Month: April 2013
Top 10 Wedding Apps
Something borrowed, something blue, and maybe an app to help get you through the happiest (and sometimes most stressful) day of your life. Nowadays, there are apps for every occasion and any need. At ABCey, we’ve compiled a list of the Top 10 Wedding Apps to make wedding planning into an easier and more enjoyable process.
1. Wedding Song Planner – Professional: The name is pretty self-explanatory but the simple idea is pure time-saving genius. This app has song suggestions for every wedding moment, from the unity candle procession to the garter toss, all of which have been compiled by a professional wedding DJ. Better yet, it’s on sale for a limited time!
2. Projects: Though this app isn’t specifically created for wedding planning, its many features allow users to organize tasks and assignments in an efficient and manageable way. Users can keep track of the millions of things to do and view multiple tasks’ progress at once. Meeting with caterers, attending fitting sessions, ordering flowers to match the bridal party’s attire, creating a seating chart to accommodate relative’s temperamental needs – breathe, this app will help you get through all the madness.
3. Wedding Party: You send countless invitations to family members, distant relatives, and close friends but chances are, not everyone can attend even though they want to. The Wedding Party app gathers pictures taken during the wedding and organizes them into a timeline so absent guests can still be a part of the special day.
4. Yapp: Be ready for the unexpected with Yapp, a customizable app that will send your guests any updates and details about your wedding such as parking advice or location information. What’s useful about this app is that it allows you to send push notifications to guests should there be any last minute changes. After all, you already have enough to think about.
5. Wedding Scan: Creating a wedding registry is both fun and tiring. This app allows you to scan any item from any store and saves it for later, when you edit the list as you please. Not only does this help you organize the gifts you really want or need, but guests can also select from more options and price ranges.
6. Wedding Budget: Your special day is not only special but it can also become pretty pricey if you’re not careful. This app helps you organize where your money is going and how much is going where. You can track of what everything costs and how much money is left to spend within your budget.
7. Wedding Dress Look Book: With hundreds of dress pictures saved in its database, users can browse through different styles of dresses and select which fits their personality, shape and budget. To make this even more efficient, this app also provides listings of stores that hold your selected dresses.
8. Wedding Row: So many ideas, but where to put them? This app helps you organize all the great ideas you’ve gathered and lets you create a styleboard for easy access. Browse through other users’ styleboards and share your own for never-ending wedding inspiration.
9. myPantone Wedding & Events: Your wedding should reflect your personalities as a couple but coordinating colors, attire, and accessories can be tricky business. This app is professionally developed by color experts and wedding style specialists to help you combine color and creativity in an easy and fun way.
10. TripIt: What comes after the wedding? The honeymoon, of course! TripIt is a handy app that helps you plan your honeymoon (and any other big trips, for that matter) effortlessly. Create your vacation itinerary, keep track of your flyer accounts, and share travel plans with friends and family. After all, planning your honeymoon should be easy after planning the biggest event of your life.
Have you or a friend ever used an app to help with the big day? Are there any that we missed? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook & Twitter!
ABCey’s Weekend Lineup: 4.11.13 – 4.14.13
It’s a beautiful day in San Francisco! With weather like this lasting throughout the weekend, it’s the perfect opportunity to get outside and soak up some Vitamin D. ABCey has rounded up some events to fuel your tech fix, as well as some fun outdoor festivities that will keep you entertained throughout the weekend.
1. Xconomy Forum: Robots Remake The Workplace | April 11 | Menlo Park | For this special half-day event during National Robotics Week, Xconomy has sought out the founders and CEOs inventing real business models for the next phase of the robotics revolution—in manufacturing, health, schools, offices, energy, the home, and more—and the venture capitalists betting on their power to improve productivity and our quality of life.
2. Startup Party and Showcase | April 12 | One Ferry Plaza Building |Startup Socials bring entrepreneurs, investors, designers, developers, startups and professionals to meet and network in fun environment. Startup Socials parties combine startup products showcase, networking, no-host full-bar and dance floor.
3. 2013 Earth Day: Work Party & BBQ | April 13 | Presidio | It’s that time of the year to celebrate the Earth and all of its beauty while helping restore Presidio Natural Areas. After all your hard work, please join the group for a BBQ!
4. 2013 Berkeley Bay Festival | April 13 | Berkeley | Spend a day by the Bay listening to music, enjoying food, taking free sailboat and Dragon boat rides, and exploring the Berkeley Marina at the Berkeley Bay Festival.
5. 2013 Cherry Blossom Festival | April 14 | Japantown | The festival will be held on Post Street between Laguna and Fillmore Streets. There will be food booths, cultural performances,karate, live bands, Japanese sword demos, tea ceremonies, taiko drumming, origami demos and more.
