Taiwan Tourism Sponsors the Red Bra Regatta and Women’s Racing on the San Francisco Bay 3 Oct 2018, 8:39 pm

2018 marks the seventh year of the Red Bra Regatta, for the first time sponsored by the Taiwan Tourism Bureau.  The Red Bra Regatta is a local sailing race chaired by sailors Joan Byrne of Los Altos and Winnie Kelley of Santa Rosa (SBYC ERC and PRO). These two women have successfully brought together skippers and crew members from the greater Bay Area to create the largest all-women’s regatta in Northern California. This regatta is an unforgettable celebration of women’s sailing in the San Francisco Bay Area; it is a local racing event created by and for women.

The event first began when a small group of women set out to compete against each other in the Jazz Cup several years ago. As the gun went off and the boats tactically maneuvered to the starting line, one of the women skippers jokingly decided to make a protest about another boat having a professional racer (and therefore unfair advantage). In sailing, protests are usually made by waving a red flag, but when the crew looked around and realized that they did not have a red flag, one industrious woman whipped off her red bra and flew it from the back stay in protest. Not only was the protest registered, but the laughter from everyone created a distraction that helped the protesting team win the race. The friends continued the tradition for the next two Jazz Cups, after which it inspired the idea to have a free standing all-women’s race—a regatta in which only women could compete, elevate their skills, and have unsurpassed fun.

Byrne and Kelley’s tireless efforts have been instrumental in making the Red Bra Regatta a success and an annual tradition for not only women, but for men to enjoy spectating. Byrne, a tremendous racer herself, is well-connected around the Bay and works hard on outreach and encouraging participation. Kelley takes care of management on the background side of things with race registration and work with the Regatta Network, NOR, and the Race Committee.

The South Beach Yacht Club invites all interested ladies to join the seventh annual Red Bra Regatta, sponsored by Taiwan Tourism Bureau, on Saturday, October 20, 2018. Weather permitting, two races will be run. All participants are encouraged to enjoy drinks and food for a nominal fee at the South Beach Yacht Club. Bring your boat or join a crew, but definitely don’t miss out on this fun women-empowering event! www.redbraregatta.com

WHAT:  The 7th Annual Red Bra Regatta

WHO: All women sailors can register; men are welcome to spectate the race

WHERE: South Beach Yacht Club, 40 Pier Ste 5, San Francisco, CA 94107

WHEN: October 20, 2018

TIME: 11:00 AM – Skippers’ Meeting; 12:30 PM – First Race Begins

COST: Registration is $35 until October 16; Registration is $40 from October 17 through October 19

INFO: www.redbraregatta.com for information and registration

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The Heart of Gold Team Races for Taiwan: The Heart of Asia 7 Sep 2018, 4:41 pm

The Heart of Gold sailing team is an accomplished crew with a storied history of winning numerous regattas and races in the San Francisco Bay for the past 20 years. Having been featured multiple times in sailing magazine Latitude 38, the Heart of Gold crew is racing this season for the first time with sponsorship by Taiwan, the Heart of Asia. This year, Taiwan is celebrating the “Year of the Bay,” a celebration of all that is maritime: pristine coastlines, stunning islands, bay recreation, and the beauty of the ocean itself.

Well known throughout the local yachting scene, this team has one of the most active racing schedules on the San Francisco Bay. In 2017, the team placed first in the San Francisco Bay 30’ season standings and achieved podium finishes for many of the local regattas. The skipper, Joan Byrne, has established herself in the maritime community as a promoter of women’s sailing on the Bay, successfully growing the all-women Red Bra Regatta into one of the most well-attended regattas on the San Francisco Bay. Taiwan will be the main sponsor for the 2018 All-Women’s Red Bra Regatta.

It is fitting that the Heart of Gold crew is racing this year on behalf of the Heart of Asia, since Taiwan and the San Francisco Bay Area share much in common. Not only are Taipei and San Francisco sister cities, but Taiwan’s Penghu Bay and the San Francisco Bay are also both members of the exclusive Most Beautiful Bays in the World Club, which includes only 43 bays worldwide.

Members of the Most Beautiful Bays in the World are committed to saving the natural heritage of the bays they represent, preserving their identities, and respecting the way of life, traditions, and economic interests of those who inhabit the areas. These bays join together to promote their respective areas and encourage the exchange of experience, knowledge and expertise. This September and October, Taiwan will host the Most Beautiful Bays in the World Club’s annual meeting in Penghu.

