Ground transportation — whether by shuttle, mass transit, cab, or car — is a necessary evil for most corporate events. But Santa Clara, CA-based Sun Microsystems Inc. wanted to pursue a Greener transportation option that was more in line with its company-wide Eco Responsibility Initiative. So for its annual JavaOne conference at Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, it urged attendees — a majority of whom live in the Bay Area — to bike to the event instead of drive.

To pull off the mass transition and encourage local commuters to ditch autos in favor of pedal power, Sun Microsystems teamed up with the non-profit San Francisco Bike Coalition, whose staffers provided a bike valet service for conference attendees and offered bicycle maintenance tips to attendees that made use of the service.

Even though participation in the program was in the dozens for the 2006 conference, Frank Chan, operations director at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, says interest is growing. “We have more visitors on bikes every year,” he says. “Sometimes, with annual events, it just takes a repeated presence to remind people it’s an option.”

What do My Little Pony, Trivial Pursuit, and creative-black-tie attire have in common? They were all part of the Airport Foundation MSP’s 25th Anniversary gala, held at the Champion Air Hangar at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport last fall. The foundation, which was established in 1982 to enhance the traveler experience and support the airport, teamed up with Minneapolis-based event production company Event Lab to pull together an event that represented the organization’s past, present, and future, and provided the perfect platform to announce the launch of its newest venture, the Art and Culture Program. The new program was developed to bring public art projects and live musical entertainment to the airport throughout the year.

The 400-plus guests — who shelled out $150 per ticket to attend the gala — were treated to an era-infused evening that began with a cocktail reception in an ‘80s-themed room, complete with Trivial Pursuit game board tabletops scattered with Transformers, My Little Pony, and other iconic toys of the time; purple, pink, yellow, and teal décor; and juggling bartenders a la Tom Cruise in the 1988 movie “Cocktail.”

After dining on passed hors d’oeuvres, guests boarded a grounded Champion VIP plane, where they could hang out prior to entering the next stage of the event — a dinner set in 2007 complete with white- and silver-colored décor and linens, white floral arrangements, white candles, and a harpist providing background music. Finally, attendees made their way to the last destination — the club-like “Sky Lounge,” meant to represent 25 years into the future, and decked out in white-and-silver-colored chairs, sofas, tables, and accents.

By the end of the evening, the Airport Foundation MSP had raised $100,000 for its Art and Culture Program, taken guests through 25 years of its history, and invited them to look ahead to the next 25 years.

Eager to move beyond contemporary audience-response systems and get inside the minds of its attendees, World Congress turned to a Web-based application that allowed it to go far beyond the typical keypad-driven, yes/no format of most real-time surveys.

The application uses wireless Internet-enabled mobile devices instead of numeric keypads. “Everyone at the conference gets a Treo or similar handheld device,” says Ron Cornell, managing director of the employer division for World Congress, a Woburn, MA-based producer of health-care industry events. But instead of simple polls or yes/no questions displayed on a projection screen, speakers are able to ask open-ended questions and distribute in-depth surveys electronically straight to each device. In return, attendees are allowed time to text thorough answers and survey responses back to the speaker, and can pose questions of their own. “The real-time daily feedback from the participants allows us to adjust the agenda, content, and meeting logistics on the fly to either enhance items or remove unpopular elements,” Cornell says. For example, after receiving complaints that the room where the keynote speech took place was too far away from the exhibit hall, Cornell and his team now keep the two next door to one another.

What’s more, according to Cornell, the heightened level of interactivity made possible by the VisionTree Software Inc. application has also been well received by conference attendees. In a two-birds-with-one-stone move, the software program provides World Congress the information it needs to improve its events, while giving attendees a way to take ownership of the event by making their own suggestions.

Q-Tips aren’t just for cleaning ear canals anymore — and in fact shouldn’t be used for cleaning ears at all according to the warning label on the box (“entering the ear canal could cause injury”). So, what are consumers supposed to do with the little cotton-topped sticks?

To answer that question, and to show consumers that the Q-Tip is more than an ear-wax-retrieval swab — they make great makeup applicators — Unilever teamed up with Eventage Event Production and transformed New York’s Grand Central Station into a five-minute makeover mecca for busy New Yorkers on the move.

Professional makeup artists, including Carmindy from TLC’s “What Not to Wear” style show, stood at one of 13 pink vanities and invited passersby to receive a free five-minute makeover. Each makeup artist used only Q-Tips to apply the makeup, and infused makeup tips and tricks with key messages about the brand of cotton swabs.

In addition to providing free makeovers, the event also served as a fundraiser for the Step Up Women’s Network, with Unilever donating an undisclosed amount of money to the organization for each free makeover that was given.

The cause-metic makeup marathon drew more than 1,000 women, including Miss America 2006 Jennifer Berry, who participated in a media tour prior to the event to promote the makeovers and drive traffic to a dedicated event Web site.

Computer technology isn’t just for geeks anymore, and neither are high-tech product launches. Last summer, Dell Inc. wanted to reach a target audience of young and tech-savvy consumers with the launch of its colorful new laptops, Inspiron and XPS, showcasing the PCs’ design and their role in today’s digital lifestyle.

With that goal in mind, the Round Rock, TX-based computer company took over the entire juniors department at Macy’s in Manhattan’s Herald Square with a runway fashion show. While party music pumped, models stalked the runway wearing minimalistic, stark-white fashions. As each new laptop color was announced — including flamingo pink, midnight blue, alpine white, espresso brown, sunshine yellow, ruby red, spring green, and jet black — runway lighting changed to the same color, turning each model’s otherwise monotone ensemble to a matching hue.

After the Macy’s Herald Square debut last year, the high-tech fashion show concept was restaged in August at the downtown Macy’s location in Houston, hosted by Tim Gunn, fashion design icon and mentor to the contestants on Bravo’s design-competition television show, “Project Runway.” Here, the models — this time parading in hot fall fashions — were paired with coordinating Dell Inspiron laptops.

Produced by Campos Creative Works, a Santa Monica, CA-based event production company, the Manhattan event attracted approximately 70 members of the press and resulted in media mentions in a variety of industry publications, including Stuff Magazine, Laptop Magazine, and Notebookreview.com.