News recently came out that the City of Raleigh was considering selling naming rights of the Downtown amphitheater to Bud Light (although it’s actually is against state laws). This drummed up lots of chatter on local blogs, one of my favorite thoughts include Dana’s desire to have it reflect a truly local vibe.

In this morning’s news was the addition that the City has opened this up for public opinion. (However, I’m cynical when it comes to power in the government, so I firmly believe this could just be to make people feel like they’ve had some say in things.) Why do I care? This encompasses two things I think are important – contributing to the “brand” of my favorite city (and home) and the potential to support LOCAL businesses!

Nonetheless, I cast my vote… as a “yes”, but really, a “yes” with conditions that I would like to see met.

Here are the comments I left:

Sell it, but DON’T restrict the sale of goods with any exclusivity contracts!

I say sell the naming rights – but protect the interests of local vendors first and foremost. The reason it has become so expensive to spend money at events is that normal naming rights and contracts restrict the opportunity for competition and oh yeah… that free trade thing!

Via wikipedia: “Under a free trade policy, prices are a reflection of true supply and demand, and are the sole determinant of resource allocation.”

Another reason it makes more sense to protect the interests of local businesses who would be able to participate? MORE OF THE MONEY MADE STAYS HERE! Isn’t that what the City of Raleigh should want?

Read up on the issue at hand and cast your “vote” here!

Just a quick look at a venue who has done a great job in branding their signature cocktails!

{And really, a tip that you could think about when branding ANYTHING signature. Your signature service, product, or you guessed it… cocktail!}

I had a fun dinner tonight after work with Adrianne and our significant others at our local Red Robin. I ordered their “Gold Margarita” and check out what was delivered to my table:

PS – Also a good idea? They put the prices of their cocktails on the table promotion pieces and their menus. I am a lot more likely to buy a cocktail if I don’t have to ask how much it is! (You’ve heard the old adage: “If you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it”. You’d never want someone to think that about your drinks, right?)

One of the things I like the most about this idea? You could apply this concept to so many other products or services – not just cocktails!

Last week I had an awesome, but exhausting, experience at the annual Nightclub & Bar Show (convention and trade show) in the always fun city of Las Vegas!

Along for the ride? My “Director of Awesomeness” / “Right Hand Man (Who Doesn’t Get Paid)”. That would be my boyfriend – Nick. (He was on vacation from work and never passes up a chance to go lose some money in Vegas, which as a result, paid for our $200/night hotel – yay!)

I will recap some of the more enjoyable conference education sessions I attended (and provide a “how not to” on the one disaster of a session I attended) later here on the blog… but today, I wanted to start recapping my last day of trade show – checking out the show floor!

My Director of Awesomeness joined me at the show on Wednesday for a day of checking out the newest brands, services, and the like – all slingin’ their goods to the nightclub and bar trades. The unofficial motto is “work hard, play hard”… and honestly, that totally fit the bill. I was barely able to stand by the time we got to about the 150th vendor, but I promised myself I was going to make it all the way across the show floor to visit my friends from South Carolina at the Firefly Vodka booth – (Hi, Matt!).

So without further ado, here are the brands that I liked the most from the show. (This is not to say there weren’t tons of other great vendors, but as you can imagine, many were geared toward security, lights & sound, other bar operations, etc. — all things that a marketer and event planner can appreciate — but don’t really have much to do with my day-to-day work.)

Know Your Market
GoCruso.com
I met these folks after seeing about 20 other booths and since we didn’t receive a tote bag on the way into our show, and I neglected to bring a bigger bag myself, my hands were FULL. (Nick’s, too.) I was amazed that this was the first, and the only, vendor to provide eco-friendly tote bags (actually, any tote bags at all). I saw them from across the way and made a beeline for them. Genius! Just because they had the foresight to bring bags, they have my vote.

GoCruso.com is creating a “social networking site for the food service industry”. They had a really impressive booth and staff, so I’m pretty surprised that the site isn’t up yet – as of when I’m writing this post.

Let’s Party
Spirit Foodservice
Festive straws and stirrers to work any event’s theme! (Private label/custom products available!)

HookaLime
Never let the rind spoil a good Corona! These guys were smart enough to send show-goers home with samples… I’ll be sure to try it out next time we’re at the beach.

Scaled-Down Bowling
Nick LOVED this vendor. (There were two that stood out that he really liked – one of which will stay a secret for just a tad longer as one of my clients is going to be introducing it to the local market soon, and I don’t want to spoil the surprise!)

BottleStar
A cute and inexpensive way to add lighted-pours to bottles. Fun holiday décor, no? Could also be fun way to add spunk to a dark bar.

TweetWall Live
Display buzz, tweets, mentions, and more. What I really love about this company? They charge an affordable one-time fee — no monthly recurring fees!

Ok, that’s enough review for right now. Tune in later this week for my second round of favorites!

I am not a fan of junk. If something doesn’t have a function or intrinsic value, I don’t have much use for it. I realllllly need things to be organized and for everything to have a place!

Fellow local twitter user, @DanLondon (who also serves as the Director of Online Marketing at ShareFile.com), posted something I favorited a few months ago because it resonated with me:

@DanLondon: Funny. Tech has evolved but swag is still in 1984 (not that I don’t love my hackey sack) #isum09Since obviously this is something I’m passionate about (and no, I didn’t know one could be passionate about swag), I’ll occasionally share some things that I think make great alternatives to the keychain (don’t we all have a keychain full of keychains in junk storage?) and the ink pen (if you buy cheap, they won’t write anyway).

The very first feature comes from Eventbrite… a must-use utility for anyone hosting any kind of event (ESPECIALLY if you need to actually sell tickets). Specifically, this was posted on their facebook page.

Click on the image above to view the branded chocolate poker chips in detail… a delicious takeaway from the casino-themed after-party they were hosting at a conference.

Oh, and their tagline? “Always a full house with Eventbrite.”

Now that’s what I call clever!