Putting Out Welcome Mat for ‘Little Naked Gold Guys’
- Share via
“Costa Mesa. Home of the Performing Arts Center, great shopping and, hopefully, little naked gold guys.”
That’s the pitch in a print ad concocted by the Costa Mesa Tourism and Promotion Council, which is still trying to persuade the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to move the venerable Oscar ceremony to Orange County.
The council ran full-page ads June 10 in the Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety touting the virtues of Costa Mesa, including its luxury hotels, ballrooms, upscale shops and restaurants.
“We’ve got everything the Oscars need to make the ceremony spectacular. Besides, after making it this far, what’s another limo ride?” the ad boasts.
Citing a space crunch at the ceremony’s traditional Los Angeles digs--the Shrine Auditorium and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion--academy executives toured the Orange County Performing Arts Center in May, scouting for possible alternatives for 1999 and beyond.
Hollywood purists have disparaged Orange County as the sticks and decried any move outside Los Angeles as anathema to the awards.
The Academy isn’t expected to make a decision until fall. But Costa Mesa decided to do a little more lobbying in the meantime.
“We just wanted to have some fun and get our message across,” said Deborah Vaswani, senior associate at Bozell Sawyer Miller Group, the Costa Mesa ad agency that created the pitch.
No response from the Academy, so far.
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
