Businesses and Bloggers Connected at Blogapalooza Manila Networking Event

When In Manila, the bridge that unites 50 businesses to 150 bloggers happens only here at Blogapalooza!

Blogapalooza aims to connect big and small businesses to the online community. Blogapalooza send invites to influential bloggers of different genres, social/media influence-rs and businesses that have something cool to offer, put them all in a room and VOILA! The connection starts there!

Businesses will have to present their products/services in the most unique way they can, preferably without slides to bring out the creativity within them. A maximum of 5 minutes per presenter is allotted. Bloggers on the other hand, get to see, feel or even experience the products/services/others FIRSTHAND. They also receive promotional items/freebies from the presenters. This way, they are free to blog about the experience, the event, the details of the businesses. Brilliant and simple isn’t it?

I was one of the lucky people to be able to witness the launch of this awaited event organized by Vince Golangco, founder of WhenInManila himself, on September 17, 2011.

As early as 6am, Vince, together with some staff were already at the back-doors of Fully Booked at Bonifacio High Street, unloading the repacked “freebie/loot bag” for the expected 150 bloggers and getting the place ready for the crowds.

Located at the 5th floor of Fully Booked, I had the chance to help out and carry these loot bags up to Fully Booked’s Top Shelf function room , and let me tell you that those loot bags were the biggest I’ve EVER SEEN!

Hannah Villasis of Flair Candy, Cheryl Golangco, the Little Running Teacher and Philippe Villareal of Yajapa were also there to help out.

The function room was set up with about 10 tables for the business booths near the entrance of the room.

The whole function room had a FREE wi-fiaccess courtesy of some friends of When In Manila.

Early birds were Easy Pha-Max Wheat grass,

Unilever’s Lipton Iced Tea

and Shopinas.com.

Right next to the registration and right when you enter the Fully Booked function room, you’ll immediately see the giant photo-wall. The photo-wall was very personalized in that all the bloggers’ URL addresses, of the 150 bloggers, were included.

The Registration was located just in front of the elevator. Pre-printed name tags numbered accordingly was already prepared to facilitate faster registration. The first 50 bloggers to register got to choose additional items like shirts and water bottles from Aquabest, umbrellas from HTC, notebooks, pens and others from some business presenters. PLUS, they get to have their numbers included for the raffle TWICE! The name tags also entitles the bearer to a 10% discount for the day at Fully Booked, BGC.

From the blank space, chairs were arranged in 10’s to avoid overcrowding. At the right side the sound system/media booth was located.

A projector screen was also set up at the stage beside the Blogapalooza backdrop.

At around 10 am, bloggers started arriving and signing up for registration. Some mingled with other bloggers, took photos with the POLECATS and tried to spin and get up their pole.

12 pm, Lunch was served for all attendees courtesy of Italianis. Drinks were sponsored by Aquabest and Healthy First. Bloggers started lining up at the counter to get their share of food. Vince Golangco personally recommended the drink provided by Healthy First specifically the mango-lychee flavor. Too bad I was not able to try it because it ran out of stock too fast. Although I had the chance to taste the carrot-strawberry and the carrot-four seasons flavor, which I can say is yummy! 🙂

Exactly 1 pm, everyone was settled on their seats. Tweets with the hash tag #Blogapalooza started to flood twitter. Thanks to Chef Tonio for the Free internet access. Officially, Vince Golangco opened the event with a few reminders for everyone. He also thanked the sponsors and the people who contributed to the event itself. After he called the presenters up on stage one by one. Like what was agreed, 5 minutes was given to each presenters, in that span of time, they should be able to get the attention of the audience and convince them to write something for what they have presented.

Out of 50 businesses, 30 of them gave their presentations, from antivirus to gadgets to food to quality Filipino products, surely the bloggers were enriched with new updates to blog about. Here are the preview of presenters as seen on Blogapalooza.wheninmanila.com.

1. Avira Antivirus

Avira antivirus has been on the market for 25 years now and has entered Philippines just last year. They believe that without quality, no superiority can happen, thus encouraging customers to avail of premium antivirus software instead of settling to free ones. They campaign for intenet freedom and can only be acquired with premium software.

2. Lay Bare

Lay Bare talked about the the advantages of waxing over shaving. They presented drawings to make the audience see the difference, they surely had creative minds prepare for their presentation.

3. 360 Fitness Club

360 Fitness Club is circuit training facility that promotes faster and more effective means of workout. Complete workout consists of 5 levels and is to be completed in a span of 30 minutes. Alternating 30-second workout and 30-second rest makes this workout effective.

During the break, we were able to roam around and mingle with other bloggers, I even saw a familiar face. At first I was too shy to approach her but as our eyes caught each other, I smiled and told her that I think I have seen her somewhere, but I can’t remember where and when I saw her. Later did we realize that we come from the same school in college. She was a nursing student, Marianne Maric, who is the beautiful face behind NYOQ. She happens to be an active fashion blogger too.

As Vince called on the next presenters, bloggers hurriedly went back to their seats because it was Sofitel‘s turn to present what they have. Being a known luxurious 5-star hotel in the metro, surely they were able to catch the audiences’ attention easily.

12 more presenters like the new entrepreneurs of Freestyle Ballers, the sassy and sexy photographers of Boudoir Dolls, the amazing Pocholo Gonzales of CreatiVoices and of course, the big and tasty burgers of Size Matters were introduced on the second batch. Snacks were served after the second batch courtesy of Size Matters ! I got the Hungarian Sausage Burger, which really was tasty and BIG. Size does really matter! 🙂

I also had the chance to try Lipton Iced Tea’s Almond Calamansi Tea. It was soothingto the throat and tasted really good.

The third and last batch of presenters started around 4 pm. It included the unique buying and selling strategy of Shopinas.com, the relaxing and pampering services of Blue Day Water Spa, with performance from the Polecats Manila, and the innovative technology of HTC.

I personally got excited with the performance of Polecats since I have been wanting to enroll to their classes.

The event closed as Vince Golango THANKED every blogger and business presenter who contributed to the success of the event. Moreover, he promised everyone to stay tuned for the next Blogapalooza sometime in November. He ended with the raffling of items from the sponsors. BIG Bags from Tripologie, USB flash drives and speakers from Avira Antivirus, and giftpacks from BlueDayWater Spa. Followed by the distribution of the loot bags! Faces of bloggers overwhelmed upon receiving their lootbags! Congratulations to raffle winners!

Truly Blogapalooza is something every blogger must look forward to. For it does not only give them something to blog about, but also it is a great experience to meet with fellow bloggers, possible business partners and maybe meet more friends! PLUS who doesn’t want FREEBIES? 🙂

So WHEN IN MANILA, you wouldn’t wanna miss BLOGAPALOOZA! It’s where people get connected 🙂 Stay tuned for Blogapalooza 2 this November!