
Photos: Sara Jaye Weiss (Saab), Brian Ach/WireImage (Porsche)
Columnist Ted Kruckel is an experienced and opinionated former event and PR pro who ran events for 20 years for high-profile clients like Vanity Fair, Elle Decor, Christian Dior, and Carolina Herrera. He shuttered his firm, Ted Inc., in 2003. You can email him at [email protected].
Maybe that is why I object to the word automobile. It is one of those terms that, while aspiring to be tony and convey some formality, actually seems more pedestrian. It's like couture—at one point this meant custom or handmade, and now when it's used to describe a garment or some such it means "brought to you by idiots."So despite the fact that I attended numerous functions related to the New York International Auto Show, known colloquially as Auto Week, the truth is: what I went to was CAR WEEK!
And I loved it.
CAR WEEK! is one of those Manhattan happenings that I know comes every year and can sense happening around me, yet know no one who has ever been or can tell me a single thing about it. It's like when the circus comes to town, and there's a picture of an elephant walking down Seventh Avenue in the paper. It's one of those things that in any other city in the country would be a huge deal but somehow, no matter how enormous, is overwhelmed by New York. Aliens could land here and New Yorkers would be determined to be blasé.
But CAR WEEK! doesn't care. CAR WEEK! isn't aimed at you and me, it's for the car people and freebie/boondoggle people, and there's plenty of 'em in them thar hills.
CAR WEEK! is, of course, a display at the Jacob Javits Center where you can walk through aisle after aisle to see the new GTs. (It runs through 23.) But there were so many worthwhile events surrounding the show that I focused on them. Here's what I saw—and learned:
CAR WEEK! is an excuse for auto executives to ignore their real responsibilities.
Everywhere I went there were more C.E.O.s than you could shake a stick at. The top exec of Bentley oh-so-slowly drove his new Bentley Continental GTC into the room (that's called a "reveal" for you non-car types), then proceeded to put the top down with a button for the dramatic conclusion. Every convertible I know now has this feature but people still oohed and aahed. After his (thankfully) brief speech, I watched the big guy wander around Skylight, clearly disappointed that there was no one at his level to talk to and no media clamoring for his sound bites.
At the debut of the new Land Rover at the Newspace, the head honcho of the Land Rover division (also of the Jaguar division, I think) certainly seemed like a big enough fish to anchor the festivities, but his boss from Ford was there and introduced to great fanfare. Now this was in a room of about 200 people, where maybe half were affiliated with the company.
We used to call this an industry talking to itself.
CAR WEEK! is the mother of all freebie-fests.
My favorite thing about attending a trade show or a multiday festival comes on the third or fourth day, when you start to recognize everyone from one thing to the next. But what makes CAR WEEK! fun at the beginning is all the people you recognize right from the start. Every party crasher and freebie moocher and gift bag grabber I remember from my days as an event planner is there with bells on. (Of course Shaggy was there.) This is their Mardi Gras. Let's be honest: a car party isn't really the first thing you think of when you're going out on the town (I could not get anyone to join me for even one of the six events I attended). So CAR WEEK! organizers need the moochers to validate their six-figure budgets.
Ground Zero for crashers and press fakers was the Porsche Turbo Lounge at Splashlight Studios, which was supposed to be the young and hip party, with swirling lights and arrow-shaped Lucite tables. (Apparently rented and certainly not new, they were all scratched. One had a primitively worded carving in it; if buried for millions of years, it could one day be the Rosetta stone of our culture.) The media alert I got upon arrival informed me of seven confirmed attendees, including Elton John, the actress who dated Hugh Grant (can't remember her name), and, slightly further down the list, socialite Tinsley Mortimer.
A gossip column fixture I recognized told me Elizabeth Hurley (a-ha! that's her name!) was not even in town. (Easily the most important person in the room full of poseurs, he told me it was S.O.P. to pay Page Six for mentions, although he admitted his info was a decade old.) As I left, I did a little checklist with the friendly girls of the greeting table brought to us by PR firm Harrison & Shriftman. As it turns out, zero out of seven of the celebrity V.I.P.s listed as confirmed attendees had shown up, not even poor Tinsley, nor did the girls have any other names to give me in their place. "The party still has an hour to go," one girl pointed out hopefully.
(After the event, Harrison & Shriftman confirmed that those folks didn’t show, but cited Lauren Bush and Ralph Lauren as some names that actually did, although the firm couldn't supply any photos of either at the event.)
The vendors get the gravy and the audience gets the beans.
The car companies are not cheap when it comes to shelling out for these things, but something happens on the way to the party floor: The budget gets sucked up by hungry vendors, leaving little for the actual guests to enjoy. You have never seen so many lights, displays, effects, or costumes in your life. But try to get something to eat.
My favorite was the aforementioned Bentley soft-top soiree, where an elaborate staging was complemented by massive French tulip displays with hundreds and hundreds of stems emerging from each giant urn. They reminded me of Robert Isabell—which makes sense, because I'm told they were done by one of his past staffers, Raul Avila.
And while the champagne was passable (Moet White Star, what I call a good mixing champagne, and they had pomegranate juice so one could fashion a royale of sorts) the only food I espied were tiny kugel topped with tiny pieces of filet mignon. I need to be clear about the use of the word tiny, as some readers have accused me of exaggerating. These kugel steaks were the size of a nickel in diameter and maybe twice the width. The meat on top was the size of a dime. They tasted fine. But by my math, the actual food costs for this particular offering appeared to be about $40 in total.
