This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

Sooooo...it's that time of the year again. SXSW (a.k.a. Spring Break for Geeks) is right around the corner, running March 8 to 12 in Austin, Texas. And you know what that means: Parties, parties 'n more parties!! :) So, once again, we're putting together what we hope will be THE definitive guide to all this year's SXSW Interactive parties. We'll be updating this list regularly, so check back often. And email me if you're organizing an event or a party.

Of course, I'll be at SXSW ... attending all (or as many as humanly possible) of the amazing parties, mixers, networking events, lounges, panels, keynotes, BBQs, nuclear taco nights, concerts, happy hours, karaokes, food trucks, block parties and what-have-you.

So if you can't make it down to Austin this year but still wanna get the word out about your amazing startup / company / firm / service / app / project, you can do so. How, you ask? Well, by sponsoring my Red Tie of course, and covering it in your company's awesome logo stickers and giving me your company's elevator pitch. If you're interested, shoot me an email at gary@garysguide.com for more details.

In the meantime, here's my blog post / highlights from last year's SXSW to give you a little taste of what to expect.

FYI, next week is probably the most exclusive hackathon of the year. Google's Project Glass will be holding a two-day hackathon (February 1 to 2) in New York City that'll allow developers to get an early look at Glass so they can start developing for the platform. Google engineers will be on site to help at any point in the process, and developers will have the opportunity to show off what they’ve been working on.

So, how to score an invite: Your guess is as good as mine! If you were one of the smart ones who shelled out $1,500 for the early access to Google Glass you're on the list. Or you could try pinging Googler Aygul Zagidullina and hope you get lucky! Well, for those of you who don't make it, here's a pic of Sergey Brin sporting his Google Glasses on the subway.

In other news, the NYC EDC is partnering with the Lawrence Field Center for Entrepreneurship at Baruch College to create Competition THRIVE, and they're seeking original, innovative strategies and programs that help immigrant entrepreneurs succeed in business. In Round 1, $25,000 will be awarded to five semi-finalists to pilot their program and create a business plan. And in Round 2, $100,000 will be awarded to one grand prize winner to further scale their program. Submission period is February 1 to March 7. For more information, check out the website or email competitionthrive@baruch.cuny.edu.

On January 30, my buddy Haithem is organizing the Lemonade Heroes Yacht Party. It's gonna be a crazy night of dancing, drinking, mixing and mingling--on a yacht.
You'll be getting photographed on a red carpet, and you'll have a shot at an audition for an entrepreneurship TV series and book.

More stuff you don't wanna miss this week: AppNexus Speaker Series (with Fab.com CEO Jason Goldberg) on the 23rd, PandoMonthly Presents (with Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson) on the 24th and Amusemi's 1 Year Anniversary Party+Dinner on the 26th.

Last week my buddy Charlie Todd & the folks at Improv Everywhere organized their twelfth Annual No Pants Subway Ride. Over 4,000 participants showed up. Here's the recap and video. And my friends Jen and Allison are back with another hilarious edition of Blogologues, playing this week on the 24th, 25th and 26th at Under St Marks (and yes, there will be giveaways!).

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

DUMBO Improvement District Annual Meeting
All members of the DUMBO community are invited to hear the latest on hurricane recovery efforts and learn what's in store for the neighborhood in 2013. The coveted DUMBO "Magic Feather" awards will be given to Rachel Haot (New York's chief digital officer), Susan Feldman (artistic director, St. Ann's Warehouse) and Jerry Hultin (president, NYU-Poly).
Tuesday (Jan. 22), 5 p.m. @ Galapagos Art Space, 16 Main Street

Next Top Makers: The Business of Design
Join the creators of New York’s Next Top Makers for an evening of education, guidance, and networking. Hear from IDEO storytelling gurus why good design doesn’t always speak for itself, and learn about the role of a designer in a world of 3D printers.
Tuesday (Jan. 22), 7 p.m. @ 3DEA Pop-Up Store @ Eventi Hotel, 835 6th Avenue

The Future of Education #1: New Models for 21st Century Learning
Panelists include Brad Hargreaves (founding partner, General Assembly), Kane Sarhan (cofounder, Enstitute), Juliette LaMontagne (founder & director, Breaker) and Abigail Besdin (head of Skillshare's education team).
Wednesday (Jan. 23), 6:30 p.m. @ Centre For Social Innovation Pop-Up Space, 601 W. 26th Street, #360

AppNexus Speaker Series
Brian O'Kelley (CEO, AppNexus) will host a fireside chat with Jason Goldberg (CEO, Fab.com) and Jared Cluff (VP Marketing, Fab.com).
Wednesday (Jan. 23), 6:30 p.m. @ AppNexus, 28 W. 23rd Street

How to Build Great Communities: Lets Collaborate!
With Sheila Karaszewski (community manager, Airbnb), Tony Bacigalupo (cofounder, New Work City), Andrew Wagner (director & editor-in-chief, Krrb) and James Wahba (cofounder, Projective Space). Moderated by Melissa Young (founder, Let's Collaborate!)
Wednesday (Jan. 23), 7 p.m. @ Projective Space L.E.S., 72 Allen Street