Which events will we find you at this weekend? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook & Twitter!
Kickstarter Project: HOPE & FEAR – Egypt On The Tipping Point
Today ABCey is featuring an up-and-coming documentary called HOPE & FEAR – Egypt On The Tipping Point, a film that provides a rare glimpse into the lives of four young liberal-minded Egyptians as they struggle to reshape their nation. Egyptian born Sam Khedr, owner of an online music culture site Nitevibe, and Anjuli Bedi, Amnesty International organizer and journalist, joined forces during the Egyptian Revolution to produce this exciting and important film.
Khedr and Bedi are turning to the popular crowd-funding site Kickstarter to help them finish post-production on HOPE & FEAR – an epic 18-month journey that saw the crew beaten, tear-gassed, jailed, and hospitalized while filming in Cairo, Egypt.
The film follows Salman, Nada, Ammar, and Reham beyond the idealism and euphoria of the revolution. “Their story is one of aspiration and empowerment in the face of the fear and chaos that has dominated Egypt since the resignation of Hosni Mubarak” says Khedr. The goals of the revolution are far from achieved. This is, in fact, the most crucial and fragile period for Egypt and its people.
In order to make a different type of documentary, one which captures Cairo’s chaotic and vibrant energy, Khedr and Bedi pulled together a stellar team of industry pros which includes Oscar-nominated director and Chairman of the Monaco Film Festival, Georges Chamchoum, Iranian-American director & DP Lila Javan, famed American intellectual Dr. Cornel West, International best-selling author Reza Alsan, and Kais Menoufy the President of the American Egyptian Strategic Alliance.
Help Khedr and Bedi tell this universal story of aspiration and empowerment. Those interested in supporting the project should visit the Film’s Kickstarter Page and the HOPE & FEAR Facebook Page to learn more. Let us know what you think in the comments below or on Facebook & Twitter!
View Director’s Cut Trailer – HOPE & FEAR Long Trailer
HOPE & FEAR website – www.HOPEandFEARmovie.com
Top 5 Outdoor Event Ideas
We’re starting to see brighter days – literally. With sunnier days and warmer nights, now is the perfect time to host an outdoor event, whether it’s a classy garden party or a tented nighttime gala. At ABCey, we’ve put together a list of the Top 5 attractions for your next outdoor event.
1. Casa Bubble: Ever wanted to be inside and outside at the same time? With the Casa Bubble, guests are sheltered from allergens and blaring heat but they are still able to experience the great outdoors. The transparent covering allows guests to watch sunsets or nighttime activities while giving them privacy with the sound-reducing structure that muffles outside noise. Not only is this an exciting graphic presentation but it also provides a versatile space for your event. Customers in the past have used the Casa Bubble as a reception lounge, catering corner, and a business convention space.
2. Open Air Cinema: Nothing beats a movie under the stars, with cool nighttime breezes and a bucket full of buttery popcorn. Open Air Cinema provides outdoor cinema equipment complete with provided snacks such as popcorn and hotdogs. Screens come in different sizes to accommodate the size of your event and each upgrade in size is also an upgrade in quality – the largest sizes boast state of the art movie systems! Whether you’re hosting a party of 10 or a crowd of 3000, Open Air Cinema can provide the easiest and most lulling entertainment at your next event.
3. PyroTecnico: Scintillating fireworks are reminiscent of Fourth of July but who says you have to wait till then? Or for nighttime to fall, for that matter. PyroTecnico offers guests a truly unique experience in producing not only firework displays but also exciting daytime presentations with colored smoke. Better yet, they can also incorporate other features such as flames, lasers, and fog to impress guests an incredible show of color and lights.
4. BizBox: For more professional events, BizBox can turn your next event into a business festival celebrating exciting products and services that entertain attendees with the latest and greatest or simply the most entertaining. The concept is simple: customers a mobile space, sleek in design and presentation, and customize it with their own products and services to create a quick storefront. BizBox is great for events that seek to bring in a diverse group of companies for a mini business convention
5. Inflate USA: The name says it all — Inflate USA dedicates itself to providing huge inflatable structures whatever the occasion. If you need a mini shop, you can reserve the “Luna”, a crescent-shaped pod, or if you need an instant changing area, the “Changing Room” provides just the space. Inflate USA is flexible to the occasion and the environment as its durable material and its easy setup meets any event’s demands.
Are you planning any outdoor events soon? Let us know in the comments below or on our Facebook & Twitter!
Tech Tuesday: Nomad Go Everywhere
Tech Tuesday highlights the best and brightest ideas in the tech world. ABCey would like to recognize these up and coming companies for their innovative ideas and ability to think outside the box!
