Author: Alfredo Casuso

MEDIA ADVISORY / REQUEST FOR ONSITE COVERAGE

SATURDAY APRIL 25 – 12NOON

Media Contact:
David Perry & Associates, Inc., David Perry / (415) 676-7007 / news@davidperry.com 

WHAT: Live “Sing-A-Long” of I Left My Heart in San Francisco

WHO At the invitation of Tony Bennett & Charlotte Mailliard Shultz 

WHEN: Saturday, April 25, 2020: 11:55am – 12:05pm PDT 

11:55am: Churches and Houses of Worship to Play Bells

12noon: Sing-A-Long of I Left My Heart in San Francisco

12:05pm: San Francisco Fire Department to run sirens on engine trucks and ambulances in tribute to first responders everywhere

WHERE: Wherever people are at 12noon PDT:
at home, on the street, in their gardens, or on their porches.
NOTE: There are no large scale public gatherings or official performances. Anyone singing outside is reminded that wearing a mask is MANDATORY and to observe social distancing protocols

WEB: #SingOutSF  

WHY: To honor our Frontline Workers 

in the Fight Against COVID-19

The participations listed below are for day-of / onsite press coverage only: not for advance notice or publication to prevent public gatherings.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has released a video greeting encouraging participation. The link follows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBVFSP1VriY&feature=youtu.be

DETAIL:  On Saturday, April 25, 2020 at 12noon PDT, San Franciscans andothers around the world are invited to raise their voices simultaneously in song by singing I Left My Heart in San Francisco, Tony Bennett’s classic ballad to “The City that Knows How.”  The brainchild of San Francisco Chief of Protocol Charlotte Mailliard Shultz, people are encouraged to take to their balconies, laptops, smartphones and backyards to send a message of love and strength to everyone’s favorite city and in tribute to all of the frontline workers in the fight against COVID-19. Participants are encouraged to live-stream and record their performances via their online social media assets of choice (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube) with the hashtag #SingOutSF. 

“Our City has come together in an unprecedented way to confront this public health crisis, and I know our residents will continue to do everything they can to keep our communities safe and get us through this challenging time,” said San Francisco Mayor London N. Breed.  “By taking a moment to join together in song to celebrate our frontline health workers and everyone working to make a difference during this pandemic, we can recognize how connected we are to one another, not just here in San Francisco, but all over the world.”

“San Francisco has been in my heart for over 50 years,” said Tony Bennett. “I am so proud and impressed with how the City by the Bay has continued to ‘bend the curve’ during the COVID-19 crisis and serve as an inspiration to the world of how together and alone we can make a difference.”

“On any street in the world, you can hear San Francisco’s singing ambassador, Tony Bennett, singing his signature song, our song,” said Shultz. “What better way to remind people that San Francisco will once again be ready to welcome back the world when the current health crisis abates. It will be a morale boost and an opportunity to pay respect to all of our frontline workers and brave medical professionals.”

In addition to the real-time live singing of San Francisco’s official ballad by residents of San Francisco, people around the world who left their hearts in San Francisco are invited to participate and sing along simultaneously from their homes abroad. For example, Saturday, April 25 at 12noon in San Francisco equates to 5am in Sydney, Australia, 9am in Hawaii; 3pm in New York; 8pm in the United Kingdom, 9pm in France, Spain, Italy and most of Central Europe, 10pm in Greece and Israel.  

Media contact: David Perry & Associates, Inc. (415) 676-7007 / news@davidperry.com 

Global Hack Brings Together Six Pros in Three Times Zones Over Two Days to Brainstorm Options for Post COVID Global Event Industry

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Inspire
Instant International Online Collaboration Self-Dubbed “Hack Busters”
In Top Tier of Facebook Global Hack Contestants

22 April 2020 – San Francisco / Washington, DC / Copenhagen: “Planet Earth….we have a problem.” When the present-and-future of 1.5 billion annual special events is in danger in light of COVID-19, who you gonna’ call?

“We dubbed ourselves Hack Busters,” laughed Fiona Pelham, CEO of Positive Impact Events (www.positiveimpactevents.com) based in Copenhagen, an internationally recognized leader on how the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals impact and inform the event industry. “Last Wednesday I heard about the Facebook Global Hack. On Thursday I called my colleague David Kliman in California. On Friday we had a team. On Saturday, we entered the competition. On Sunday, we found out that we placed in the top tier of competitors.”

According to The Global Hack Facebook Page over 15,000 participants from over 100 countries worked on 500 life changing projects. The project spearheaded by Pelham’s team – High Tech / Low Touch: Face to Face Business in a Post COVID World ­­­– was entered in the “Media Category” and came in 15^th of 60 projects submitted.

“Pretty good for a collaboration across time zones with 48 hours notice,” Pelham summed up.

For over 15 years, the not for profit Positive Impact Events has been providing engagement, collaboration and education to create a sustainable event industry. Since 2016 Positive Impact Events has had memorandums of understanding with various United Nations Bodies including UNFCCC and UN Environment.

