Crystal Eagle Awards at the Omni...

It was a pleasure working with Coro Southern California on their 37th annual Crystal Eagle Awards this year! It was held at the Omni Los Angeles Hotel and it featured a silent auction with over 80 items! Silent auction proceeds went to keep the organization fulfilling their mission. Coro is really an incredible organization that helps to create tomorrow's leaders. This year the honorees included Dennis Gilbert, Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Chicago Whitesox; Larry King, Television Anchor and Host, Author and Philanthropist; Martha Saucedo, Community Builder, AEG; and George Kieffer, LA Civic Leader, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP. The event's Master of Ceremonies was L.A. City Council President, The Honorable Herb Wesson, Jr. Conan Nolan from NBC4 served as Moderator. Thank you to all of our sponsors, participants, and Congrats to our honorees! We look forward to next year's event - always striving to grow the event and bring additional exposure to such a wonderful organization! www.CoroLA.org

Master of Ceromonies, The Honorable Herb Wesson, Jr.

 Alex Lavelanet singing the National Anthem - AMAZING!

Our Honorees taking part in the panel discussion

Larry King with Coro President John Greenwood

Coro Staff Members - Tu-Han Phan & Patty Corry

Who Ever Thought? Red in the Crystal Would Look So Good?

A new trend in annual fundraisers is to add an educational/professional development element to the event prior to the main event. This client did so in complete fashion. Seen below was such an interesting panel that the interactive discussion went over by 30 minutes but it was well worth it! 

Once we closed the workshop portion of the event we began into the reception... Announcing doors open was our Taiko Drummers. They are always fantastic! Since our client represents all Asian cultures it was really cool to highlight various cultures via entertainment throughout the evening.

This was the most interesting factor! We wanted to use red to celebrate the Asian culture, the organization's brand, but were very concerned with it looking too Chinese or not great in the Millennium Biltmore's famed Crystal Ballroom! It actually looked fantastic with the silver accents and white patterned lighting.We continued to brand the event on the Red drape with the organizations Leo stamp.

On a budget to keep with the red accents we only ended up renting red napkins. We used house linens and rented chiavaris. It looked great.

Seen below were the Gamelan Burat Wangi and our famed vertical banners were now in place too. We helped the client with producing three vertical banners "eco-friendly" that are made from cloth and bamboo cases that they can used over and over again. For this event alone, we used them as the stage backdrop for the education sessions, push them close together for the step & repeat photos upon arrival, and then moved them to the stage to finish up the look. The highlight though in this photo are the amazing dancers!

Another very nice place to spend money when on a budget to make the most impact when hosting an event is to have your board or staff members where corsages or boutonnieres. In this case below, we have two board members (Rich Drobnick & Thomas McLain) with honoree (Sidney Rittenberg) on stage for the award photo opp.

WTUI Conference in the City of Roses!

Mumtaz Marketing & Events was honored to produce the WTUI Annual Conference once again this year one of California's many prides, the Pasadena Convention Center! It was a great space, and all the users really enjoyed their classroom-like atmosphere for the conference. The four day conference included a large exhibit hall featuring vendors from all around. We must say... The folks in Pasadena were fabulous! Thanks to the complete on hand to help us produce another great year!



Every year we have one showcase event for all conference attendees and that is the Monday Night Reception and we had the wonderful challenge of converting the Convention Center's Conference Center into a "WTUI Cabaret"... We had to provide seating for 800+ plus enough space for buffets, bars, and attendee networking! As the sun went down the lighting got better and better! Lighting is always key in producing phenomenal events! Thanks to Jorge at J&M Entertainment and his team for throwing in the "kitchen sink" on a budget!

Hand-Carved Meat Station - Where's the Beef?

Martini Mashed Potatoes - LOL Not with this manly crowd. We just dished delish mashed potatoes onto plates... The martini glasses were for decor!

Our dessert station was definitely the biggest hit of the night! It featured over 8 different desserts and was the center of attention for the most of the night. It was also a biggest hit because there was an aerialist centered in the middle of the dessert table who provided amazing entertainment to our guests during the night, check it out below!



The board members of WTUI take a moment to pose for a board picture before the reception begins! Top Hats to Match the evening's theme and allowed them to stand out as the event's hosts. Plus, it also makes every man more handsome!

 

Special Thanks to the Whole Team! We are thrilled to be in San Diego in 2013!!! 

Low Budget High Class! Annual Dinner Event at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel

March has been a fantastic month for us and we are thrilled to post about our Low Budget High Class which really means a happier client with a higher Net! As always, the Millenium Biltmore was gorgeous so, just a splash of color and we were set. We had a bit larger than expected silent auction, but it was fantastic to present attendees with the items upon entrance into the ballroom. Since we wanted to give our guests more time in front of the silent auction in addition to a closer proximity to each other we combined the reception and ballroom space. We simply placed rope and stanchions and cleared once we were ready to invite guests to be seated. We went with all hotel linens to save on budget but spent a few hundred on purple napkins, along side the centerpieces and accent purple lighting. We were able to bring enough "polish" to the space to make it seem produced above your standard in house event (not that the Biltmore isn't already glam!)

It was also a pleasure working with all of our honorees, but it was fun working with the Good News Foundation! It's really nice seeing strong and successful women giving back to the community. This was the case with all of the event's honorees - Evon Gotlieb, Yolie Flores, and Wells Fargo for their corporate leadership.

We are very much looking forward to next year's event! Remember - Make sure to take part in civic leadership, register to vote, and make democracy work! Follow our client on Twitter at @LWVLosAngelesEF

MME at Castle Green in Pasadena!

One of our client's wanted a unique venue for their annual Tribute Dinner - and that's completely what we found with the Castle Green in Pasadena. This was not your everyday dinner event, we incorporated elements of the event and honoree into various aspects of the 200+ "intimate" dinner event.

The entrance to the beautiful Castle Green where the Tribute Dinner reception was held.

So, the fun giveaway.. Porsche thumbdrives were given out to attendees in honor of our honorees love of racing and cars. It was a fun touch that really made it unique and personable.

The Romanesque Room was a fun place to light! We used very little additional decor elements allowing the lighting to dictate the decor.

The President of the National Health Foundation, J. Eugene Grigsby, III (left), pictured with the honoree, Dr. Richard E. Yochum (right).

Our Mumtaz Marketing & Events team! Special Thanks go out to all of our vendors for making this event happen! We doubled in size and it was an overwhelming success for our client. Stay tuned for this weekend's post on the next event...  

Not your usual Board Meeting! It's FIDM Style

Unique Board Meetings at FIDM... Association members, Fashion Institute of Design Merchandising, also known as FIDM, hosted one of our client's March board meeting. It's always a great experience when FIDM hosts! This year in conjucntion with the meeting, FIDM is also hosting the 20th Annual Art of Motion Picture Costume Design Exhibition from Februrary 14th - April 28th, 2012. This year's exhibit featured costumes from movies such as J. Edgar, Water For Elephants, The Help, Super 8, and Captain America.

Members enjoyed exploring the exhibit and seeing the exceptional work of the award-winning costume designers, some of which are FIDM alumni and associates. This fashion school is always great about showcasing it's students and alumni, whose work is always top of the line. FIDM strives to stay ahead of current trends and innovation within the fashion industry. This exhibit for example, started with less than 40 costumes, and has grown to be a "critically acclaimed event featuring well over one hundred costumes per year-making it the largest annual curated exhibitation dedicated to the presentation of film costumes in the world." Below is a gallery of pictures featuring our members enjoying the exhibit, take a look!   

ISES LA's: Speed Pitching...

Hey everyone... I am becoming a regular now. It's Minzey reporting in for ISES LA. As the VP of Programs & Education, I was able to produce another education based event,  ISES LA’s Speed Pitching, last week at the Luxe Hotel on Sunset.  The real idea behind this education session came straight from The Special Event Conference Speed Pitching education session. I figured that people who didn’t make it out to Florida for TSE this year, could still have some part of TSE here in Los Angeles!   I was right!  We landed up selling out the room and everyone really enjoyed themselves. 

I was lucky enough to have Andrea Michaels, Extraordinary Events, to agree to be the Presenter for this education session.  She brought on Greg Christy, BriteIdeas, Inc., Liese Gardner, Event Solutions, Cheryl Fish, Someone’s in theKitchen, Greg Jenkins, Bravo Productions, Lisa Hurley, Special Events Magazine, Ian Seeberg, a Creative Director and Writer and Ruth Moyte, Red Dandelion Creative to judge the Speed Pitching. 

I was part of one of the winning tables and we were able to present our 2 minute speed pitch to the rest of the group.  One of our first time attendees, Ned Shapiro, At Any Event, said of his first time at an ISES LA event, “What a great introduction to a great organization for a First Timer like me. I'll be back again at Lawry's.”  I couldn’t have said it better myself! 

Hope to see you at our next event on March 28^th at Lawry’s where we are featuring John Klymshyn, The Art of Living: Connecting Your Life's Work to Work You Do Every Day"