Author: Niki Lotte
StartUp Monday: Loopd, the Event Marketing Wearable
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 & would like to share with friends and followers of ABCey Events!
Loopd, an event marketing wearable, provides personalized data to enhance your event strategy using the Loopd badge. By simply downloading the Loopd app, everyone at your event – guests, clients, vendors, planners, and you – can receive real-time data and analytics about your guests and event on your mobile devices!
Loopd caters to everyone at your event! The event marketing wearable allows the event’s exhibitors to identify and collect leads automatically while attendees can use the app to connect with others and trade information in place of business cards. The app will remember when and where guests connected so there will never be any of those awkward re-meeting conversations again!
Why We Love Loopd: Loopd is perfect for event planners, clients and attendees! It works in real-time by measuring traffic flow throughout the event and can significantly improve marketing campaigns because it shows what guests are most interested in. Not only that, but all of its valuable insights is provided in easy-to-understand analytics. This device is well-rounded and perfect for event planners!
Would you use Loopd? For what type of events? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter!
ABCey’s Weekend LineUp: San Francisco October 16 – 19, 2014
From short films to craft beers, San Francisco October 16 – 19, 2014 is full of events to see, taste, and hear! ABCey’s Weekend LineUp will reveal the most bumping beats and tastiest treats for you to enjoy this weekend.
SF International Festival of Short Films
Thursday, October 16th to Saturday, October 18th | 7PM – 11PM; 5PM start time on Saturday | Roxie Theater| $11.50 per session
If you love short films, this three-day event is for you! All shows are 30 minutes or less and cover topics ranging from sacrifice to identity. Start planning with the schedule here.
Noe Valley Harvest Festival
Saturday, October 18th | 10AM – 5PM | 24th Street between Sanchez and Church Streets | FREE
This family friendly event offers endless amounts of fun with a Costume Contest for pets and kids, a pumpkin patch, face painters and live music on two stages!
San Francisco Craft Beer Festival – Fall Harvest
Saturday, October 18th | 1PM – 4:30PM or 6PM – 9:30PM (two sessions) | Herbst Pavillion, Fort Mason Center | $60.77
75 breweries with 150 different beers will be ready for tasting at this year’s SF Craft Beer Festival – Fall Harvest! With unlimited 2 oz tastings of this extensive variety from breweries all over the United States, which will be your favorite?
Treasure Island Music Festival
Saturday, October 18th to Sunday, October 19th | 12PM – 11PM | Treasure Island | $160 2-Day Regular Ticket
Head over to Treasure Island for this two-day music festival which will include live music, gourmet food, and fun activities! The 2014 lineup includes Janelle Monáe, Zedd, Massive Attack, and Outkast!
Haight Ashbury House Tours
Sunday, October 19th | 1PM – 5PM | Haight Ashbury | $51.80
Haight Ashbury has the largest number of Victorian houses in all of San Francisco and this Sunday, you have the chance to enter and explore these quintessential SF houses throughout a 9-block radius!
Which event will you be attending in San Francisco October 16 – 19, 2014? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter!
StartUp Monday: Hall – Group Chat and Instant Messaging for Companies
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 & would like to share with friends and followers of ABCey Events!
Hall is a social app that brings your team together. You can chat, share files, and create groups with people both in and out of your company. Businesses can easily send and receive messages one-on-one or in groups with users who are in- and out-of-network which erases the need to constantly check your work email.
Another feature of Hall is the ability to integrate other services, such as Dropbox, Jenkins, and Hubot, so you can check out what’s happening on online services all in one place.
Why We Love Hall: Hall is not only FREE, but it is accessible anytime, anywhere! You can access it from your iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac, Windows, Linux and the Web because it syncs across all devices. It’s perfect for events because we can easily communicate with our client and send messages to all of our staff in the blink of an eye, no matter what device we’re on! We’re not the only ones who love Hall as Intuit, VH1, Zynga, NetApp, Amazon.com, and JCPenny are loving the product too!
Would you use Hall’s group chat and instant messaging for companies you’re interested in communicating with? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter!
Available on iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac , Windows, Linux and Web
Seasonal Fall Foods for Our Tables
ABCey Events loves using the freshest fruits and vegetables to feed our guests! We are super excited to welcome a new season of food to spice up our event menus! Squash, apples, pears, sweet potatoes and other Fall foods are making their way onto our tables in the coming months. Here are some fun recipes to incorporate into your fall festivities!
Festive Pumpkin Dip
This spiced delicious Festive Pumpkin Dip is the perfect use of seasonal fruits and vegetables, like pumpkin and peppers, to serve to your guests as an appetizer. Just be warned, they may not want to stop for the main course!
Pork Roast with Sweet Potatoes, Apples, and Onions
While the turkey might be the protein of choice in November, we think pork roast goes pretty well with classic Autumn vegetables. In this Pork Roast with Sweet Potatoes, Apples, and Onions, you’ll be able to experience all of the Fall flavors in one delicious dish. Did we mention this recipe is gluten free?
