By BROOKS BARNES
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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April 14, 2005; Page A1

NEW YORK -- The suspense, in certain circles, was unbearable: Would the award for Best Use of a Tent go to EventQuest Inc. for a Mercedes promotion -- or Matthew David Events for the Central Park Conservancy's Halloween party?

With some audience members literally biting their nails, Richard Aaron, president of the company bestowing the award, stood center stage and pulled his finger across the top of an oversized envelope. "And the award goes to...EventQuest!"

The firm's co-founder, John Schwartz, clambered onto the stage to collect the award, a Lucite "B" about the size of a gallon of milk. Like other winners, he posed for a photo with the mistress of ceremonies, who wore a red-sequined bathing suit and a 5-foot-tall feather headdress. "To be recognized is just a huge deal for us," he said afterward.

A cake made to look like a sushi platter, designed by Confetti Cakes for New York restaurant Nobu's 10th anniversary, was honored for Best Food Presentation.

Corporate parties and product launches have grown so lavish that event planners now have their own Oscars. The best-tent affair was anointed Tuesday night in Manhattan at BizBash Media's third annual Event Style Awards, along with 15 other categories, such as Best Food Presentation and Best Gift Bag. (The winner: A black leather picnic basket, filled with two $100 bottles of wine, golf balls and wood-grilled onions, for prospective members of the Liberty National Golf Club, under construction in New Jersey.) In a closely contested category, AOL Media Networks took home Best Invitation Design for a plastic, leather and foam entry about the size of a small suitcase.

Fifteen years ago, a company's event planner was most likely an assistant to the CEO. But as gatherings have grown into more expensive and complex marketing tools, an industry has sprung up. Meeting Professionals International, a Texas-based trade association, says its membership has grown to 19,000 from just 159 in 1972.

The money that companies are spending on events now sometimes rivals their traditional advertising budgets. BizBash, which runs a Web site and an industry trade show, estimates companies spent $4 billion on parties and meetings last year in New York City alone. Invitations to corporate events can cost anywhere from $15 to $1,000 each, says Marc Friedland, the owner of Los Angeles-based Creative Intelligence and a past Event Style winner.

Mr. Friedland just sent out 3,000 invitations to this month's bash for the opening of casino magnate Steve Wynn's new Las Vegas hotel. After touring the place to drink in its "ambience and architecture," Mr. Friedland says he spent months devising the invite, which comes in a large, flat box, covered in iridescent brown taffeta outside and wallpaper from the hotel on the inside.

Events can get expensive as organizers seek to break through the clutter with over-the-top touches. Among the nominees for Best Event Concept this year was a Dom Perignon party orchestrated by public-relations maven Susan Magrino. Held on the 70th floor of Manhattan's Time Warner Center, guests swilled 179 bottles of Dom Perignon Vintage 1996 while the Harlem Gospel Choir belted out standards and male "performance models" strutted around in white unitards.

Dom Perignon brand manager Jenna Fagnan says she's "beyond pleased" with Ms. Magrino's work. "They brought the brand to life, allowing our consumers to experience all of the textures and feelings around it," she says.

Still, Ms. Magrino, who also handles Martha Stewart's personal PR, ended up losing to a benefit party for the Robin Hood Foundation, featuring 20,000 fresh daisies, a plastic grass-covered hill and a performance by Rod Stewart.

"To me, that's artistry," says judge Liz Sanzo, corporate-events manager at iStar Financial Inc., a real-estate finance company.

Event planners say the stakes in their work are higher than people realize, with security to think about and fragile corporate images to coddle. "A bad event can create a PR nightmare," says Harriet Weintraub, president of WSC PR, a New York marketing firm. Besides, if soap-opera staffers can compete for an Emmy Award titled Outstanding Achievement in Hair, why not an honor for Best Tabletop Design? (Dalzell Productions won this year for centerpieces made for the Children's Defense Fund out of colored pencils, pink erasers and plastic scissors, beating out the table decorations at insurance broker Aon Corp.'s employee holiday party.)

Judging for the BizBash awards is approached with utter seriousness. Lobbying the judges, while occasionally attempted, is forbidden. This year, 20 judges, most of them corporate event planners , spent more than five hours sorting through hundreds of submissions. Among the criteria: "What's stylish but not gimmicky, what's fresh and not been-there-done-that," says Ms. Sanzo. "I was cross-eyed when I got out of there."

As one might expect, event planners -- call them party planners and expect glares -- don't honor themselves with a run-of-the-mill banquet. These are people who can spot a bad time by glancing at the envelope holding the invite. Last year, the awards were held at Crobar, a 25,000-square-foot Manhattan nightclub, and featured Cirque du Soleil acrobats with fire torches, face-painting booths, nearly nude "human statues," and models dangling from bungee cords.

This time, BizBash Chief Executive David Adler wanted a more intimate gathering. So he held it at the B.B. King Blues Club & Grill in Times Square and pared the guest list by a third, to about 600 people. At the event, which cost about $90,000, a tattooed man wearing sequined hot pants and a lighted candelabra on his head greeted guests. One of the stars from the Broadway show "Movin' Out" performed a piano routine, while a drag queen in a helmet served chips and dip.

As event planners sipped Cosmopolitans, they chatted about such topics as new ways to light a pond, gossiped about event horror stories -- like the time one planner lost the guest list and people had to wait two hours to eat dinner -- and delightedly pointed out flaws with the event at hand. The ice sculpture shouldn't have been dripping on the floor, and the shrimp remoulade appeared to be running low. "Embarrassing," sniffed Gary Newman, a Best Incentive Trip nominee. (His firm won for a trip to the Republican National Convention he planned for Nextel employees, featuring events such as a Nascar-themed family festival.)

The ceremony moved quickly, with no speeches except from owners of the Four Seasons restaurant, who were inducted in the Hall of Fame, for creating a "legendary power lunch," according to the presenter. The 1992 pop song "I'm Too Sexy" blared from the sound system as winners returned to their seats. Still, as is often the case at the Academy Awards, some attempts at humor didn't go off so well.

When Chad Kaydo, editor of BizBash's Web site and newspaper, took the stage to bestow the award for Best Lighting, he quieted the crowd by reminding them "the next award is an important one." Then somebody in the control booth switched off the stage lights. After a long pause and a few nervous giggles from the audience, Mr. Kaydo leaned into the microphone. "Very funny," he said, not sounding amused. "Turn up the lights please." The Santos Wristwatch launch won that prize, beating out the lighting at the Fragrance Foundation's Fifi Awards.

Some event maestros inevitably had suggestions to improve next year's awards. "How about some categories that really matter?" says Nadine Johnson, whose clients range from Louis Vuitton to Hollywood's Chateau Marmont. "Where's 'Most Attractive Wait Staff'? Where's 'Best Handling of Gate Crashers'?"

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