Top 10 Mardi Gras Moments by Laurel aka LoDog

For the last 10 years, Laurel aka LoDog-the Producer of Mardi Gras in the Gaslamp, put together a list of her top 10 favorite memories of Mardi Gras. Enjoy...

1. Closing down the streets at 1:00 AM when the streets are super quiet. Most people never get to see the Gaslamp like this and it really makes it feel like my own backyard!
2. Racing in my golf cart down 5th Avenue with no cars! This does not happen very often and I can park any place I want :)
3. Being on Market Street at 4:50 PM and getting the call to shut down the street. I still remember the first time that I shut down Market Street-it was the first time in the city's history. I get chills just thinking about it!
4. At 5:55 PM when I get the call that the gates are open (I still get chills when this happens and my stomach drops a little). After all that hard work the fun begins...
5. At 7:00 PM when we start shutting down the parade route and knowing the parade is about to roll in 30 minutes. There are thousands of people lining the route and screaming for those beads, beads, beads!!!
6. At 9:00 PM when trying to check out the Hip Hop Dance Stage on E Street, with its 40+ dancers as they bust out their moves and it takes me 30 minutes to get through the crowds-when it normally takes 1 minute to get up the block.
7. Closing the bike rack for the 2nd Parade at 10:00 PM and the crowd has swelled into the buildings and driving by the Circ Stage and seeing fire coming from the fire dancers and breathers. I swear I can feel my face heat up!
8. The Candy Factory-all girl pink zone-is one of my favorite areas cause I LOVE PINK (I am called Pinkzilla just fyi). I love the idea of girl DJs and just that it is a street about the power of pink and women!
9. Sitting at Midnight waiting to get the streets back open and watching people yell, scream and holler and go on and on at what a great time they had at Mardi Gras.
10. At 3:00 AM when I am walking back to my hotel room and have been up for almost 48 hours straight and I am so tired that I can barely think, but a thought crosses my mind...what a hell of a party!
11. Ok I know I was supposed to stop at 10, but just one more...Waking up at 6:00 AM-3 hours later-to check on the streets and it looks like Mardi Gras never happened! This will always amaze me and also make me a little sad. Shout out to Dean for this!

Now that you have heard all my favorite memories it is time to start making your own! Don't forget to purchase your tickets now to the largest Mardi Gras festival on the west coast and biggest party in the Gaslamp by clicking here now: https://ticketderby.com/innerindex.php?eventid=1804

Still on the fence-check out photos from last year on my website at http://www.mcfarlanepromotions.com/MP08/galleries/galleriesp1.html

What a way to ring in 2009!

It’s an exciting time around McFarlane Promotions and there is much to tell you all about. We had an amazing 2008 and as much as we would like to get into some of last year’s highlights, we felt it was much more important to get right into all of the exciting new projects in 2009…

For starters, we are going to be featured on WE TV’s (Women's Entertainment) Platinum Weddings. This cable network show follows the planning and execution of only the most lavish weddings. Our wedding will feature Anisha Gwynn. Known better by her stagenames Anisha Nicole and Nee-Nee Gwynn, Anisha is an R&B/hip hop pop-artist who is also the daughter of San Diego Padres Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn.

The show will follow McFarlane Promotions and Anisha as we plan her extraordinary wedding. And in the true spirit with the huge success of the show, this wedding will be an over the top, one-of-a-kind extravaganza. Filming begins this week and we will keep you posted on air dates.

We are also excited to be coordinating the 2009 Kids Korps Eco Ball on Saturday, February 7th. Leading the trend to reduce our carbon footprint we at McFarlane Promotions are always looking for environmentally friendly alternatives at our events and this event has given us the “green” light (pardon the pun) to really let our sustainability shine and prove that you never have to sacrifice style in order to have an exceptional event.

During the Eco Ball, we will incorporate green living into every aspect of this fabulous fundraiser including sustainable décor items such as custom linens made from recycled materials, a delectable organic menu, live floral arrangements and the show stopping “ECOuture”, an eco-friendly fashion showcase featuring sustainable fashions, from clothiers that reduce energy and natural resource consumption, are sensitive to material composition and origins, and impose reduce/reuse/recycle within their creations.

Of course we are also looking forward to our annual events, Mardi Gras, shamROCK, Taste of Uptown / Hillcrest, Taste of Adams Avenue and Monster Bash among others. Be sure to visit the website www.mcfarlanepromotions.com, for a full list of our upcoming events and we hope to see you all at many of them!

VOTE for McFarlane Promotions!

Vote for Team McFarlane!

It’s that time of year for the annual Union Tribune Reader’s Choice Awards. You have until April 4th to cast your vote for the “Best of San Diego” and one of the categories is Best Event Planner. Click here to vote for McFarlane Promotions as your Favorite Event Planner!

*If you don't have cookies (we're not talking about the Thin Mints in your freezer) and the above link doesn't work, then click on this link http://www.sandiegosbest.uniontrib.com/ or type it in your browser.

Thank you for voting us Best Event Planner!