Apple Bundt Cake with Caramel Glaze
Apples, spices, and caramel glaze; what is more Fall than an Apple Bundt Cake? We’re sure we won’t be able to leave the table after having a slice of this festive cake, but it’ll be worth it!
Spiked Mulled Apple Cider
Cozy up with a spiked mulled apple cider on a chilly Fall day. Basically the Autumn version of sangria, this hot drink has orange zest, cinnamon, cardamon, nutmeg and apples of course! Just keep them coming.
What are your favorite foods to eat this season? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter!
Tech Tuesday: WanderList, A Digital Travel Guide
Tech Tuesday highlights the best and brightest ideas in the tech world. ABCey would like to recognize these up and coming technologies for their innovative ideas and impact on the event world! This week we want to introduce you to WanderList, a digital travel guide that provides you with a hand-curated list of things to do in your current city!
WanderList is a digital travel guide which provides recommended restaurants, bars, coffee shops, and hotels around San Francisco with future plans to launch in other cities. This San Francisco startup was inspired by the more than 40 countries its team has explored.
WanderList’s main selling point is that travelers don’t have to lug heavy travel books around when they’re exploring different cities. Instead, they just check in on their phone to see where the best places around them are located. Since the content is frequently updated, globetrotters will always be given the most up-to-date information and be more informed about their traveling decisions.
Why We Love WanderList: Aside from being FREE, WanderList shows us where to go – places only locals know about – and tells us why that particular location is so cool. As event planners, we’re always looking to discover new venues and vendors, which is made so much easier by WanderList who finds us the best of the best. Since we use our phones everyday to call Ubers and post selfies to Instagram, why not discover favorite spots on your phone as well. Exploring cities was never easier! 
What city would you want to explore with WanderList? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter!
5 Spine-Chilling Halloween Event Ideas to Spook-ify your Night
Happy October! At ABCey, we are so excited to start October because that means Halloween is right around the corner. We’ve collected a list of our 5 favorite hair-raising Halloween event ideas for you to start planning now!
Host a Murder Mystery Party
Send out invitations in creepy-crawly font and plan the meal to revolve around Halloween-inspired food (think: Bloody Mary potatoes, Vampire Delight Martini, and Turtle Caramel Apples).
Throw a Scary Movie Marathon
Make some popcorn, light some candles, and get ready to scream! In need of some scary movie ideas? Put on Hellraiser, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and, obviously, Halloween!
Hold a Pumpkin Carving Party
With a spooky playlist and plenty of templates, hold a pumpkin carving party to get in touch with your artsy crafty side. Bonus: You can roast the pumpkin seeds for a healthy, delicious snack when you’re done!
Entertain a Haunted House
While this event might call for the most work, the quality you put in will most certainly correlate with the number of screams. Don’t forget to add plenty of cobwebs and maybe even a chainsaw or two.
Throw a Costume Party
Of course, for all of the events above, costumes should be involved, but have a specific party that recognizes each person’s unique outfit! Vote on “Most Creative,” “Scariest Couple,” “Naughtiest Costume,” and “Best Dressed!” Eat, Drink, and Be Scary!
What are your plans this Halloween? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter!
Startup Monday: Smore, Design Online Flyers
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 & would like to share with friends and followers of ABCey Events!
Smore allows you to easily design online flyers to showcase your upcoming events with customizable layouts! Simply update your flyers to capture your event’s theme, send your creation to all of your subscribers, and track your success!
How it works: With the easy-to-follow format, Smore allows you to customize your flyer to match the theme of your event. From the Smore website, you can publish your digital flyer to all of your social media sites, over email, or on to other flyers in your city. With a special analytics capacity, Smore provides numbers regarding your top incoming traffic sources, how your recipients’ interactions with the flyer, and how effective your flyer really is!
Why we love it: Smore makes it so easy to design online flyers to really draw attention to your events. Our favorite part is how much information we can gather using Smore’s analytical technology and learn about what areas we can improve upon. With three different models to chose from, with prices ranging from $19 to $99 per month, Smore provides a variety of options to publicize events!
Will you use Smore to design and publish professional flyers for your next event? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter!
ABCey’s Weekend LineUp: San Francisco September 25-28, 2014
We can’t believe it’s already the last weekend of September! Make sure you end the month with a bang by dressing up as a superhero, listening to music, tasting sake, or all of the above! Come out and join ABCey Events for a great weekend!
SuperHero Street Fair
Saturday, September 27th | 1PM – 11PM | Indiana Street near Cesar Chavez | $10 in costume, $20 in Clark Kent | The 5th annual SuperHero Street Fair brings out the superhero in everyone with live music, art, and a large bazaar (7 stages with 13 sound camps!) which houses the electronic music festival. Don’t forget to stop by the “SuperHero Awards,” which honors outstanding individuals and organizations who are performing heroic feats every day!
Bay Area Record Fair
Saturday, September 27th | 12PM – 5PM | Thee Parkside | FREE with RSVP ($5 gets you in an hour early) | With raffles, live bands, and guest DJs, what more can you ask for of the Bay Area Record Fair? How about the chance to buy music directly from dozens of Bay Area record labels, such as Fat Wreck Chords, Slumberland, and 1-2-3-4 Go!.
