The Menu Brings the First Online Event Planning Marketplace to Boston

Blue Sky Collaborative launches The Menu (www.themenuboston.com), a free do-it-yourself event planning website that lets users plan their entire event from one place by connecting them directly with a wide variety of venues and services in the greater Boston area. Since its launch in early September, the Menu has attracted the top venues and vendors in Boston’s event industry.

Boston, MA (PRWEB) September 25, 2006 -- Blue Sky Collaborative launches The Menu (www.themenuboston.com), a free do-it-yourself event planning website that lets users plan their entire event from one place by connecting them directly with a wide variety of venues and services in the greater Boston area. Since its launch in early September, the Menu has attracted the top venues and vendors in Boston’s event industry.

The Menu is the first online marketplace in Boston for the event planning industry that connects venues, vendors and event planners in the same way that travel sites connect travelers with airlines and hotels. People planning events on The Menu can find, compare, book, and pay for event services and venues. Event service providers and venues in Boston can affordably generate brand awareness and can opt-in to add valuable payment processing services to their businesses. Nonprofits can register to be listed for free on The Menu so that users can select them as beneficiaries of their events.

The Menu was originally created to help nonprofits streamline their own event planning and allow fundraisers to easily plan their own events to benefit nonprofit organizations. Having planned many events for nonprofits over many years, Blue Sky Collaborative set out to develop a tool that was analogous to services like Expedia or Travelocity that existed in the travel industry. It quickly became apparent, however, that the need for something like The Menu extended far beyond the nonprofit arena. Individuals, companies, fraternities and sororities, concierge services or any other of the thousands of people planning events every month also needed a way to make planning their events much easier.

Syam Buradagunta, CEO of Blue Sky Collaborative remarks, “We went online for our own event planning and found only directories with maps and some event planning resources. But there was nothing that helped us book great venues or actually do business with vendors. Frankly, we couldn't understand why we could go online and book a flight, hotel, and rental car for a trip to anywhere in the world, but couldn't book a venue for an event right here in our home town. We developed The Menu to meet our own event planning needs and in turn the needs of others that were frustrated by the lack of a single one-stop-shop resource for event planning.”

Regional expansion of The Menu has already begun with several major metropolitan areas around the United States targeted for launch in 2007.

About Blue Sky Collaborative

Blue Sky Collaborative (BSC), www.blueskycollaborative.com, is a privately held company that creates software and services that allow nonprofits to benefit from third party fundraising. BSC is dedicated to creating cost-effective ways for nonprofits to add third party fundraising to their development portfolio. BSC believes fair up-front pricing, seamless integration, and great customer service in deploying its diverse array of products that can bolster third party fundraising in existing events or stand-alone programs like social networking communities. For more information please visit http://www.blueskycollaborative.com/bsc.

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