We had Madonna guest-DJ when she was doing promotion for Confessions on a Dance Floor. We kept the tightest lid on that. Twenty-four hours out, it was leaked on Gawker, and my phone was ringing off the hook.”
That’s Thomas Onorato, partner at Onorato Wixom, the firm that oversees PR for über-hip DJs du jour the MisShapes and the weekly New York party of the same name.
“I was on the phone with [then Gawker coeditor] Jessica Coen, begging her, ‘Please, please, take it down.’”Well, she didn’t. The result? Vehement denials to the press from the OW offices (faced with the threat that Her Madgesty might pull out) and, ultimately, a line down the block and around the corner from the party. “It went from being a secret surprise to being an open secret,” Onorato says. (Madonna’s set, by the way, went off without incident.)
These days, events that are exclusive, invite only, or just not open to the general public are increasingly vulnerable to online chatter. Before events happen, blogs, gossip sites, and message boards are spreading the word—with details such as date, time, location, and V.I.P. guests—leaving the hosts to deal with the results. And celebrity parties aren’t the only targets: Gawker and The New York Observer both put details about dozens of corporate holiday parties online this past December.
The result is a new focus on security, necessitating increased vigilance at the door, monitoring of online activity, and agility in adapting to the release of information that anyone with an Internet connection can access.
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Author: MimiOConnor