January always brings about NEW venues, NEW vendors, NEW photographers, NEW everything in the Wedding & Event Planning Industry. We were invited to attend the opening B2B (Business to Business) Networking Event to check out the NEW venue Vegas NJ in Randolph, NJ For those familiar with the venue, this was the old location of the teen night club Obsessions, which for the past several years was known as Confetti’s. Recently the location was taken over by the Pellegrino Family (Sam & Melanie) who are the team behind Powerhouse Studios which has locations in Paramus, NJ and East Hanover, NJ
As for the venue, if you’ve been to the Powerhouse locations, you’ve somewhat been to Vegas NJ. It has that youthful modern feel to it. Great for small intimate Weddings, Bar & Bat Mitzvahs and I would especially recommend this venue for Sweet 16’s. I will get into some of the pros and cons of the venue specs in a little bit.
The B2B mixer was a great for way for different area vendors, especially new business ventures and partnerships to learn about social media, branding, and marketing. Almost all the vendors were web & print media marketing sites. The Mixer was sponsored by WedAlert (Dave Ciccolella), Wedding Zone (Joe Tortorello), Local Traffic Builder (Brian Lawrence),Contemporary Bride (Gary Paris / Matt Victoria), NJWedding.com (Erik Kent), AFWPI (Richard Markel) and SMI Bridal Expo (Bill Lippolis – who is WeddingWire Rated I might add LOL). There was also a panel discussion with the above talking about Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIN and the benefits of such being tied into to your web promotion.
There was also Celebrations and Cigall Goldman from MazelMoments.com whose cards had Jewish Holidays on the back which is a great tool to know when to call a Mitzvah client. I know that’s going on my wall.
There were a few highlights of the night. The biggest one was the Michael Jackson Tribute show MJXpressions (photo credit Bryan Madrid Photography). While the performance was pretty good, half the audience couldn’t see the show due to a backdrop setup from one of the booths near the stage. I felt a good performer would have recognized this and adjusted where they were performing at.
A few other highlights included a Cigar Roller and dinner being catered. All in all it was a fun and beneficial night. Some of the fellow vendors we got to meet were: Lizette Green of LizetteBeauty.com who does hair & makeup for brides and more. K&M Event Planning and their clever use of the word EVENT-ING, and Wedding Officiant Deborah Rivera of Weddings For You. It was also good to see Chris D’Amico from D’Amico Entertainment who is also popular on the cover band market.
As for our review of the venue itself – overall it seems like a great venue for younger oriented events such as Mitzvahs and Sweets 16’s. The food was great but the plates and forks were difficult. The forks were heavy and the plates had a slant to them, causing alot of people to drop their forks lol. The food itself was really good though. The venue also appeared a difficult spot for photography being a black ceiling and only a few spots for bounce flash available. A good photographer can compensate but extra attention should be put into hiring a good event photographer with this type of setup.
Looking forward to attending more events like this in the coming months as we at Scott Roth Events look to expand our market
*All photography by Bryan Madrid Photography. See more photos from the event at their facebook page here