Tag Archives: AT&T

Washingtonian Channels a Vintage Ice Cream Parlor for Annual Party

Posted on July 17, 2012 | 1 Comment

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom set up its Shake ‘Em Up bar in the V.I.P. reception with three women making the night’s signature cocktails while singing and standing inside the mirrored bar.


Washingtonian magazine hosted 1,900 people last night at its annual AT&T’s Best of Washington party, which coincides with the July issue’s feature story and highlights the January issue’s Best Restaurants in Washington. The event returned to the National Building Museum’s grand hall, which Amaryllis designed to evoke the ambiance of a vintage ice cream parlor.

“We were inspired by a candy parlor in New York called Sweetie Pie that carried all vintage candy,” said the magazine’s events manager Eleni Savopoulos, who worked on the event with events coordinator Katharine Ragsdale and Rebecca Schwartz, director of marketing and events. “We wanted to make the event whimsical and remind guests of that feeling as a kid when they went to their corner story for candy.”

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Amaryllis worked with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and AFR Event Furnishings to create the candy-shop atmosphere, complete with live models and bartenders dressed in vintage attire and white-and-pink lounge areas throughout the two floors of the party. Each of the night’s top sponsors got in on the theme as well with AT&T’s snow-cone station, a caricaturist creating guest portraits in the BMW lounge, and Patrón’s branded muddling and dessert bar. The production team used pink, white, and orange signage and costumes for the waitstaff as well as candy-filled jars to decorate the space. The nearly 70 restaurants participating served mostly sweet bites with a few savory plates mixed in, such as chips and guacamole from Rosa Mexicano and mini burgers from BGR the Burger Joint.

While guests who purchased the s $175 gold V.I.P. ticket—general admission tickets had a $50 discount—explored the main hall for the first hour’s reception, the American Beverage Association hosted the Publishers Reception for the night’s 10 sponsors in a separate room on the second floor of the museum. Here Chicka Chicka Boom Boom setup its signature Shake ‘Em Up bar with three bartenders singing as they served drinks from within the bar itself while Occasions Caterers served a variety of passed hors d’oeuvres and fruit candy and cotton candy stations. Rappahannock River Oysters’ reps also taught guests how to shuck oysters.

(Originally published 7.13.12 in BizBash Washington)
**Photos: Tony Brown/Imijination Photography

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Posted in Cocktail Parties, Corporate Event Coverage

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Washington Jazz Fest Partners With HBO and AT&T for Finale Party

Posted on June 16, 2011 | Leave a comment

(Originally published 6.15.11 in BizBash Washington)

The concert included a performance by the chart-topping Rebirth Jazz Band.


The D.C. Jazz Festival drew to a close on Monday night, following 13 days of more than 100 performances in 50 venues around the city. The finale performance, A Night in Treme: The Musical Majesty of New Orleans—a national jazz concert tour based on the HBO series Treme—sold out the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts with 2,300 people.

“Treme features New Orleans musicians, some of whom we’ve featured over the years,” said festival executive director Sunny Sumter. “Our founder and executive producer Charles Fishman knows a number of [the A Night in Treme musicians] personally, as well as the producer of the tour, so we were actually one of the first people they called when the put the tour together to coordinate the Washington leg.”

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Following the two-hour performance—which had attendees dancing in their seats and the aisles—AT&T hosted a finale dessert party at the center’s Roof Terrace Restaurant. Waiters served traditional New Orleans desserts like bread pudding, king cake, and pralines. Bacardi and Southern Wine & Spirits also served cocktails inspired by the Big Easy, like the Grey Goose L’Orange Summer Tea—orange-flavored vodka, simple syrup, sweet tea, and crushed mint—and red wines from France.

Though the original time line had a representative of the festival giving remarks during the post-party, Sumter scratched that part of the program at the last minute to keep guests energized and mingling following the concert until nearly midnight.

Organizers estimate that the festival overall attracted about 120,000 people, nearly double the amount in 2010, when funding from the city had been cut and the event lost its concert on the National Mall—one of its biggest draws. Sponsorships also grew this year with 24 companies, twice as many as last year, donating $10,000 or more; first-time sponsors included American Airlines, Bing, and Verizon.

**Photos courtesy of FritzPhotoGraphics.com (atmosphere); Ronald H. Green (trumpeter, Pierce)

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Posted in Festivals

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Former Co-Workers (and Current Couple) Open Decor and Audiovisual Company

Posted on October 6, 2010 | Leave a comment

(Originally published in BizBash Miami/South Florida Fall 2010 issue followed by the corresponding web site on 10.06.10)

Photo: Gary James for BizBash

Joel Carlough and Lauren Fine of decor and audiovisual company Sound, Fabric, and Light Productions are both business and life partners. The couple met in 2002 while working at Boca by Design, where Carlough focused on event logistics and setup, and Fine booked and designed events at the Boca Raton Resort and Club, which uses the firm as its in-house production company. During Carlough’s five-month tenure, the two fell in love and eventually had two sons.

After 11 years handling logistics, lighting design and installation, and on-site coordination for previous employers such as Ocean Reef Resort and Club in Key Largo, Carlough wanted to branch out on his own. “Over time throughout the industry, you always have conversations with coworkers about what it would take to launch a company, and having that conversation planted a seed,” he says. “The more I thought about it, it became clear that we could actually make this happen.” With the support of Fine, who was a stay-at-home mother at the time, they founded SFL in October 2009, specializing in exactly what the name implies: sound, fabric draping, and advanced lighting technologies.

Carlough’s specialty is logistics and lighting. Fine, who began her career as an interior designer, serves as managing partner and marketing manager, and assists Carlough and the company sales associate with event design.

“Some days [working and living together] is tough, but it’s very helpful that Joel has a very easygoing personality and never makes things more difficult than they need to be,” says Fine.

Since its inception, SFL has garnered big-name corporate clients including AT&T and the N.F.L. “Anytime you give a chance to a start-up company, you are taking a risk, no matter how well you know the person [behind it], and they absolutely came through,” says Patrick Gallagher, sales associate at So Cool Events, which hired SFL to provide theatrical, ambient, spot, and uplighting for multiple events for the Pro Bowl and Super Bowl coaches, players, and their families.

In March, SFL created a multicolored changing lighting scheme accompanied by industrial-style trusses and fabric sails for an AT&T product showcase for 800 people at the Fontainebleau hotel. “They have a great willingness to work with you from the beginning standpoint of working with budgets and coming up with a creative concept to making it all work,” says Santosh Nair, managing partner of SNR Meetings and Events, which hired SFL for the event. “With decor it’s hard to translate what your vision is for the space [to a subcontractor], and that experience became a lot easier by working with them.”

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Posted in Company and People Profiles

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