9.26.11 Adam News and Info

It would be nice to think that everyone or even most people attending a promotion-by-celebrity charity event were there for the charity, but that's quite unrealistic.

I once attended a charity show with a scheduled mix and mingle time for all ticket buyers above a certain price ("Donation") point. The big celebrity draw of the evening -- an A-list couple -- never showed up for the mix and mingle, although they did walk the red carpet, take pictures for the press, and perform their act incredibly well. All of the other celebrities were at the mix and mingle. Nonetheless, the event planners were inundated with complaints that night and spent the next week fielding phone calls from disgruntled ticket buyers demanding a portion or all of their ticket price back solely because this couple did not attend the mix and mingle. And ticket sales the following year declined, particularly at the medium--higher levels, which left the organization with less money to provide services to those in need.

To paraphrase Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged amongst those of us who plan such events that a goodly portion of ticket buyers to promotion-by-celebrity events are attending solely to meet a celebrity (or if applicable, watch their live performance before a small crowd).

We are happy, thrilled and ecstatic to sell tickets to them. Money is money, to be blunt. (The raison d'etre of having celebrity charity events, after all, is to generate sales and promotion, so there is no higher road to take.)

And secondly, you always hope that by exposing people to a cause, they may become interested, then converted, then involved. (I personally know someone who bought very expensive tickets to one of these events solely to meet a celebrity, but in mingling with other guests passoinate about the charity, got interested and went on to raise tens of thousands of dollars for it.)

But failing that? You take their money and smile when you think of the good it can do. And you're even more happy when they do promo for you by using social media to tell others about it -- maybe someone reading about it from them will take an interest.

I had a couple of random thoughts provoked by the PFLAG event.

It must be very much easier to be a fluent speaker when you naturally speak the truth. If not, having to remember what you said on a particular subject in order not to contradict yourself must be quite worrying.

When Adam said about his Mom's cartwheels when he came out, as he said 'go shopping', so did she :D.

It's so blatantly obvious that it's true, that anyone trying to align all his statements over the last 2 years, surely have the comfort of knowing that whatever he said, at that time, was the truth as he perceived it.

He just isn't dishonest and it's one of the many reasons I love him .
Pilfering from posts over the last couple of days, I think one of my favourite descriptors for him is gracious.

And another thing, in Q3's roundup on page 1.



Never before has his immunity to 'red-eye' been more spookily obvious

He IS an alien!!!!

I would definitely like to hear the full story from both sides before I pass judgement on either Southwest or the ladies behavior. I would not boycott any firm based on one unfortunate incident.