A Blow-By-Blow Account of the ad:tech Party Scene
You know the whole bell curve thing? That situation where most of what's in question occurs in the middle with minimal pre and post activity? That's a particularly apt analogy for the ad:tech New York party scene this year. There were a couple of parties Tuesday night. There are a couple scheduled for Thursday night. But on Wednesday night, there were...get ready...over 13 parties. That's a lot of free booze to give away.
On Tuesday night, the Unofficial AdTech User Generated Music Party gave anyone brave enough a chance to make a fool of themselves karaoke-style in front of their fellow industry mates. And the XY7Elite Affiliate After Party gave the rest of those a chance to co-mingle and munch on the amazing snacks over at Traffic Bar. It was a slow night with things pretty much wrapped up by midnight.
On Wednesday night, the evening kicked off right in the exhibit hall at the Javits Center with the first-ever pub crawl during which attendees traveled from booth to booth in search of their favorite micro-brew. And at the close of the exhibit hall, the craziness of ad:tech Night Two kicked off.
Now I'm pretty good when it comes to getting around the city and gathering up as much blackmail...uh...photographic evidence of the evening's activities but it was humanly impossible to hit all thirteen (and the few we're sure we didn't know about) parties.
Adometry had a happy hour immediate following the end of day two. We missed it. We're sure it was a great time. I did make it over to Stich for the Oldtimers Party. No, it's not a bunch of geriatrics in wheel chairs. It's a collection of some of the brightest and most experienced minds in the business. There was Blue Moon on tap and intelligent conversation, something that would come in short supply later in the night.
then it was over to the Soho House Library Room for the Women in Wireless party. You ask what the hell is Women in Wireless? Having never heard of it, I wondered too but it turned out to be a very well-attended event with a nice collection of smart women and men who, well, work in mobile and digital media. It's mission is to "empower and develop female leaders in mobile & digital media. " Nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all.
After that event, I made a very quick stop at the Fluent and IMS party which was conveniently located right across the street at the 1920 Bunker Club. I got there early so things hadn't picked up by the time I had to head to the next event but I did like the venue and enjoyed sitting at the bar and doing nothing for a few minutes.
Still with me? Good. The next stop was the MediaMind Rich Media Awards party. The event was, by far, the most well-attended event of the evening with Crimson packed to capacity. The party's theme was superheroes and there were plenty in the house. All the MediaMind folks were dressed in their favorite costumes including the very wonderful Alice Suh who organized a really great event and knew how to make a costume look really good.
The best thing about the MediaMind party? Well, aside from the great food - always an important and all too often forgotten element of a successful party - and the theme and the games (yes, there were games) and the goodie bags and the specialty drinks...was the fact the actual awards presentation lasted less than ten minutes! Hello IAB MIXX? Hello CLIO? Hello Cannes? You all could learn a thing or two from MediaMinds!
So after a great time the MediaMinds crew and some frantic "where are you? hurry up I'm alone here with creepy guys" texting from friend Liz Baclear, I headed over to Terminal 5 for the CPAWay Xposure2011. The event was organized by Darren Blatt who has, in past years, hosted the Affiliate Ball party at Affiliate Summit and the Marketers Ball at ad:tech.
Blatt gathered together some hip hop legends including Slick Rick, Naughty by Nature and Mike Posner for a party that was, in effect, a concert complete with scantily-clad dancers. The only downside to the party was that the venue was actually too big. Or, rather, because there were so many parties the same night, the crowd was spread out across the city. Still, the party was a good time.
Next, we (by now there was a group of us - including Liz Baclear and the very intoxicating Krisztina Szekeres- traveling the night together) headed over to the Clickbooth party at Amnesia. As always, the company put on a great event complete with mascot Clicky, a performance by Skee-Lo, DJ Jamm and Maxim Hometown Hottie Erin McKinnon.
We particularly liked the Clickbooth beach balls that had everyone drilling them at one another across the dance floor. Also the platform dancers who, while great, weren't as interesting as seeing others from the crowd climb up on the platforms and strut their stuff for all to see. That's about the time the "please don't publish that picture" requests started flying in.
And then...at band camp... OK, kidding. And then an even larger group of us got in a limo (hey, we travel in style!) and went to...hmm...thank God for Foursquare or I'd never be able to recreate the later part of most nights...Avenue where there was supposed to be some kind of Victoria's Secret party.
Well we saw no Angels. Well, let me clarify. There were plenty of Angels in the crowd. They just weren't all Victoria's Secret models. As is often the case late at night at ad:tech, we ended up at a nice table with bottle service courtesy of...wait, what? Oh yea. This is the part of the night where the "please, please, please don't mention...or post pictures of me when you write about this tomorrow" request flew in.
Happy to oblige, I put the camera down and just, well, had a good time couch dancing with...oh yea...can't tell you! Suffice to say, it was a good time and we all stayed there until around 3AM when it, let's be honest, was time to head home and get some sleep. After all, this is a business event and no one wants to sound like a moron the next day; including me who has to give a presentation!
And with that, we all swapped hugs and handshakes and bid one another goodnight.
Check out all the pictures here.