The Heart of Gold team is competing in dozens of races all across the Bay Area throughout its 2018 season, including the highly anticipated all-women’s Red Bra Regatta on October 20. For more information about traveling to Taiwan and the Year of Bay Tourism, go to https://eng.taiwan.net.tw/

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Metamorphosis Landscaping 13 Jun 2018, 6:14 pm

In June 2018, PR Magic utilized the services of a local landscaping company called Metamorphosis Landscaping to complete a bush removal project outside the office.

Metamorphosis Landscaping (www.metamorphosislandscape.com) is a full-service design/build company based on the San Francisco Peninsula for over 25 years. The company offers both design and construction services for gardens of all sizes and scopes, striving to make each garden unique yet fitting the homeowner’s lifestyle and preferences.

Founder and owner of Metamorphosis Landscaping, Michael Galli, was personally on site for this project. He and his team were fast, efficient, and clean in their removal of the bush. Ultimately, they were in and out within an hour.

Before

The entire experience of working with Metamorphosis Landscaping was positive. The workers were pleasant, professional from beginning to end, and they even provided a vision for how this cleared space could be transformed and landscaped in the future in a way that would enhance the building and location.

After

PR Magic highly recommends Metamorphosis Landscaping to anyone on the Peninsula seeking a team of competent, pleasant, and professional landscapers.

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PR Magic Supports Regis University 31 May 2018, 11:01 pm

On May 19, 2018, Frances Larose of PR Magic developed and hosted the first annual California alumni outreach day for Regis University in San Francisco. Alumni came from throughout the state to this special South Bay Yacht Club luncheon to meet and greet dignitaries from the university and network with fellow alumni.  After the “tail gate” the group was invited to VIP seating where they enjoyed a Giants vs. Rockies baseball game.

Check out the photos below to see some shots of the day!

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A Spectacular Public Wine Tasting led by Social Media 22 Feb 2018, 9:39 pm

Last weekend, thousands of wine lovers gathered at Fort Mason, Festival Pavilion in San Francisco to sample some of the best wines in America, as judged by the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. Yet again, this highly-anticipated event sold out, resulting in a packed house at Fort Mason. Wine enthusiasts came from all over the Bay Area and beyond. We couldn’t have asked for better weather, as there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz were crystal clear!

One aspect which made this year so successful was PR Magic’s special emphasis on social media to spread the word and build hype for the competition and tasting event. This included heavy engagement on the Winejudging Twitter page, as well as both an organic and paid advertising campaign on the winejudging.com Facebook page.

To illustrate, from October 1, 2017 (the beginning of our “Call for Entries”) to today, the Twitter page garnered an incredible total of 31,866 impressions and 4473 page views. By engaging with award-winning wineries, wine association partners, and popular media figures from KGO and NBC, we drew even more attention to our event. In addition, we did not only post a variety of photos, but also radio interviews (uploaded to Soundcloud), videos, slideshows, and photo carousels. The variety in our posts and tweets led to unprecedented engagement.

The PR Magic Team (Amanda Madsen and Frances Larose) at the 2018 SFCWC Public Tasting

At the tasting, PR Magic assisted the official photographer in capturing key photos and videos. All throughout the event, we had a team member dedicated to uploading and selecting the best shots for real-time posting on our social media channels. From shots of the volunteers in the morning to group photos of happy friends and families at the event’s end, PR Magic kept up a steady stream of social engagement through the day.

Next year, we look forward to expanding our social reach to Instagram and bringing even more attention to this incredible event and the largest competition of American wines in the world!

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San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition 14 Feb 2018, 7:16 pm

On February 17, the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition celebrates its 18-year anniversary as the largest competition of American wines in the world. At Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, wine enthusiasts will enjoy sampling award winning wines from all across the country.

Year after year, the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition (SFCWC) grows more competitive and more prestigious, drawing a huge number of entries from some of the finest wineries across the nation. SFCWC award-winners, especially the Sweepstakes and Best of Class awards, are widely regarded as among the best wines in America. Due to the SFCWC’s size and the expertise of the judging panel, this competition is often considered the ultimate barometer for wine consumers to select and measure wine.

The public tasting event draws wine lovers who come to the tasting with very educated palates. At the event, guests come together to learn even more about wines, while gourmet food purveyors offer delectable food samples that pair perfectly with the award winning selections. The public tasting—traditionally a sellout event—also features KGO Radio show hosts, writers from the San Francisco Chronicle, and notable wine industry leaders.