XoXo

MP

Pop, Lock and Drop It

No offense MTV, but you ain't got nothing on us! If you can't dance an Irish jig, don’t worry. At shamROCK, this upcoming Monday, you and all your friends can “Shake your PomPom” and “Pop, Lock and Drop it” watching the West Coastomatic Funk stylaz, a hot local dance crew bust out their best moves. You know you don’t want to miss this – click here to purchase your tickets. We are so excited for them to perform for everyone and freestyle throughout the evening! So excited in fact, that you might even see some of the McFarlane staff in a hip hop class at Culture Shock Dance Studio in the upcoming weeks.

Just to catch everyone up – We’ve been shamROCKin’ and Rollin’ here at the office so life has been a bit of a blur these days – between working on upcoming events, media spots, meetings, phone calls, technological issues, and fires….Yes, you read that right…FIRES.

The MP staff was diligently working last Thursday afternoon (like we always do J ) and we kept smelling smoke. So we investigated; sniffing around and closely checking out fans/heaters in the office- initially we couldn’t explain it . After we had gotten back to work though, we realized that the office was in fact, getting a bit smokey. We sleuthed around some more and when Monica threw back the curtains in Laurel's office - we saw flames. We're not talking baby flames here either; we're talking 8 ft. fiery flames shooting out of a makeshift office on the roof and hitting Laurel's window, flames. Please keep in mind that we do many events each year, so we've accumulated a nice supply of paper documents. Thus, our office is highly flammable in the event of a fire. Red flag.

So... we scrambled around the office grabbing binders, memorabilia, valuable documents, auction items, etc. and started piling up our stuff outside the building. We literally had a makeshift office beside the Greystone in under 5 minutes, complete with Laurel's harrowing rescue of the "elixir of life" before the police department taped off the building.

So, we sat at the Greystone and downed a few glasses of wine and gave a couple of interviews to local news stations - you probably saw us on tv if you were watching the breaking news! Luckily, the courageous men of the SDFD saved our now trashed office from going up in flames. We got the office back together, thanked our lucky stars and headed home. What a glamorously crazy day.....

So, my friends...that was our fiery fiasco in a nutshell. The MP staff came together to not only save the office and all of our hard work over the years, but our upcoming events too!

Come celebrate St.Patty's day with us and the dance-tastic crew we secured to get you pumped!

Buy your tickets this weekend and be ready to do cartwheels along the gaslamp's own "Emerald Isle"! See you with your ticket in hand at the main gate : 6th & E!!


XoXo

MP

MillerLite shamROCK 2008

With St.Patrick's Day right around the corner, the office is practicing our Riverdance skills to unleash at one of our favorite events - MillerLite shamROCK!

The Field Irish Pub & restaurant is one of the event sponsors, which coincidently happens to also be one of our favorite lunchtime haunts. The authentic ole'pub has a lot of character, the coolest staff (American Idol participant Carly Smithson works there!) and the most delicious traditional Irish food ever!! (We suggest you try a boxty, the potato leek soup and do not miss out on those scrumptious chips with cheese. As we always say, definitely "Good for you and tasty too!")

Now let's be honest, on a day when everyone proclaims themselves to be Irish, you can't have the traditional favre without the donning of green attire and the mass consumption of Irish or green hued alcoholic beverages. Thanks to MillerLite and Jameson Irish Whiskey, there will be enough ice cold green beer on tap to dye the bay emerald (if we wanted to waste it!) and haute libations to have you dancing the jig. We'd also like to add that Red Bull will be adding to the festivities and will be helping shamROCKers quench their thirst!

While we agree that it's neat that Chicago dyes their rivers green, we carpet the Gaslamp streets with 60,000 square feet of AstroTurf. It's like over very own Emerald Isle, complete with two stages of shamROCK 'n' Rollin' live bands, like the Young Dubliners, DJs and super-h0t GO-GO girls.

So... on the day that everyone's Irish, we encourage you to bust out your most festive garb and follow the rainbow. You'll find the Luck 'o' the Irish at the end, at the greenest block party this side of Dublin!

We are beyond excited, my friends. So get hyped and click the shamROCK link above to buy your tickets. We look forward to celebrating with you in true St. Patty's Day style!!

XoXo

MP

Introducing.... our newest love, the McFarlane blog.

We aim to please here at McFarlane Promotions. After months of persistent begging and pleading, we've finally caved and our clients and friends have a good reason to celebrate! So "here's to you" and our new and fabulously chic blog. We'd throw our posh blog it's own launch party, but we wouldn't want to steal from shamROCK's thunder!

So, my friends, with this post - It's OFFICIAL! The much anticipated McFarlane blog has arrived and in channeling our inner Project Runway, as Christian would say, it's going to be "fierce!"

You think you know all about McFarlane, but you have no idea! Get ready to delve into our inner most thoughts and be ready for some good laughs. We'll be introducing you to the "glamorous", err, glamorously crazy world of event planning - taking you behind the scenes and into our office. We'll share with you what we think is fun and fabulous; the coolest trends, keep you posted on all of our events, and surprise you with our randomness along the way.

Hope you all enjoy this blog as much as we'll enjoy posting.

XoXo

MP