What’s a morning without coffee? And a meeting without coffee? And a morning conference without complimentary coffee? Days without a steaming cup of brewed coffee seem challenging at best for those coffee lovers out there, but you’ll never be coffee-less again with the Nomad Go Everywhere espresso machine.
Tiny in size and efficient in coffeemaking, the Nomad Go Everywhere can travel short and long distances literally in your handbag. The Nomad is roughly the size of a 6 inch cube and weighs about 2 ½ pounds. The pump lever produces up to 9 bars of pressure and enables users to have control over the usual mechanical features including water temperature, pressure, flow rate and volume.
All you need is access to hot water, and you don’t even need electricity! Just add your favorite ground coffee to the hot water and pump to get your daily dose. And, it gets better! The Nomad can be accessorized with the True Crema Valve which turns normal coffee into quality espresso.
What does this mean for you? Well this means you’ll never have a cranky morning again. The Nomad can accompany you and your next event whatever the occasion. Whether you’re in a meeting or on the road, or simply need to provide guests with the familiar espresso, rest assured your coffee can follow along wherever you go.
Is this something worth investing in? Let us know what you think of the Nomad Go Everywhere in the comments below or on Facebook & Twitter!
Startup Monday: Indiegogo
Startup Monday is ABCey’s weekly post that features some of the best and brightest companies in the Bay Area. They are often companies that we have our eye on or have worked with in the past that we would like to share with the friends and followers of ABCey Events.
If you’ve ever needed to do any sort of fundraising, you’re well aware that it can be a confusing, stressful mess to figure out how to market your campaign and properly represent your ideas and values. Luckily there’s Indiegogo, the newest and most simple way to raise money for whatever your heart desires!
Indiegogo helps you ease into the fundraising process by giving your campaign a voice, and a platform to tell people what you’re doing and how they can help. Creating a campaign on the site is extremely simple, and is completely free to start. What makes Indiegogo‘s fundraisers successful is the unique algorithm they use, called the “gogofactor”. The more you share, tweet, and encourage people to “like” your campaign, the more you boost your gogofactor.
If you want to know more about how it works, check out their website to browse through some current campaigns and see what the buzz is all about. If you don’t have an idea to fundraise for at the moment, you might find yourself feeling inspired after seeing what other people are doing!
Would you use Indiegogo to help fund your next campaign? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook & Twitter!
Top 10 Tenting Trends
There are tons of ways to create the appropriate atmosphere for your event, and choosing a unique tent is the perfect way to do so. Here are ten different trends in tenting to consider when planning your next event!
1. Tents That Look Like Indoor Spaces
2. Fabric Tents
6. Pole Tents
7. Arcum Tents
9. Raj Tents
Which tent style would be the best fit for your next event? Tell us in the comments below or on Facebook & Twitter!
Tech Tuesday: The Vamp
Tangled wires, bulky cables, heavy soundboards? No thank you! We understand there’s a lot going on during an event and music is always a must. But, providing music at an event can quickly become complicated if you don’t have the funds to hire a professional DJ. Luckily, the new Bluetooth speaker The Vamp, makes this easier.
The Vamp gets its name in its mission to “Revamp” old speakers. In its most basic form, The Vamp is a sound receiver that is portable, stylish, and affordable for any event that is in need of a quick background music fix. The concept is simple: it connects to any speaker (old, new, small, or large) through an audio cable and plays music from the nearest Bluetooth device such as your smartphone or laptop.
The high quality of sound is not compromised by its low price and it supplies its own energy source with a built-in battery that eliminates an annoying external power chord. The tiny size also allows it to host special events or simply tag along to a friend’s house for a jam session. What we love most about The Vamp is the fact that its inner magnetic bottom allows it stick onto any metal surface – quirky and useful!
The Vamp is revamping not just old speakers, but also music production at events! What do you think about The Vamp? Will you be testing it out? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter!
Startup Monday: BuzzFeed
Startup Monday is ABCey’s weekly post that features some of the best and brightest companies in the Bay Area. They are often companies that we have our eye on or have worked with in the past that we would like to share with the friends and followers of ABCey Events.
Web content is passed around quicker than the chicken pox in a kindergarten class. We all love to forward the funny stuff we find online, and you’ve probably received a link from BuzzFeed, a fast-growing site that provides millions of people with the most interesting and hilarious content that is being shared at a high rate.
BuzzFeed is a website that combines a technology platform for detecting viral content with an editorial selection process to provide a snapshot of “the viral web in realtime.” It is the leading social news organization, and will provide you with the latest links, pictures, and videos as they are rising to the top of trending lists. The site is rapidly growing and reaches more than 25 million visitors in one month!
Do you use BuzzFeed to share information? Tell us what your favorite social news site is in the comments below or on Facebook & Twitter!