“The San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition is the definitive competition for American wines. To win a medal here—to stand out in a crowd of 7,000-plus submissions—is an enormous accomplishment for a winery,” said Esther Mobley, the San Francisco Chronicle Wine, Beer, and Spirits editor.

The San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition kicked off this year with the judging, which took place from January 9-12 at the Cloverdale Citrus Fairgrounds. 67 elite wine judges from all areas of the wine industry, including media, trade, education, retail and restaurant/hospitality, gathered to participate in the blind judging. Wines were categorized by varietal and price range, evaluated, and then select winners were invited to participate in the Public Tasting event.

Over the past decade, the number of wine entries submitted to the SFCWC has grown rapidly. In 2018, the competition had an astounding 6,960 entries from 35 states, illustrating the steady demand for a variety of options among wine consumers and firmly establishing the event’s prestige as an esteemed wine competition.

To buy tickets, go to: http://winejudging.com/public-tasting/

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A Record-Breaking Renaissance Faire 24 Oct 2017, 7:43 pm

Hip, hip, huzzah!

The 2017 Northern California Renaissance Faire was our most successful faire ever. Families and friends from all over California (and across the nation!) flocked to the Faire to enjoy the weekend in an immersive fantasy village.

Much of this increase in attendance can be attributed to PR Magic’s innovative digital campaign strategies. As the media landscape changes to focus less on traditional television, print, and radio and more on new digital options, we are adapting our tactics and our messaging to reach more consumers than ever before.

For this year’s Northern California Renaissance Campaign, we advertised heavily through social media outlets. Facebook remains one of our strongest campaigns, and this year was no exception—it performed incredibly well. To illustrate, our page had 73,837 fans on 9/12, and 86,492 as of 10/23. This is a massive difference of 12,655 fans in just over a month; a 17% increase!

Another new element was our Social Connect Billboard Campaign. PR Magic was the first firm in the Bay Area to use this feature with our billboard partners, Clear Channel Outdoor. One of our digital billboards—on Hwy 101 near Ralston Ave in Belmont—was used in an interactive campaign that synced up with our Twitter page. Ren Faire attendees could tweet their photos with the hashtag #2017RenFaireBillboard for a chance to win their faire photo on the billboard. This gathered attention because people were encouraged to take selfies in costume at the Faire, share it online, and then the winners could even retweet the photo of the billboard that had their photo on it live.

The Twitter ad campaign itself performed fantastically as well. Garnering well over half a million impressions throughout its month-and-a-half run, the promoted ads resulted in 29,807 link clicks of people going to our NorCalRenFaire website.

Google Adwords also continued to help direct people to our website. With 125,000 impressions and 28,200 clicks, these ads pointed people looking for events, fairs, festivals and more to our website. Interestingly, we gathered the most clicks from mobile users: 78.8% of clicks were from mobile, while 16.8% were on the computer and 4.4% from tablets.

In addition to these digital campaigns, we also worked with various print, radio, and online media outlets to take advantage of the mobile advertising campaigns that they offered. These campaigns included things like display ads targeted toward our key demographics, keyword contextual, category contextual, mobile retargeting, and geofencing specific locations and events (like Comic Cons, for example).

With the largest portion of our Faire audience coming from tech-savvy Silicon Valley, these various digital strategies resulted in record-breaking engagement and ultimately the highest attendance numbers the Ren Faire has seen to date. Combined with strong campaigns in other forms of media, this created a well-rounded advertising landscape that brought more eyes to our site than ever before!

Here’s to an even more record-shattering 2018 season! #Huzzah

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The Northern California Renaissance Faire 14 Sep 2017, 5:56 pm

Make Way for the Royal Parade!

The 2017 Northern California Renaissance Faire is shaping up to be one of our best seasons yet. For five weekends this Fall, the grounds of Casa de Fruta are thrust back in time and transformed into Willingtown, a village under the rule of Queen Elizabeth I. Join the fun, put on a costume, and explore the thriving world of the English Renaissance, full of delicious food, hilarious performances, incredible music and amazing hand-crafted goods!

New this year!

This year we are celebrating our Queen’s Golden Jubilee. She will wear a special red dress in honor of this anniversary. We are also introducing new theme characters, including a new Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Mistress of the Revels.