“When Fiona calls, you answer, and the answer is always ‘yes.’ ” said David Kliman, founder and President of The Kliman Group (www.klimangroup.com), based in Sonoma, California, whose response of “for years” answered the question of his longtime professional relationship with Pelham. “For the last few weeks, every client and colleague I know has been wondering ‘what to do next. What to do now.’ When Fiona mentioned the Facebook Global Hack, I saw an opportunity for instant collaboration.”

Former International Chairman of MPI (Meeting Professionals International) and a delegate to the White House Council of Travel and Tourism, Kliman’s Rolodex is deep and wide and international. Having co-chaired the MPI/PCMA (Professional Convention Management Association) Tomorrow’s Summit Conference and served on MPI’s Multi-Cultural Initiative committee, Kliman was awarded one the industry’s highest accolades when he was named MPI International Meeting Planner of the Year in 1999.

Within minutes, Kliman’s digital tentacles had reached out to Kristin Horstman, Senior Director, Strategic Events (San Francisco) for tech giant Salesforce (www.salesforce.com), Nathan Chin (Washington, DC), Senior Product Manager for the international event software company Cvent (www.cvent.com), and David Perry (San Francisco / Palm Springs)international communications consultant and founder of David Perry & Associates, Inc. (www.davidperry.com) Positive Events intern Joely Donald was pulled in as well, hitting the ground hacking with animation and graphic skills.

“I’ve been hacked but I’d never hacked before,” laughed Perry, who has worked on such high profile events at the Running of the Olympic Torch, Super Bowl 50 and the Shanghai World Expo. “All I knew was that last week every client, every colleague, every thought of mine was clouded by panic. This seemed like something positive to do.”

Horstman, veteran of hundreds of complex special events for global giant Salesforce,  was pragmatic. “The global events industry was alive one day, and dead the next,” she said about the impact of COVID-19. “The need for professional networking did not change with COVID-19, but the ability to do it, did. The sort of face to face, in-person relationship building that comes out of professional networking is crucial. When I heard about this hack, I thought – great – the sooner we start planning solutions the better off we’ll all be.”

The stressful task of “Hacker in Chief” fell to Chin: the only person who had ever participated in a hack.

“Hacking comes second nature to me,” said Chin. “The type of online trans-national networking that online tools now allow for is my daily bread. However, this was the first time I had to work with a group who needed to learn how to get the grain and bake the bread,” he laughed.

The result – by all accounts – was a resounding success.

“Winning would only have been a small bit of icing on the cake,” said Pelham. “Because of this crisis, serendipity and David Kliman’s connections, we realized a new group of professionals who worked together quickly, collegially and successfully. We’re looking for our next opportunity to collaborate. We really liked each other.”

Hack Busters, an unofficial moniker, has now led to an official gathering.

“This week, we’re getting together again,” says Kliman, a self-described “optimist” about how the global events business will meet the challenge of a post COVID-19 world. “People are looking for solutions. Our industry is looking for solutions, and the time is now.”

Pelham agrees:  “What I want is to make the most of an opportunity to collaborate to create a piece of technology that will support the robustness of the future of our industry. Positive Impact Events exists to collaborate, engage and educate on sustainability and this is about the sustainable future of our industry. Our ad hoc Hack Busters group is going to be an important part of that.”

With this Earth Day more of an inspiration than ever, Hack Busters is continuing their collaboration – online and spread across three time zones – with the  intention that by the start of June there will be a free product available across the global event industry in line with their “High Tech / Low Tech” hackathon ideas.

 Stay tuned: when the going gets tough, the tough get hacking.

About Hack Busters:

The Hack Busters group took part in The Global Hack, supported by UN SDG Action Campaign, which took place 9-12th April. Over 15,000 participants from over 100 countries worked on 500 life changing projects.

What did we build and how did we build it?

Following a design thinking process, the team began by empathizing on the pain points COVID 19 had caused event professionals around the world. The team then defined their problem point to solve as the statement  ‘How might we use technology to provide a failsafe template for in-person events that requires no additional last-minute resources (human and material)?’ In other words how might our technology support the future of an event industry where an event owner could plan their event from day 1 with backups in place so the event would definitely happen. Following input from mentors from UN SDG Action Campaign and other global hackathon experts the team refined their idea and created a basic prototype of a piece of technology which could be used to plan an in person event with a virtual backup which would avoid waste of time and resources. This solution came 15th out of 60 entries in the relevant section of the hackathon and this inspired the team of first-time hackathon-ers to go to the next step.

I Left My Heart in San Francisco

Music by George Cory 
lyrics by Douglass Cross

(Intro)

The loveliness of Paris
Seems somehow sadly gay
The glory that was Rome
Is of another day
I’ve been terribly alone and forgotten in Manhattan
And I’m coming home to my city by the Bay

(Chorus)

I left my heart in San Francisco
High on a hill, it calls to me
To be where little cable cars
Climb halfway to the stars!
And the morning fog will chill the air

My love waits there (my love waits there) in San Francisco
Above the blue and windy sea
When I come home to you, San Francisco,
Your golden sun will shine for me!

I left my heart in San Francisco
High on a hill, it calls to me
To be where little cable cars
Climb halfway to the stars!
And the morning fog will chill the air

I don’t care

My love waits there in San Francisco
Above the blue and windy sea
When I come

When I come home to you, San Francisco,
Your golden sun will shine for me! 

Media Contact: DP&A, Inc., David Perry / (415) 676-7007 / news@davidperry.com 

Tony Bennett joins Charlotte Mailliard Shultz to invite San Franciscans and People Around the World to a Live Sing-A-Long of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”

Saturday, April 25, 2020:
12noon PDT

#SingOutSF

Event dedicated to Frontline Workers in the Fight Against COVID-19

20 April 2020 – San Francisco, CA: On Saturday, April 25, 2020 at 12noon PDT, San Franciscans and others around the world are invited to raise their voices simultaneously in song by singing I Left My Heart in San Francisco, Tony Bennett’s classic ballad to “The City that Knows How.”  The brainchild of San Francisco Chief of Protocol Charlotte Mailliard Shultz, people are encouraged to take to their balconies, laptops, smartphones and backyards to send a message of love and strength to everyone’s favorite city and in tribute to all of the frontline workers in the fight against COVID-19. Participants are encouraged to live-stream and record their performances via their online social media assets of choice (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube) with the hashtag #SingOutSF. 

“Our City has come together in an unprecedented way to confront this public health crisis, and I know our residents will continue to do everything they can to keep our communities safe and get us through this challenging time,” said San Francisco Mayor London N. Breed.  “By taking a moment to join together in song to celebrate our frontline health workers and everyone working to make a difference during this pandemic, we can recognize how connected we are to one another, not just here in San Francisco, but all over the world.”

“San Francisco has been in my heart for over 50 years,” said Tony Bennett. “I am so proud and impressed with how the City by the Bay has continued to ‘bend the curve’ during the COVID-19 crisis and serve as an inspiration to the world of how together and alone we can make a difference.”

“On any street in the world, you can hear San Francisco’s singing ambassador, Tony Bennett, singing his signature song, our song,” said Shultz. “What better way to remind people that San Francisco will once again be ready to welcome back the world when the current health crisis abates. It will be a morale boost and an opportunity to pay respect to all of our frontline workers and brave medical professionals.”

In addition to the real-time live singing of San Francisco’s official ballad by residents of San Francisco, people around the world who left their hearts in San Francisco are invited to participate and sing along simultaneously from their homes abroad. For example, Saturday, April 25 at 12noon in San Francisco equates to 5am in Sydney, Australia, 9am in Hawaii; 3pm in New York; 8pm in the United Kingdom, 9pm in France, Spain, Italy and most of Central Europe, 10pm in Greece and Israel.  

About Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett’s life and philosophy is the embodiment of the Great American Story. Having celebrated his 93rd^th birthday on August 3^rd 2019, his career as the pre-eminent singer of the 20th and 21st centuries is unprecedented. He continues to be embraced and loved by audiences of all generations.    

Tony Bennett has received 19 Grammy Awards including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, 2 Emmy Awards and is a Kennedy Center Honoree and NEA Jazz Master.  In 2017, he became the first interpretive singer to be honored by the Library of Congress receiving The Gershwin Prize. Tony Bennett is one of a handful of artists to have new albums charting in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and now in the first two decades of the 21^st century.  He has introduced a multitude of songs into the Great American Songbook that have since become standards for pop music. 

In the new millennium, Bennett’s artistry and popularity was higher than ever and he has sold over 10 million albums in the last 10 years alone.  He continues to hold the record of being the oldest artist (at the age of 88) to have a #1 album the Billboard Top 200 album. A visual artist all his life, Tony has exhibited his artwork in museums and galleries around the world and three of his paintings are part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institute.  He has authored six books, including his most recent, “Tony Bennett: On Stage and In The Studio.”

Tony Bennett is a renowned humanitarian who has given of his time and talents to countless causes and charities to benefit others and the world at large. In 1965, he joined with Dr. Martin Luther King for the historic march from Selma to Montgomery. United Nations has named him a Citizen of the World as one of their foremost ambassadors. In 1999, Tony Bennett, with his wife Susan Benedetto, founded Exploring the Arts (ETA) to strengthen the role of the arts in public high school education. ETA’s first endeavor was the establishment of Frank Sinatra School of the Arts (FSSA), a public high school founded in 2001 by Tony and Susan in partnership with the NYC Department of Education.  ETA’s mission continues to expand and they currently support and partner with 44 public high schools — in all five boroughs of New York City and in Los Angeles.

For more information on Tony Bennett please visit: www.tonybennett.com