Hey L.A. Event Planners!

Zvents is exhibiting on June 5th at the L.A. Event Style Expo, and we’d love to meet you there! Get a free pass to the show (a $60 value!) when you register and use the promotional code PPLA. This special one-day event takes place at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

Stop by the Zvents Booth (#530) and Mention this Blog Post and get a Free T-Shirt!

Show admission includes these special events:

10:15 - 11 a.m.
Keynote Presentation by Lynda Resnick
The marketing mind behind brands like POM Wonderful and FIJI Water, Lynda Resnick knows how to integrate events into successful branding campaigns. Matching the right events with the right customers is key to her success. During this keynote presentation, discover the strategies she employed at high-profile events such as the Academy, Golden Globe, and Emmy awards to ultimately make her brands household names. She’ll offer keen insights into today’s competitive marketplace and share tips for the ultimate event business success.

3 p.m. to 3:45 p.m.
Behind the Scenes at the GRAMMY Awards: What it Takes to Make Mega Events
In this session, Erick Weiss will moderate a discussion with top event producers from a cross section of industries: Branden Chapman, VP with the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, Len Iannelli, VP with Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, David Finch, CMP from Amgen and Judi Froehlich-Pascoe with Americas, BCD Meetings & Incentives and the eWomenNetwork. The discussion will focus on the commonalities and differences between the various industries and what it takes, behind the scenes, to produce world class mega events.

Panelists:
Erick Weiss, President - Honeysweet Productions
Branden Chapman, Vice President, Production & Process Management - The Recording Academy
Len Iannelli, VP of Special Events, Marketing - 20th Century Fox Film Corp.
David Wellington Finch, CMP, Sourcing & Compliance Manager, Meetings & Conventions - Amgen
Judi Froehlich- Pascoe, Director of Business Development, Americas BCD Meetings & Incentives Managing Director - LA eWomenNetwork

BizBash LA Event Style Awards 2008
4:30 – 5:30 p.m.
See the events that dazzled! Celebrate the year’s best events at the BizBash Event Style Awards 2008. Glimpse best practices and get new ideas when more than 15 event categories are honored for outstanding industry contributions.

Interested in the full conference program? Visit the BizBash site for more information about the day’s educational sessions, and use discount code PPCONF for a special rate!

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Ethan Stock, Zvents CEO and Founder, was recently captured at The Kelsey Group’s “Drilling Down On Local ‘08: Marketplaces” Conference. In his presentation, Ethan discusses Zvents’ business model and how time-based promotions are an essential online marketing tool for all local merchants to get consumers in through their doors.

With the overwhelming and startling growth of local advertising revenue, Ethan Stock explores how Zvents is leading the evolution of local search - showing its impact on the advertising industry and what trends to expect in the future.

Check out the video below!

Online Videos by Veoh.com

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What’s that saying for the month of March, “In like a lamb, out like a lion”? While this usually applies only to the weather, March was a great month at Zvents, and a more appropriate saying for our March is “In like a lion, out like a pack of lions”!

In addition to the six partners we launched a couple weeks ago, we’re thrilled to announce the launch of four more media partners:

The Charlotte Observer: Serving Charlotte, North Carolina

Greenwich Time: Serving Greenwich, Connecticut

Santa Cruz Sentinel: Serving Santa Cruz, California

Stamford Advocate: Serving Stamford, Connecticut

Cute lion cub photo courtesy of Arno & Louise.

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Last week we wrote about Eventbrite as an inexpensive and easy-to-use event registration and ticketing service. Yesterday, they announced the beta launch of the Eventbrite Partner Affiliate Network, which enables affiliates to earn money by referring event publishers and promoters to use the Eventbrite service.

While ticketing affiliate programs have been around since about, oh, Day 2 of the Internet, Eventbrite’s program puts a new twist on the model - an affiliate receives a cut of the revenue on every ticket sold by an event publisher who signs up for the Eventbrite service through the affiliate’s web site

If you become an affiliate partner, here’s how it works:

1. Run Eventbrite ads on your site.

2. An event promoter or publisher sees the ad, is intrigued by its promise of easy and cheap event registration and ticketing, and goes to the Eventbrite site.

3. The same event promoter learns more, says “Hey! This makes my life easier and helps me sell more tickets to my event”, and signs up to manage one of their upcoming events through Eventbrite.

