EYE party, Highbar/Battle of The Ad Bands, Nokia Theatre, New York
September 24, 2008
Yesterday you got two Just An Online Minutes for the price of one (uh,
free) and today you're getting one for the price of two. Hold up, that made no sense. What I'm trying to say is, I just realized I never wrote up the V EYE P party OR Battle of The
Ad Bands. As always, I do have my reasons. One is that I really got cruddy pics from Battle of The Ad Bands and didn't hang around the whole time and the other is that the EYE party
was so low key and small that I'm struggling to put any meat on this paper plate. Let's try it out anyway with this supersize Just An Online Minute Combo Meal: A plate of EYE with
some Battle of The Ad Band beans on the side.
What was it, last
Wednesday? It was probably the last dry night of the week and I had high hopes the rain would hold off for the EYE party. First of all, Alison Schuermann, Senior Marketing Executive at
EYEcorp, is probably one of the sweetest, kindest people you'll ever meet -- so I didn't want it to rain on her rooftop party. I also had to run once again to Nokia Theatre after the EYE
party for Adobe's Battle of the Ad Bands. Another typical Advertising Week pregame/post-game scenario: popping cocktails and cocktail wieners at the first venue, mingling my face
off at the next. EYE's party was at Highbar, another NYC rooftop I had yet to discover (the barricade takes the form of my wallet). Have you ever been to Highbar? It's so
odd. It's hidden behind Pigalle, which gave me flashbacks to a Valentine's date years ago (but that's another story), and you have to wind around this basement-like
not-as-cool-as-Hef's-grotto area.
I wound around, found what
felt like the freight elevator, and emerged onto the HEYEbar rooftop. What a gorgeous night. A little crisp, a little wisp of clouds, and a soft purple sunset were the backdrop to the
other low scraping building around us. I immediately saw Gail Hilton, Director of Sales and Marketing, (not my +1 this time, a regular guest, so don't get mad that you see her
name a lot. You'll see it more.), and Christian De Gennaro, VP of Sales and Client Services, both of Qwikker. They were holding down the fort by the bar next to a platter of
bite-sized... stuff. The mood was really mellow, people were peppered about the outdoor chairs and even buried in the dangerous huge couch of pillows. I knew if I went anywhere near those,
I'd be lost for days.
Michelle Schiano, Vice President of Marketing, EYEcorp, pointed out her favorite guests; Colin Bertram, Features Editor at the Daily News,
Jonah Bloom, Executive Editor, Advertising Age, Wright Ferguson, VP Sales, EYE USA, and John Mullin, of On the Go, formerly head of a division of Kinetic. Towards the end (well, at
least for me) of the party, the nice folks at EYE raffled off a bunch of Flip Videos (little dummy-proof digital video recorders) to a happy handful. Gail won one. Of course.
After the raffle, I headed on over to see what this band battle
thing was all about. All I could think of was "Jammin' For Bats," which was a do-gooder local rock show that some endeavoring few put together at my high school to preserve the
bat's homes in our area. I think. Anyway, I never went, but I always heard a bunch of backwards kids were making out.
I'm cringing while typing "Nokia Theatre" AGAIN, but hey, that's where Adobe Battle of the Ad Bands was
fought. I headed straight for the performance area because according to everyone I talked to, it was going to be HUGE, PACKED, CRAZY! I must have been talking to PR and/or sales
types only because that place was VACANT, EMPTY, QUIET! I perched myself next to the judges and watched as agencies musically duked it out. You can see what someone who actually hung
around thought here.
That's it folks, no more posts about Advertising Week until NEXT Advertising Week (if I make it that long). However -- and I should heed my own
warning -- Ad:Tech is coming up, and I think that's going to be another doozy unless I apply the lessons I learned from this years' festival of advertising craziness: you don't have to go
to three parties a night because two out of three aren't that great; you don't have to eat everything from every platter that hits your radar; you won't remember everyone you meet, so take
notes, or invest in a tiny mp3 recorder; and, finally, that open bar isn't really calling your name, it's melting your brain.
Invite Just An Online Minute into your melting pot,
invite kelly@mediapost.com to your party.
Gawk at the photos in the Flickr set !
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