At the Land Rover event, product was hero. The new car was centered on a giant stage in the center of the room. I learned it is, after all, the only car on display at the Louvre (indicating that somewhere in Paris is a curator who desperately needs to be canned). This layout forced guests and car executives to stumble around the dark edges of the room. I've already commented on the questionable guest economics, but I have to point out that in the midst of the presentation, despite very cramped quarters, an aggressive crew cleared a significant path for Land Rover sports marketing spokesplayer Maria Sharapova. My whole experience at the Land Rover left me wondering: why have guests at all?
The food and drink was at least ample at Saab's elaborate event. Match Catering had their mini-hamburgers out (don't ask why; I just won't say "sliders") with a new idea (to me at least), mini-Philly cheese steaks. While a tad chewy for my taste, this was real food. But the disdain for guests in favor of vendor spoils was fiercely on display.
When I arrived a few minutes after the party call time, I joined an already sizeable corral at the Altman Building. The wait was made more entertaining by the venue's large open windows, which were open, allowing a clear and audio-enhanced view into the high-octane world of car marketing. Apparently run-throughs of the concept car reveal had not been going well. (Note that a concept car is one that is made for PR purposes only and will never be made or sold, but concept cars are a huge part of CAR WEEK!)
Inside a woman was rushing around angrily telling people on her headset to "get it right." The reveal was supposed to climax when a female model emerged from the gull-winged car wearing a racing helmet, pulled off said helmet to reveal her luxurious locks whilst keeping headset mike in place, then gave her hair a meaningful twirl and finally purred her inane line. Well, "getting it right" seemed beyond her. Once the mike came off with the helmet and another time she forgot the line, so each time the car would have to be rolled back behind the scrim, the dry ice fog all blown away, and the lighting cues reset back to square one.
We watched this rehearsal—after the call time of the party, I remind you—four times, in the relative safety of the street. Mob camaraderie had set in. One lady gleefully told me the name of the PR firm involved, Manning Selvage & Lee. Two union crew guys who had worked on the set explained that the timing of the lights and the smoke had not gone correctly once the whole day. A helpful fellow journalist filled me in on his theory, "They're trying to create buzz by keeping us out here."
Well, I'm not sure what kind of buzz you get from rehearsing in plain sight of guests kept waiting, but they got it. Buzz, baby, buzz.
A lackluster new model calls for pulling out the stops.
You may question the logic of that statement, but there was no questioning the sheer joy of eating the fruits of the labor at my favorite event of the week. The party for the Lexus 430, held, like the Bentley party, at Skylight (nee Ace Gallery) on Hudson Street, was a truly lavish affair.
Where to begin? I started at the artisanal cheese station. On a groaning rental table, far from the madding crowd, lay enormous wheels of cheeses tended by a well-briefed but improperly tooled (butterknives!) attendant. Despite not knowing what artisanal means, the fellow knew lots of other stuff. I did learn about artisanal cheesemaker Mary Keens, who had a U.S. cheddar and a London Gloucester. (Can an artisan really work two continents? Oh, let's move on.)
Then I sauntered over to the equally well-stocked dim sum table, where you could plate or pick your dim sum from a dozen different chafers. If that didn't suit you, there were cold noodles served in the now-standard issue (though still better than mini plates) Chinese food containers. And look, right nearby: tall standing cocktail tables where you could stand and eat your food. Caterer Sonnier & Castle may have been paid a pretty penny, but they showed awareness of guests' needs.
There was plenty of passed food, too, but I wanted to save room for the dessert tables. The first showed what chocolate was made from, Food Network style, with piles of cocoa beans and various half-manufactured bits of chocolate (with no display of cocoa fat, a crucial element—wisely, I thought, because the stuff is gross).
Then, once you'd earned the right, you were invited to meet a chocolatier (now there’s a word I can get behind) from Santa Barbara Chocolate, from California by way of Europe, and plate up some line art-decorated, filled chocolates.
Despite their beauty (well, intricacy), I declined, but was pleased to get a small but generously packed box in my gift bag, the only actual gift I received the whole week despite carrying 30 pounds of car books and brochures. (Unless you call a heavy silver-tone folding frame with a picture of Maria Sharapova a "real" gift.)
I headed over to the choose-your-own cupcake topping station, and asked for a briefing. "These are Magnolia cupcakes," explained the eager attendant, referring to the yuppie-friendly white sugar-and-lard emporium in my neighborhood. Now I deplore the Magnolia Bakery, its oversweet confections, and the faux down-hominess it represents, but was still tickled by the idea that Magnolia had gotten into the branding business.
"Could I speak to anyone from Magnolia Bakery about this clever collaboration?" I inquired.
"Well, they're not from Magnolia Bakery, they're Magnolia-style cupcakes." Cupcake brand theft, who knew?
I cannot wait for CAR WEEK! 2007.
Posted 04.19.06
Photos: Sara Jaye Weiss (Saab), Brian Ach/WireImage (Porsche)
Columnist Ted Kruckel is an experienced and opinionated former event and PR pro who ran events for 20 years for high-profile clients like Vanity Fair, Elle Decor, Christian Dior, and Carolina Herrera. He shuttered his firm, Ted Inc., in 2003. You can email him at [email protected].
Practicing for Saab's Aero X reveal was a big to-do—viewed repeatedly by guests waiting outside.
Clear a path! Land Rover spokesplayer Maria Sharapova is in the house (with Mike O'Donnell, president of Aston Martin Jaguar Land Rover North America).
The Porsche Turbo Lounge, the young, hip party of the week!