4. Let’s say the event is a music festival, and 3,000 tickets are sold at $50 each through Eventbrite. The service fee for each ticket is $1.25. As the referring affiliate partner, you receive 35% of all the service fees collected (3,000 x $1.25 x 0.35), so you earn $1,312.50.

Eventbrite also offers a traditional ticketing affiliate program: if you sell tickets to their events, you earn a commission for every ticket sold through your site.

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It has been an exciting week here at Zvents! Zvents turned 3 on March 19th, and six new media partners launched the Zvents Media Platform and joined the Zvents Media Network, including:

Chico Enterprise Record – Chico, CA
Chico is home to California State University, Chico and Bidwell Mansion State Park, one of the 25 largest municipal parks in the country. Interested in learning what’s going on in downtown Chico? How about where to the country’s largest collection of yo-yo artifacts? You’ll find it all now on ChicoER.com.

Daily Democrat – Woodland, CA (who wrote a great article about how Zvents helps the Woodland community find “Things To Do”
Also called “the City of Trees”, Woodland is known for its architectural treasure of Tudor, Victorian, and and Mission Revival homes, some of which are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Planning a visit? Make sure to visit the world-famous Hays Antique Truck Museum, recognized for being the largest museum of its kind in the world.

Monterey County Herald – Monterey, CA
One of the top tourist destinations in California, Monterey is home to the world-class Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Naval Postgraduate School, and hosts one of the most popular jazz festivals in the country, the Monterey Jazz Festival.

Ukiah Daily Journal - Ukiah, CA
Located in southern Mendocino County, Ukiah is a charming small town known for its grape vineyards, pear orchards and hot springs. Don’t miss the Ukiah Country Pumpkin Fest, where you can see some HUGE pumpkins!

Ruidoso News - Ruidoso, NM
Ruidoso is the largest community in Lincoln County, and the economic hub for the region. There are several art galleries exhibiting work by local artists, and learn more about the Wild West’s more infamous characters at the Billy the Kid National Scenic Byway Center.

Lubbock Online – Lubbock, TX
Cowboys, music and Buddy Holly - just a few things that make Lubbock famous. Make sure to visit the Buddy Holly Center, a tribute to the Lubbock native who made rock n’ roll history, and to other notable West Texas musicians.

Welcome new partners!

And event promoters, that’s six more channels where your event and business listings are automatically promoted!

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Everybody needs a visit from their muse once in awhile. If you’re looking for some fresh thoughts for great event ideas, get inspired with these award-winning events, recently honored with Gala Awards at this month’s Special Event conference in Atlanta.

Best Event Marketing Campaign
The Lundquist Co., Sacramento, CA

To draw media attention to its commitment to its historic roots, the City of Rancho Cordova, Calif., staged a New Orleans jazz funeral-style parade at the re-dedication of a 133-year-old cemetery. The event team made savvy use of the media to locate descendants of those buried in the cemetery and staged a ceremony honoring the deceased. The event drew five times the number of guests originally expected while maintaining a balance of celebration and decorum.

Best Theme Decor: Total Decor Budget $20,000 To $50,000
AOO Events, Los Angeles, CA

A financial services company bid “aloha” to a conference in Hawaii with a final night dinner honoring legendary fire goddess Pele. The outdoor “Lava Lounge,” featuring an island bar big enough to accommodate eight bartenders, glowed beneath suspended flame pots and masses of yellow and red jamestory orchids. Custom red leather banquettes and distressed brown leather ottomans allowed guests to recline while watching the performances set against a lava rock stage glowing with moving fire projections.

Best Invitation
BBDO Detroit, Troy, MI. and Chrysler, Auburn Hills, MI.

“Camp Jeep” enticed targeted Jeep owners with a tin case invitation to an owner loyalty event in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. The case included a pocket guide to the event and illustrated cards with humorous camping scenarios, such as how to make “radiator burgers.” More than 10,000 participants gathered to celebrate the Jeep lifestyle.

Best Event Produced For A Nonprofit Organization Or Association
The Webster Group, Washington, DC

AirForce Memorial Dedication by The Webster Group

The Air Force Memorial Dedication took place in October with 40,000 participants, including U.S. President George W. Bush, to honor the millions of men and women who have served in the Air Force. The memorial took more than 15 years to design, fund and build, and the Air Force celebrated its reveal with the three-day event. Activities and entertainment included an air show featuring the Thunderbirds, displays of the latest helicopters, fireworks and the U.S. Air Force Band’s Singing Sergeants.

