Truly, Madly, Deeply Blog

PIGI and Pinot: 20th August, 2010 | Posted by GPJ Australia

Beaune, a sleepy French town which is situated in the heart of French wine country and is also the capital of Burgundy (think Pinot Noir and Beaujolais!) recently celebrated its annual summer festival. During this time the town unlocks its private architectural treasures and courtyards for public access.
To my delight, not only did the festival take place during the day but the town was also thriving by night. You see, the challenge with French wine regions hosting summer-long festivals is that, by day most visitors are invariably out in the vinyards quaffing, tasting and presiding over their next Romanée-Conti investment or simply passed out in their gîtes from too much doing so. As such, the centre of town itself tends not to see much action in daylight hours.
By night however, and post wine-coma kip, most quaffers are keen for a bit of a mooch around town. Beaune has embraced this notion by creating an after dark experience for summer visitors. This year, the Mayorie commissioned a French production company to produce historical and entertaining PIGI videos for projection on the key architectural structures around town. The result is a delightful ‘video-light spectacular’ held just after sunset around 9pm. Tourists, children, local wine-growers and the elderly gather in the streets to gaze upon these rich, colourful moving images seemingly ‘cut out’ of the sky and collectively wonder “Comment-est qu’ils le font?”.
For me, the stunning gothic Hospices-De-Beaune and the Musée Des Beaux-Arts were two stand-out PIGI components of the night spectacle. They provided the most appropriate architectural platforms for the video projections, which were time-coded to wonderfully emotive music. This, combined with subtle LED lighting dancing a rainbow of colours through the public fountains and water-features, gave an ephemeral Alice In Wonderland effect to the town’s tiny cobblestone streets. Following a splendidly boozy dinner and with my inner Alice awakened, I was unquestionably seeing Beaune through rosé coloured lenses.

Chloe Noel De Kerbrech

Posted in Arts, Events, Lighting, Public Sector, Travel, World.
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Graphic at the Opera House.: 11th August, 2010 | Posted by GPJ Australia

This past week our wonderful Opera House held host to a comic book nerd’s wet dream; “Graphic”, a collection of artists, writers, directors, and creators of the fantastic and visually stimulating, a weekend where the imagination could pay homage to those late nights huddled under the covers with a flash light, falling down the rabbit hole into those incredible adventures that held true in our hearts that there really was something under the bed.

When I heard that Akira was playing on the big screen I squee’d with child-like delight at the thought of seeing one of my all time favourite anime movies, Akira is an apocalyptic view into a post WW3 future in Japan’s Neo-Tokyo, a city built on the crumbling rubble of mans self-destructiveness. The city and it’s people are caught up in political strife, anti-government terrorism and gang violence and at the heart is an all-consuming power that will either be it’s ultimate salvation or final destruction. One of the biggest and most twisted Japanese animations of it’s time, Akira stood at the forefront of cyberpunk culture, paving the way for dark futuristic movies such as Ghost in the Shell and The Matrix.

It’s rare when two, seemingly different icons merge that the results often produce anything of new value, often one will overshadow the other in a struggle of an audiences sense of worth, but the idea of Australian band Regurgitator writing, producing and performing a live score to the cult-like visual experience of Akira was too much not to pass up and we were not disappointed; loud, violent, beautiful and relentless, the ‘gurg boys not only added a new layer to the movie, they enveloped the audience in an aural assault that brought the drama of Akira to a new high, fans of this iconic anime left dizzy and overwhelmed from the sensory overload… ‘Epic’ does not begin to describe the feeling and this particular anime nerd was well satisfied.

Stephen Burnett

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Andrew Gets Powdered! Talk about an EXPERIENCE!: 29th June, 2010 | Posted by GPJ Australia

Last Saturday night I, along with a couple of hundred other people, had the rather dubious pleasure of attending a Secret ‘Powder’ Party hosted by Whereis.com. While that might sound like the kind of thing you’d hear going on down some back street in Amsterdam, it’s probably not quite what you’re thinking. This was the second ‘secret’ party Whereis.com has put on and they’re building quite a name for themselves, mainly because they’re the messiest parties in town!

Their first party, which took place at the start of the year, turned out to be one huge paint fight in a warehouse conveniently located a suitable distance from anywhere (which was easily found by all party goers using the provided whereis.com link - ahh, there’s the hook).

So, not wanting to be seen to be going soft second time around, the organisers once again kept invitees on the hook until 24 hours out, when we all received a mail with the location of the party. The theme for this event was simply called ‘A Space Party’ and on the Facebook page we were helpfully informed to wear all black and leave your best Gucci kit at home.