Sake Day
Saturday, September 27th | 4PM – 8PM | Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California | $80 | Oktoberfest was so last weekend; this week, it’s all about Sake! Sample and learn about sake at 1840 Sutter Street in Japantown for this year’s Sake Day celebration! Don’t forget your IDs!
Excelsior Arts & Music Festival
Sunday, September 28th | 11AM – 4PM | Excelsior Neighborhood | FREE | The Excelsior Action Group is once again presenting their annual Excelsior Arts & Music Festival for a fun, free, family-friendly time! Created to showcase civic pride, this year’s theme is “Greening the Excelsior through Art.” The festival – which includes live music, multi-cultural food, and activities – will be held on Ocean Avenue (between Mission Street and Persia Avenue) and on San Juan Avenue (between Mission Street and Alemany Boulevard).
Now & Zen Fest
Sunday, September 28th | 12PM – 5PM | Golden Gate Park: Sharon Meadow | FREE | Alice 97.3 is hosting Now & Zen Fest again on Sunday in Golden Gate Park (Sharon Meadow)! The star-studded lineup includes Neon Trees, Matt Nathanson, American Authors, and Lindsey Stirling among others. Don’t forget to have your bike valeted for free at the main entrance.
What will you be doing in San Francisco September 25-28, 2014? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter!
Tech Tuesday: Guidebook, the Mobile Guide App
Tech Tuesday highlights the best and brightest ideas in the tech world. ABCey would like to recognize these up and coming technologies for their innovative ideas and impact on the event world! This week we want to introduce you to Guidebook, a website which allows you to create your own mobile guide app!
Events can be hectic and overwhelming, especially for the event planner. Luckily, Guidebook was made to make event planners’ – and their guests’ – lives easier. Guidebook allows event planners to create high-quality mobile guide apps for their events. Perks include low cost (there’s a free version!), real-time updates, sharp and intuitive design, knowledgable support, and less paper waste!
How it works: Guidebook Gears allows event planners to easily add and update content to their personalized event guide. With an online form, filling out all the information for an event is straightforward, especially when information can be imported from a spreadsheet or an iCal feed. Logos and custom icons can be added for each section and multiple editors can work on the guide. Guests can effortlessly plan their personal event schedule and receive reminders when an event in their schedule is coming up. They can also connect with other attendees using Guidebook’s contact cards so all of their networking will be productive and efficient.
Why we love it: Guidebook is so easy to use and fits within whatever budget we are given! Since a majority of our guests bring their smart phones to our events, we can easily provide them with information, such as schedules, maps, pictures, and logos, without having to print a single piece of paper. Anytime we make a change, our attendees receive the update instantly and are even notified of the changes when they open the app. Can it get any easier?!
Would you use Guidebook? What type of events would you like to have a mobile guide app for? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter!
Startup Monday: Travel Planning App, Gogobot’s “GoGo This Week”
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 & would like to share with friends and followers of ABCey Events!
ABCey Events loves exploring and discovering San Francisco, but isn’t afraid to use travel planning apps to find out about events going on around the city too. That’s where Gogobot comes in to play. From hotels, vacation rentals, things to do and restaurants, Gogobot is a travel planning app for iOS and Android that lets you know where to go based on what city you are visiting and when you’ll be there. With more than 740,000 reviews and 4 million photos of more than 60,000 destinations around the globe, it is one of the largest sources of reviews for restaurants, hotels and attractions. Founder and CEO Travis Katz created the travel planning app to help people of all lifestyles and interests be aware of the happenings going on in their current city through recommendations by their friends and people like them. It is considered “the go-to place for places to go.”
Gogobot creates personalized, authentic experiences for you by highlighting places popular with people who share your tastes and interests. Once downloading the app and creating your Gogobot account, you choose travel styles or interest categories called “Tribes,” which will allow the app to match your personal style to others around you. Then you are given recommendations of sites and attractions by other people with similar interests so you know you’ll love them!
Last Thursday – September 11, 2014 – Gogobot announced the addition of “GoGo This Week,” a hand-curated list of events and activities in six cities around the world: Los Angeles, New York City, San Diego, Silicon Valley, London and San Francisco! Each week, when Gogobot members open their app, they will see 10 – 15 fresh, personalized recommendations of great events in their local area – from activities to festivals to restaurant openings – based on their distinct “tribes.” Users are able to tap through to learn more about each event and “Why to GoGo.” With the bookmarking feature to save events on multiple lists to check out for later, users are able to share lists with their friends who can also add events to the lists. The future goals of this travel planning app includes expanding the “GoGo This Week” feature to more cities in the coming months by bringing on editors for each city to create the hand-curated lists.
ABCey Events loves Gogobot’s new feature, GoGo This Week, because we are always looking for new ways to discover the fun events in San Francisco as well as showcase the events we are producing. Because Gogobot is a source of trusted travel advice for so many users, event publicity can spread at an even greater rate and can be targeted toward people who would be interested in our events!
Will you download Gogobot? What do you think of its extension, GoGo This Week? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter!