event profile

Hey-Ho, Sounders, We Love You

Few heads turned when Judge Kemp walked into a Office Depot store in Portland, Oregon, one Saturday evening in May 2015 wearing 3-and-a-half-inch goth rocker boots and an above-the-knee, off-theshoulder little red dress. Kemp grabbed what he needed—some last-minute lanyards—and hurried back to The Old Freeman Factory to kick off one of Portland’s most anticipated and colorful charity events of the year: the Red Dress Party.

This year, the Emerald City Applause Awards had a new look, starting with its setting. The 11th annual awards, honoring event professionals, was held on April 13 at Seattle Center’s Marion Oliver McCaw Hall for the first time.

There will be some new faces at the 14th annual Cascadia Educational Conference. A joint venture of the Washington and Oregon chapters of Meeting Professionals International (MPI), the 2016 conference will, for the first time in its history, officially include the British Columbia chapter of MPI. The conference is taking place March 13 to 15 at Sunriver Resort in Sunriver, Oregon, located approximately 20 miles southwest of Bend, Oregon.

The JDRF Northwest Chapter has been partnering with Sheraton Seattle Hotel for more than 20 years to produce the annual Gingerbread Village fundraiser event. Architects and pastry chefs work side by side in confection construction to raise funds for type 1 diabetes research. By the end of the elaborate display’s six-week run in the lobby of Sheraton Seattle, the event will have raised upward of $50,000 for the local JDRF.