Good advice.

Finding the venue was easy (thanks again to the helpful link). Getting in, a little more difficult (being asked to sign off a waver before entry certainly added to the hightened curiosity). I scribbled something barely legible and headed on in. Sales of black bin liners must have spiked that week as the venue was cloaked floor to ceiling in them. Black bandana too, as each and every person was handed a set along with a pair of stylish Bole goggles.

Certainly I’m no Sherlock Holmes, but I was starting to think something fishy was going on here.

About an hour later, several drinks down and suitably swaying to the party beats being provided by DJ Minx, a host jumped on the mic and let us know we had 5 minutes to cover up and get ready. I was torn between finishing my drink and getting my bandana across my head and face. The sight of one of the bar staff arriving from a side door holding a crate full of plastic bowls of coloured powdered dye certainly helped speed up my decision - drink was downed…quickly.

The next 30 minutes or so can only be described as shear pandemonium as everybody reached for the dye and like a pack of demented ninjas just went for it. A technicolour dust storm of craziness! Nobody was spared. Bar staff, the security guys, the DJ; I saw one of the hired cameramen being spun on the floor by powder-crazed maniacs. As it went on more colours emerged from the side doors. Pink, green, yellow. Yellow was a good one - I seemed to manage to initiate a game of ‘let me see if I can make a yellow hand print on your behind’ with a rather nice girl standing next to me - an instant classic, which despite multiple attempts I just couldn’t get quite right. She declined trying on me.

The rest of the night was literally a blur - my goggles broke. Probably not a bad thing as I did manage to see through the haze a few people running around in their underwear, clearly enjoying the powder a bit too much. Not everybody was having the time of their life. A helpless boyfriend was on double make-up duty with his lady after he managed to clock her in the eye from point blank range. It looked like it was going to be a long night for that guy.

Time sped by as it always does on a good night out. Before we knew it the music had stopped and we were being ushured to the door looking like a bewildered bunch of rainbow coloured Bangarra dancers. The fresh air was bliss.

Thankfully while my mind considered more, my body took the initiative… ‘I ain’t taking you anywhere buddy but home’. The ride home brought a few strange looks from passers by, but we didn’t really look too out of the ordinary heading through some of the edgier areas of town that time of night. The long shower at home was the perfect way to finish.

So overall a great concept, a great experience and hats off to Whereis.com for pulling it off so well. What’s next then? Foam’s my guess!

Party on. Andrew.

Video by SydAlterEgo

Posted in Australia, Events, Music & Media, Virtual & Hybrid Events.
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Built it and they will come. Or maybe not?: 16th June, 2010 | Posted by GPJ Australia

One of the biggest causes of premature greyness among those who organise events is audience generation. Will anyone show up? Unlike our colleagues in mainstream advertising who can confidently display a tear sheet from the daily news to prove their tactic occurred, regardless of if anybody read or acted on it, event marketing falls into the George Berkeley school of thinking; If an event happens in the city and no-one attends it, did it really occur? His ideas on the perception of reality are at the heart of event sponsors darkest nightmare. ‘Great event, pity no one came’. Most sophisticated marketers keep the Dark Lord of an empty room at bay by employing a multitude of audience generation tactics, often starting months in advance to build awareness, interest, commitment and content for their events. Working on the IBM business I get to help develop these strategies and see them put into place. But even the sharpest 360 degree campaign won’t guarantee a decent turnout. Bad weather, a clash with a sporting event, crap traffic or a new Top Gear episode can keep them away in droves. Analyse of the reasons why an event failed will generally focus on these environmental impacts and skirt around the more likely reasons; uninteresting content.

Not immune from these fears, last night, I held an event and despite what I thought was great content, I was still bricking myself that the room would be empty. Being on the Sydney chapter committee for Kea (Kiwi Expats Association http://www.keanewzealand.com/australia) I had volunteered to hold an event to screen the first All Whites game in the World Cup. It was on at a respectable time of 9.30pm so it seemed like a good opportunity to hold a Kea event. The ‘integrated’ campaign we developed involved emailing the Kea database and promoting it through our own personal networks. But we wanted a broader reach than that, especially as it was good opportunity the raise awareness for Kea among non-members. Tweeting helped, but with only 50 followers (I love you all dearly), it was never going to fill the top tier of the stands. What did help was dropping mentions of the event in on-line kiwi forums. One in particular was Air New Zealand’s very fine website http://www.homesweetas.com.au. Here kiwis from around Australia share stories, content and memories of home but also use it to find cans of L&P in Adelaide, Feijoas in Freemantle or Pinky Bars in Penrith. I added a post to the site and it was soon picked up and made a lead story on the home page. Probably helps that Air New Zealand is a sponsor of Kea, but you gotta get it out there first. Feedback on the night was many people saw it there first helping attract a bunch of non-Kea members to the event; some new warm leads from the whitespace as we would say in IBM land.