We are also introducing a new theme weekend: Heroes & Warriors, which takes place on Sept 30 & Oct 1. For this weekend, we encourage attendees to dress as their favorite superheroes, knights, fighters and soldiers. This is also the weekend that we celebrate our real-life heroes—military and veterans—with a special discount.

For the first time, we are holding a billboard photo contest! One digital billboard, on US 101 South by Ralston Ave, displays user-submitted Faire photos! To enter a chance to win their photo on the billboard, participants must Tweet their picture with the hashtag #2017RenFaireBillboard.

Gather your crew and join the fun!

The Renaissance Faire is something you don’t want to miss! In just one day you can:

• Meander through the Marketplace and shop the hand-crafted goods
• Watch the FULL CONTACT Joust!
• Have tea with the Queen
• Try out archery, fencing, axe-throwing, and more!
• Visit the 21+ area to watch bawdy shows and drink fine ales
• s
• Take your kids to the Kids Zone, where they can do crafts and visit a petting zoo
• Watch hilarious performances including improv, comedy, and storytelling
• Eat delicious gourmet foods including seafood, meat pies, turkey legs, and cakes
• Rock out to a free Celtic Rock Band concert at 6 pm on Saturdays!

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An Unforgettable Public Tasting 28 Feb 2017, 6:08 pm

On February 18th, the 2017 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition (SFCWC) held its 17th annual Public Tasting at Fort Mason Center’s Festival Pavilion. The event, presented by BevMo!, was an unforgettable celebration of wine, food, and great company.

Thousands of guests waited in line outside the Festival Pavilion at Fort Mason. The rain had stopped, and the line meandered across the parking lot almost all the way to the street. Each guest who entered the Pavilion received a commemorative wine glass and a list of the wines in the SF Chronicle Special Section, along with a small loaf of fresh bread from Costeaux Bakery, a bottle of HINT water, and a smile from our hostess Megan Wlodarczyk-Olenberger. And that was just the beginning of the wine-tasting extravaganza which awaited everyone!

More than 800 wineries were represented at the Tasting, and the tables stretched in rows all the way down the Pavilion. At each table, friendly winery representatives poured their award winning wines, chatted animatedly and educated the public about what made their wines so special. Safeway provided delicious food options to pair with each sip!

This year’s event, like the past 10 years, was a packed house, with thousands of people enjoying fantastic wines in the company of their family and friends. Many groups make an annual tradition of attending the tasting. This year was no exception, as there were many reunions, repeat guests and a few newcomers. To top it all off, as if a gift from the heavens, the rain stopped, the clouds cleared, and guests were treated to iconic views of the Bay, only adding to this remarkable experience!

To add to the fun, the San Francisco Chronicle provided a green-screen photo booth where guests could pose with their friends to get photos of themselves in front of a backdrop of a winery or vineyard. KGO Radio talents, including Bret Burkhart and Nikki Medoro, were also present at the event, providing another entertaining photo opportunity.

“With so many distinguished wineries in one place, the SFCWC Public Tasting is a truly special event, and this year was the best yet,” said Bob Fraser, SFCWC Executive Director.

Be sure to save the date for next year’s San Francisco Chronicle’s Public Tasting on President’s Day Weekend 2018. See you then!

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Summer Flower Fun: Orchids in the Park 2016 13 Jul 2016, 6:43 pm

The San Francisco Orchid Society is holding their annual summer show and sale, Orchids in the Park, in San Francisco this July 23-24! From 10 am to 5 pm at the San Francisco County Fair Building (Hall of Flowers), orchids will be on display from local growers. You’ll be able to purchase plants and supplies from vendors from all over the world.

It is the perfect summer outing for you and your family or friends. Admission is only $5 ($4 for Seniors) and 16 years and under are free.

Also, the San Francisco Orchid Society and the San Francisco Fall Antiques Show have partnered this year to offer a raffle for 2 tickets to the SF Fall Antiques Show’s prestigious Gala Night on October 26th! Raffle tickets are just $5 each, but the tickets are valued at $750! At Orchids in the Park, winners will be drawn on Sunday (although you don’t have to be present to win).

Interested in volunteering? Sign up online at Volunteer Spot, and as a thank-you, you will receive a $5 credit towards buying plants at the show.

Chat with orchid experts, view gorgeous flowers, browse the sales, and take home a few plants of your own!

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