Best Multiple-Day Event Program For A Corporation Or Association
Circ Corporate Experience, Wiesbaden, Germany, And Wizcraft International, Mumbai, India

The “Volkswagen Mumbai Cross Culture Experience” brought 30 future top Volkswagen executives to India for five days to learn about one of the company’s future key markets. Instead of seminars, Circ immersed participants in Indian culture with a no-frills approach. Participants visited the Kamla Mehta School for the Blind; the dabbawalas, who deliver thousands of meals a day with no IT system; and Lijjad Papad, a cooperative of more than 40 million women responsible for baking all the bread for India.

Best Event Produced For A Private Individual: Budget Under $1,000 Per Guest
A Joy Wallace Catering Production & Design Team, Miami, FL

“MaxStock” celebrated the bar mitzvah boy’s love for classic rock of the ’60s and ’70s. To stay true to the theme, Joy Wallace produced the event like a concert: Tour buses transported guests from ceremony to reception, “state troopers” directed cars and buses to the parking area, and a 10-by-10-foot mosaic of rock ‘n’ roll posters welcomed guests. Everyone was welcome to music festival standards such as chicken fingers and sliders; parents dined in the “green room” on upscale fare such as beef tenderloin and root vegetable salad.

Best Event Produced For A Corporation: Overall Budget $250,000 To $500,000
The Event Co./The Companies, Munich, Germany

Turning away from motivational speeches, two companies that had recently merged used dramatic symbolism to show unity. The 350 employees of the new firm entered a gallery to find an astonishing array made up of each person’s portrait; they then hung the portraits as directed on a wall to spell out the new entity’s name. The group dined at three long tables to signify the company “family.”

Best New, Innovative Event Product/Technology
Get Flipped, Orange, CA

In order to provide a unique party favor for a bat mitzvah, Get Flipped created the Flip Strip. Guests posed for four pictures, which were then morphed into two animated pictures. The bottom cell of the strip featured the honoree’s name, the date and a horse jumping over a fence to match the bat mitzvah’s horsey theme.

To view the complete award list, visit the Special Event site.

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We announced some big news this week - the launch of federated local search! This unique, blended local search technology combines all facets of local content into one search results page: business listings, movies, restaurants, events, sales, performers/celebrities (in town), sports, etc.

Another feature included in this product release is that we now display images on our SERPs (search engine results pages). Want to make your event or business stand out? Add a picture to your listing. Not only will it make your listing page more attractive, it also increases its attractiveness on SERPs, where your listing is competing with others for attention.

Look at these business listings in San Diego - which look more interesting to you: those with a picture, or those without?

Right, listings with images look better.

To add an image to your event or business listing, follow these steps:

1. Go to your listing page and log in.

2. Click on the “+ Image” link.

3. A pop-up screen like the example below will open. Select “Browse” to find your image on your computer.

Image size: For optimal display, we recommend uploading an image that is 400 pixels wide. We accept images in .jpeg, .png, or .gif formats. Your image may be cropped to fit into the available space, but the full image will be displayed when a user clicks on it. We recommend using photos over graphic images (like logos), because they are more appealing to other users (think about it, would you rather look at Maria Sharapova or a Nike logo?) - plus, they resize better.

3A. Adding the information in Step 2 is optional (Photo Credit, Caption, and Title/alt-text), but we recommend adding it to tell users more about your listing. The most important of the optional fields is the Title/alt-text, because it helps optimize your listing. When other search engines visit Zvents and index your page, some index images separately. This gives people searching on image sites, like Google Images, another way to find your listing (It’s a good idea to add alt-text to images on your own site too, to improve SEO). Currently, if you don’t fill in the Title/alt-text field, we automatically pull in the title of the listing.

4. After you’ve found your image and filled out the relevant fields, select Upload. Your image is now on your listing page!

5. Bonus! If you add multiple images to your listing, you can choose which image to set as the Primary Image by rolling over other images associated with your listing, and clicking on the small “+” symbol. The system will prompt you with the question “Are you sure you want to make this your primary image?”. Click “Ok”, and that image will become the main image on your listing, as well as the image displayed on SERPs.

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