(left to right: Matt Van Hoven, Kelly Samardak, Ryan Katana photo source)
It was a rainy Thursday night when I sauntered up to the entrance of the Nokia theatre in Times Square. I was dressed, equipped with Flip Mino and Blackberry, and ready to get some story tellin’ done from inside the Facebook Party that capped off Advertising Week V.
Earlier in the week, I attended the opening party at 30 Rock’s famed ice rink bar. There I met some nice industry folks, had a few cocktails and even shot a bit of video before hopping off to take care of other business. The barrier to entry at the opening night was low — and I hadn’t anticipated any issues since the PR folks knew I was planning to attend. What’s more, I had confirmed they received my schedule, just to be safe.
Back to the Facebook event. Being that I had taken the time to make sure I was on the FB list, I felt confident that I wouldn’t have any trouble getting in. But as it goes, such was not the case. I stepped out of the rain, flashed my press card, and presented my name for the obligatory “name check” on that fancy clip board the velvet-ropers are always tottering about with under their arm. Much to my dismay, “The great and mighty AgencySpy” was not listed. Neither was my real name. WTF?
See what happened, including an awkward encounter with some FB employees, after the jump.
Right. So I’m standing there a bit confused, but mostly pissed that I’d taken four minutes out of my day to e-mail said PR dude to double check my status. I later found out that the FB thingy-bob was a “press-less” event. Thanks for the notification, douchebags!
Luckily, the muy cool and much more clever Kelly Samardak of MediaPost came to my rescue. Kelly and I had met a few weeks earlier thanks to PRNewser’s Joe Ciarallo. Samardak is a sassy thang, so she was able to fenagle me in. Sweet.
On to the bar, to help wash away the shame of almost getting cock(tail)-blocked by Facebook (aren’t they supposed to bring people together?). Two whiskey-sodas later, Kelly and I were laughing the whole thing off, when we bumped into funny man and all-around fun-dude Ryan Katana. We were like, “What’s up Ryan?” and he was all like, “Hey, nothin, what’s up with you? This party belows me.” OK so that last part didn’t happen, but it should have.
Anyway, after a few drinky-poos we lined up for the step-and-repeat, and took some truly horrific pics. Well, if you can’t tell by my prematurely receding hairline and white collared shirt, I was not dressed appropriately. I had been at a muy importante dinner prior to FB, so there. The photo thing was cool, and as you can tell we had some fun with it, before our four pics were snapped and some other equally tipsy kiddies jumped out of nowhere for their turn.
From there we headed to get…more drinks, then had some yummy tiny burgers, and stumbled into the Ziggy Marley concert. Talk about good tunes — I love reggae like whoa. Alas, I was there to work, and it was down to business (by the way, all this has taken about 15 minutes, and the drinks were teensy tiny, so chillax).
Back in the lobby area, I started chumming it up with the industry folks. Most of them were willing to chat but didn’t have anything interesting to say. But things got spicy when I introduced myself to two young ladies (yeah I know what you’re thinking — but I’m not that lame, they seemed friendly!) who happened to work for Facebook. We chatted for a few minutes before they asked me what I do. Rather than go with the usual, “I’m a magician, want to see my snake trick,” (a joke that never works), I sputtered, “I’m a blogger.”
Sunova. They immediately made like turtles and…what do turtles do again…retreated back into their shells. After promising up and down that I wasn’t out to get anyone, I asked what the problem was. “We’re not supposed to talk to press,” one squeaked. She literally squeaked. Maybe she was scared of the receding hairline? My loafers? Who knows.
Well, the last thing I wanted to do was get anyone in trouble (though I did press them for more info on why they couldn’t talk — but the just stood there without saying anything), so I changed the subject to sports they played in high school. A minute or so into that subject, a 20 something dude walked up to me and asked my name, to which I replied, “M…Matt…Van…H…H…Hoven.” Why was I nervous? WTF? Anyway, dude asked in such a way that I was taken aback — he was way too serious.
Then he walked back to the circle of peeps he’d been hanging with  at which point he whispered to a young lady (we’ll call her gopher), who ran off…as if to get security or something. I felt I was being watched. Who knew Facebook could be so Big Brother?
No sooner than said lady scurried off did another, much heavier woman arrive on the scene. She had been standing in the same circle as the douchy-dude and aforementioned gopher, btw, before approaching us. She put an arm around both the Facebookers I’d been speaking with and literally dragged them away, using all her girth to do so. So I was left standing there, literally by myself, with a semi-circle crowd standing 10 feet or so around my immediate location. Awkward. They were staring.
What the hell?! I just wanted to talk about high school soccer!
Look, here’s the thing. If you don’t want press talking to your people at an event, then don’t invite us in the first place. First, they tried to bar me from entry (even though I clearly RSVPd) and then they used the lamest tactics known to man to avoid me…the old walk-away-as-if-I-don’t-exist method. Come on Facebook, what harm can a little old blogger like me do? Whatever I intended to ask them (how fast they ran the 40) couldn’t have been that damaging.
More: “Facebook Blows You (Expensive) Kisses At Advertising Week”