Retailer South Moon Under partnered with Rock the Vote for its inaugural Summer Spin Pool Party August 3 at the Embassy Row Hotel rooftop. To expand the reach of the intentionally intimate pool soiree beyond its 100 invite-only guests, event planner Jessica Hoy of NeuProfile put a social media spin on a familiar item: the gift bag. Converse, Lacoste, Stila, Kate Somerville cosmetics, and others contributed beach-related products like towels, sunglasses, and sunscreen to the gift bags. Hoy set up stations for each of the 11 sponsors with tent cards of the hosting brands’ Twitter handles and event hashtags. Bloggers and other partygoers took photos of the tables and wrote about the products individually rather than just collectively in a single story. Guests then showed a staffer their tweets on the way out to receive a bag.
Wine tastings typically stick to a format that involves stations, swirling, and sipping, but a recent event in Toronto broke free of any staid formulas. Underscoring its company name, Open Wine hosted an event at 2nd Floor in April that had a “Be Open” theme, and guests were encouraged to open themselves up to more than just new types of vino. Plenty of the host company's product was on hand, but tasting the wine was just a jumping-off point for a night that included ping-pong tournaments, liquid-nitrogen doughnuts, temporary tattoos, and lots of tweeting. Guests placed R.F.I.D.-enabled wine glasses down on the so-called “Bird Box,” which was created for the event and pre-programmed with action tweets, which encouraged guests to participate in various activations at the event. The tweets from @Open_Wines included: "Hey @[user], Damn, you look great. Find our photog @textstyles + pose for a photo so we can remember this FOREVER. #BeOPENparty."
At London Fashion Week in September, Topshop tested a new app that allowed it to transmit photos, Web links, and other content to mobile devices using sound. The mobile app Chirp, available as a free download, shares data via a 1.8-second series of notes that sound similar to birdsong. The “chirps” played on speakers at the show in Regent’s Park and also in Topshop’s Oxford Circus store, where the retailer created what it called a “digital garden” with monitors suspended from trees like birdhouses. Folks within earshot of the speakers who had the app open on their phones instantly received the content, which included runway images, photos of the clothes being made, backstage activities, and hair and makeup preparations. Recipients could tap on the images to receive additional information, and they could also share the images via Twitter, Facebook, and email.
To get a treat from a Polaroid vending machine at Ocean Drive's Sun Covered pool party as part of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Swim in Miami, guests had to tweet a code that would activate the machine.
