Articles and Book Excerpt.

Articles
mosaic
event management
mosaic
event management
CONTENTS
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THE NUDIST ON THE LATE SHIFT
THE NEW PARTY REGIME
GRAND STRAND
THE PARTY FOR THE YEAR 2000 HAS ALREADY BEGUN
Excerpt from the article SAN DIEGO
mosaic
event management
Excerpts from THE NUDIST ON THE LATE SHIFT
a novel by PO BRONSON
South Park
Ron Johnson is a merry rock slab of muscle who wears pajama bottoms and T-shirts.
Alison Chozen is a brainy hotty who could easily moonlight as a Victoria’s Secret model.
They love to finish each other’s sentences. Listen to how this tag team talks, and you’d
think they were high-tech entrepreneurs:
“Sometimes we’re here late at night, trying to think of ideas. How can we improve on
last year? We have to stay competitive —”
“—anything is possible. Put no barriers on your mind. Let it go. If you nurture and feed
the mind, it’s amazing what you can come up with—”
“—the next thing you know, we’ve promised something to a client, and we’ve put ourselves in a jam: we’ve got no idea how we are ever going to pull this off!”
The kinds of promises Alison and Ron make to clients are not for upgrades to software
but usually for something a little more eye-catching.
Such as camels.
“We promised a client two camels and suddenly it was a
week away. We had to go out and find camels—”
“—but it turns out that if you make a five-thousand-dollar
donation to the San Francisco Zoo, they’ll let just about
anything out of its cages for the night.”
Alison and Ron are party planners with Mosaic Events
Management, and they have developed quite a reputation
in Silicon Valley for bashes that have a particular appeal to
the high-tech crowd. “It’s definitely different than for other
industries,” Alison says.
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mosaic
event management
Ron picks up the thought: “At a high-tech party, usually nobody knows each other, and
they’re often very shy. So we need to provide something interactive, create an environment with games.”
But you won’t see a dance contest at a Mosaic party. In a tech crowd, there are usually not
many dancers and often not many women with whom to dance. You won’t see a casino
night either. Four years ago, that might have been enough, but the relentless pressure to
innovate has affected the party circuit as much as it has the integrated circuit. “The trend
is much more towards the physical,” says Alison. So today they might roll out a hundredyard-long Astroturf football field, complete with goalposts. Everyone will be given a
reversible jersey, and the party will continue on the field as a helicopter lands and out
jumps Boomer Esiason, ready to toss passes to a line of receivers. Roving novelty performers, like human condom men or hula hoop queens, roam the crowd. And there will
always be a line to be a human dart.
To be a human dart, you slip into a head-to-toe Velcro suit, then squat into a butt bucket
that is the firing device of a huge slingshot. Attached to either side of the butt bucket are
huge rubber bands as thick as your wrist. Your team pulls you back until the bands are
fully stretched, then releases you, and you fly straight through the air for twenty-five feet
until you smack against a wall-sized foam target, also covered with Velcro—and there you
stick. You are utterly incapable of pulling yourself off. You must be peeled off slowly by
your teammates.
“Ninety percent of our business is repeat business,” says Ron, and Alison finishes the
thought: “Because we know their guests and we know what they want.” What they want
are climbing walls, trampolines, human foosball, bungee jumping. Basketball games in
which the balloonish ball is four feet in diameter and the hoop is even bigger. You can get
your picture taken draped in a ten-foot-long albino boa constrictor, which has yellowish
skin and ruby red eyes.
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mosaic
event management
The trends in food and drink are tough to keep up with too. “It’s not enough just to serve
ginkgo in the smoothies. You’ve got to have oxygen-infused cocktails for the mental
boost.” And while the trend around the country is toward comfort foods, in high tech it’s
still cutting edge.
“We can serve garlic mashed potatoes—” says Ron.
“—but only if we serve it in a martini glass,” finishes Alison.
“We can do pasta—”
“—but only if we color it jet-black with squid ink.”
The camels were for a Midnight at the Oasis Bedouin theme. Another time they promised
two jaguars, which were flown in from Toronto.
“We’ve definitely pricked up the value system of our clients—”
“—we’ve taken on their philosophy.”
“It becomes not whether we can do it—”
“but how we will do it.”
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mosaic
event management
Kitchens were created at the rear of each pavilion using pipe and drape. The large number
of attendees inspired Victoria Karno of Mosaic, caterer of the event, to make each buffet
easily accessible. “We felt it was best to use self-serve containers so that people could just
pick them up and hit the road, so to speak,” she says.
That in mind, tiny Chinese take-out containers with chopsticks were used for chopped and
Thai-noodle walk-away salads, and a wrap station featuring a sun-dried tomato wrap filled
with sauteed prawns, diced cucumber, cous cous and fresh papaya salsa, were offered at
the Rainforest buffet. The buffet was accented with tall reeds and grasses, natural woodplatters, lush greenery and exotic florals.
Red and orange theatrical lights created the ambience in Rio Carnival, where feathers,
beads and bright neon platters adorned the buffet featuring walk-away jambalaya,
miniature beef tamales and sweet potato chips with pineapple and green onion chutney.
In Club Land, a black and blue buffet offered platters of grilled and fresh vegetable
crudite, sushi and Italian food, including penne brushetta and miniature pizzas.
In addition to regular bar service, a Smart Bar was added to provide guest with a nonalcoholic alternative. The amino acid and vitamin-powered beverages come in neon
colors, with names such as Oxygen Cocktail, Ginko a Go-Go and Killer Bee Ice Tea.
“The drinks are visually appealing and the blenders were going like crazy,” Karno says.
A countdown signified the finale of the evening, and when it finished, balloons hanging
from the ceiling were popped, showering guests with confetti.
For those who had a glimpse of the coming millennium at this event, the real countdown
will be eagerly anticipated.
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