Which brings me to the big night. Held upstairs at the Woolloomooloo Bay Hotel we hoped to get 50 or more people to watch the game. Despite promising RSVP numbers I still has a sick feeling in my stomach that there would be a poor showing. I mean it was on free-to-air TV anyway, there is FIFA Fan-Fest at Darling Harbour (we counted that with the promise of a warm room), and it was on a school night after a long weekend. However, I need not had worried. My first inkling that it would be OK was when four people turned up a full 50 minutes before the official 8.00pm door opening and a solid 2 hours before kick-off. By 8.00pm we had 40, by 8.30pm 70, 9.00pm 120 and 165 at kick-off. Needless to say the bar staff had their work cut out for them and seating was at a premium but no-one complained. The crowd was vocal, focused and certain the All Whites would make us proud. When New Zealand equalised in the 2nd minute of extra time, to go 1-1, gaining their first ever World Cup point, joint leadership in their group and became instant legends, the place literally went off. A moment I will long remember. Stuck at the back of the room fiddling with the AV I slowly slid down the wall and onto my hands and knees, kissed the boards and offered my heartfelt thanks to numerous gods and deities. But was I really showing my gratitude for the goal, or that fact we had a packed house? I think it was probably more the latter. As I was packing up I chatted with a chef from the one of the restaurants down on the Woolloomooloo Finger Wharf. He had heard the crowd erupt as the goal was scored from his kitchen a good 150 metres away, and in doing so he gave me my George Berkeley moment. A tree had fallen in the forest and many people heard it, so it must have happened. The lesson? Make sure you have your event content, location, production and promotion right to ensure a full house. Go the All Whites. Grant Whitehouse http://twitter.com/strawhouse

Posted in Australia, Education, Events.
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Creative Sydney, Creative Futures Day.: 11th June, 2010 | Posted by GPJ Australia

What a perfect way to spend the first Sunny day after two weeks of constant rain! Inside a dark hall listening to the myriad of possible future destinations the creative industries might arrive at. The presentations and panel discussions were predominantly speculative in nature rather than practical; no surprise given that it was “Futures Day” but there was definitely some real food for thought or data for analysis if you will about how we can best utilise the power of social media and web based technologies.

Session 1 “Technology & Behaviour”

Mike Walsh was the first to present his ideas (strangely enough from his new book) these drew upon the more unique social media campaigns and technology happenings from around the Globe over the past 12 mths. There were a few highlights from this, one was the hugely popular social media campaign from LA, centred on the Kogi BBQ truck phenomena and then there was the Tokyo Girls collection.

The Kogi BBQ truck craze is probably a little dated now by LA standards but was very successful push into social media by a new venture and is still extremely popular within its original launch market, as far as my newly developed social media brain could deduce it involved one truck with food, a twitter account and a location. Out goes the tweet of where the mobile kitchen was about to begin service of the hit Korean-Mexican culinary fusion and soon after followed the appropriate carnage that should be expected from a “so hot right now” trend, queues and big ones at that with only one truck servicing the greater LA metropolitan area.

http://kogibbq.com/about/

Tokyo Girls collection is an event for consumers held twice a year in Japan to show case emerging trends in everyday street wear. The event is massive in Japan and the last event saw over 23,000 visitors. The advancement with this established showcase of Japanese fashion for the every day girl is the use of mobile phones by attendees; forget the high pressure stakes of talking the talk and walking the walk between fashion designers and powerful buyers…..instant money makes this event go around as the everyday punter who attends has the ability to buy items direct form the Tokyo Girls Collection website on their phones as they appear in front of them on the catwalk…...

http://gw.tv/tgc/10SS/whats_en/index.html

In my next blog I will feature the other two speakers from the Technology and Behaviour session, Chris Ying and Racheal Botsman. Over the coming weeks I will also be continuing on with the remainder of the Creative Sydney, Creative Futures day sessions, featuring highlights from all the speakers.

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Stumble upon my face space,
(A newbie’s odyssey into emerging social media & technology trends.)

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