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Tuesday, May 06, 2008

This morning goes a little like this:

Driving into the 9to5, I thought perhaps I should send a text to OurBuddy considering that the party is Friday and its now Tuesday - just to check in. About 5 min. after that thought departs my little peabrain, my cell rings and on the other end of the phone is a very sad and frustrated OurBuddy with a conversation that begins with "Lys, we have a problem". Oh no - now what?

Turns out there was a fire near the venue last night and the county had shut down all businesses affected through Monday for safety reasons, regardless of how minor. Thankfully noone was hurt but there was exterior smoke damage and the venue is shut down. Noone can enter. No exceptions - the county has ruled and we have lost without even a hearing.

In true publicist fashion, I think "Ok, we can handle. Let's resort to Plan B." Crap - that's right. There IS no Plan B for this sort of situation as, quite frankly, this was something we never anticipated as OurBuddy owned the venue and we pretty much were calling the shots. Oh Lord. I need coffee, stat.

Now we have to find a new spot to hold 200+ people? In a couple hours? And it had to be a spot where it was going to cost us nada with the promise that our crew and the people attending would definitely hook up the bar tab. (See, we all have a habit of enjoying cocktails and our tabs are pretty daggone high when we get together. Clubs/Restaurants and Bars make some serious bank off of our group.) And then that nagging voice in the back of my brain thinks "But, Lys, it's a Friday night, normally a busy night for most bars/clubs/restaurants - what makes us so special? Why would they care if a bunch of 30somethings want to party for a friend's birthday, reminisce and have an 80s flashback (or three - esp. with some people's jersey hair)?" No, I would NOT think that way - I would find a place if I had to cuss out a county person my damn self.

After doing some research online and drafting a quick pitch, I called one of the area taverns and they really outdid themselves. So, thanks to the generosity of a fabu club manager, we've got a room downstairs with a bar, DJ at 10 (tho we have one if they want to use him), and some genuine warm-hearted people. Plus we've got bar patrons upstairs to socialize with. And Meowmix has new security playthings should she choose to "play" (well before her normal security plaything shows up).

That's one of the things I love about Philly - they pull together when needed. If their neighbor's in trouble, they help. If they have something to lend, they do. Sadly, here in Orlando - you'd be hard pressed to find a club to help out like that, especially when it comes to an event like this. Then it was off to redo the invites, upload the new info to Evite and MySpace, emails to various people and viola - OurBuddy's Soiree is saved. Hurray!

So, that's the recap of my fire drill. Between that and the daily grind at the 9to5 today, there better be some cocktails on ice when I land on Thursday - I might even have an early morning cocktail on the plane. It probably would be around 5 pm somewhere, right?

Labels: Blog 365, Random Mess

Posted by Lys :: 6:49 PM :: 1 comments

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