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Date: Wed, 17 Apr 1996 04:39:31 -0700
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From: Harv@cup.portal.com
To: Multiple recipients of list <lightwave@garcia.com>
Subject: Newtek's NAB "Beach Party"
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Went to Newtek's NAB party tonite. It was held at a dive called
"The Beach" - a dance-club-bar across th street from the LVCC
(the place used to be "Sport of Kings", a horse-race book and
casino). The Beach is on of these new style painfully hip
places with bouncers at the door, a dress code ("tuck in your
shirt" some minimum wager yelled at me), and the usual stuff
these places have.
Apparently a half hour prior to the invitation-only (youu had
to either be on the list, or have had picked up an invite at
Newtek's booth) party was a dealer party. As we were queued
up outside waiting to get in, I heard an announcer inside
say "And the winner of the prize, a Newton Message Pad, is
Jim Plant." (Jim is the publisher of VTU and LWPro.. how
ironic his name was drawn, eh? :) no no.. I'm sure it was
merely a coincidence. :)
So at the stroke of 9, the "public" with invites in hand were
let in. Inside, I found a rather tacky bar/club which was
festooned with surfboards, girl employees in t-shirts and shorts,
more bouncers, and etc. My pal for the evening, John Grieggs, and
I looked for food. Newtek has always had pretty good food at
their expo parties. All they had tonite, that we could find, was
desserts. Lots of fancy cakes and such, but that was it.
I didn't see any Newtek-specific decorations inside either.
For those of you who attended their party a couple years back in
conjunction with SIGGRAPH in Anaheim, CA., you'll remember the
soire they threw at the Movieland Wax Museum in Buena Park... where
over 3000 people showed up, got a free tour of the place, lots of
good eating, and everywhere were 4' tall blowup toys of Edvard
Munch's "The Shriek" painting's character.
Tonite's party had none of that excitement of that Screamer
rollout party a couple years ago. No new Todd Rundgren videos.
No Penn'n'Teller either.
(Now who am I to tell a company how to promote.. Newtek used to
do some pretty wild things when Mark Randall was head of PR there.
Since he left, it seems to me that a lot of the spunk has gone
out of NewTek as well.. just my opinion of course).
Anyway, John and I met up with Steve Worley who was "pulling an
all-nighter" in vegas (a one day trip). I saw Allen Hastings
and Mark Thompson and many other LWave luminaries.
The Beach's sound system was one of the worst I've ever been
subjected to in a club. Some announcements were made which I
could neither see nor understand. Loud. Distorted.
There was a small press kit with three releases in it which I don't
feel ambitious enough to type in and post, and pretty much the
last couple hundred posts to this list have covered everything.
I just posted here tonite to cover the party :)
Anyway, despite the insanely loud music and bad sound system, this
one was a lot smaller and much lower-key than Newtek parties of
years past, for those who keep track of such things.