#ArtsTech 4 Year Anniversary Party!
Open Bar with 3 Pernod Absinthe cocktails from 7-8 pm. Variety of grilled panini appetizers. Photobooth by Styleblaster. Tunes by DJ Winslow Porter. Video art by Sabrina Ratte, Mr. Div, Yoshi Sodeoka and Andreas Nicholas Fischer
Wednesday (Jan. 23), 7 p.m. @ The Counting Room, 44 Berry Street, Brooklyn

PandoMonthly Presents
A fireside chat with Chad Dickerson (CEO, Etsy)
Thursday (Jan. 24), 6 p.m. @ Projective L.E.S., 72 Allen Street

dd:COLLECTIVE - The Changing Retail Environment (Presented by Digital DUMBO)
Featured speakers include Philippe von Borries (Co-Founder, Refinery29), Keith George (General Manager, Gilt Man by Gilt Groupe) and Claire Mazur (Co-Founder, Of a Kind).
Thursday (Jan 24), 6:30 p.m. @ Huge, 45 Main St , Ste 220, Brooklyn

Dinner, Cupcakes, Wine & Technology!
Introducing the inaugural NJ Tech Gals meetup!
Thursday (Jan 24), 7 p.m. @ Hoboken Business Center, 50 Harrison Street (2nd Fl), Hoboken

Nike+ Accelerator (powered by TechStars) Recruiting Tour
Join the team from Nike and TechStars to hear about the Nike+ Accelerator. Some local quantified self demos. And the team from Nike will be bringing along some SWAG, including some Nike+ FuelBands!
Thursday (Jan 24), 7 p.m. @ TechStars NYC HQ , 36 Cooper Square, 6th Fl.

Power Breakfast
With Susan Feldman (cofounder, One Kings Lane)
Friday (Jan. 25), 8 a.m. @ Fordham Graduate School of Business, 113 W. 60th Street, 12th Fl.

NYC Mobile Startup Weekend
Where developers, designers, marketers, product managers and buddying entrepreneurs gather together to share ideas, form teams and spend the weekend building and launching a startup.
Friday (Jan. 25), 6 p.m. @ WeWork Soho Lounge, 154 Grand Street

2013 Brooklyn Inventgenuity Festival: Digital By Hand
A popular annual winter celebration of making things for kids and their parents. With public projects and workshops led by Beam Center’s faculty of artists, engineers and big thinkers. This year’s theme: Digital by Hand.
Saturday (Jan. 26), 11 a.m. @ The Invisible Dog Art Center, 51 Bergen Street

Amusemi 1 Year Anniversary Party + Dinner
Celebrate the anniversary of our first startup dining event. Register for Amusemi to get on the guest list.
Saturday (Jan. 26), 7 p.m. @ TBD

More events on the horizon...
TEDxBroadway: Industry leaders envision the future of Broadway on Jan. 28 @ New World Stages
NYC Gaming January: Demo Night on Jan. 29 @ Microsoft
Brooklyn Tech Meetup with Victoria Brown on Jan. 29 @ Feil Hall, Brooklyn Law School
Lemonade Heroes Yacht Party featuring a chance to Audition for a TV Series! on Jan. 30 @ Hornblower Inifinity
Entrepreneurship in the Beer Industry on Jan. 30 @ Professor Thoms
dd:SOCIAL - 4 Year Anniversary & dd:A-LIST Crowdfunding Launch on Jan. 31 @ The DUMBO Loft
Business Insider Presents: Social Commerce Summit on Feb. 06 @ Pier 60
UX Design and User Experience Optimization Trends on Feb. 06 @ Anchin
Hearst Fashion Hackathon 2013 on Feb. 09 @ Hearst
Social Media Week NY 2013 on Feb. 18 @ Metropolitan Pavilion
AIPAC Technology Division: Launch Event w/Dan Senor on Feb. 27 @ Bloomberg Tower

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

Mr. Ryan, at TechCrunch Disrupt New York last May.

Around 4 p.m. on a recent Thursday, all but 14 of the employees of the members-only luxury e-commerce site Lot18 got an email asking them to report to the new conference room for an urgent meeting. The remaining employees, including the vice president of operations and director of operations, received an almost-identical note but were asked to report to the “alt” conference room instead. They were told they were being let go, asked to leave the building immediately and instructed to return on Saturday to clean out their desks.

The survivors were shocked by the layoffs, which came a day earlier than planned due to inquiries by Betabeat. Lot18, which started with private sales for wine before moving into full-price wine and epicurean deals, has raised a total of $44.5 million from investors—its latest round spearheaded in November by the highly regarded Accel Partners. Lot18 also moved into a new office over the summer that features a tasting room, mounted LCD screens that pop up a buyer’s location on a map every time Lot18 sells a bottle and a permanent DJ booth. In its one-year existence, Lot18 launched several new verticals, bought Paris-based e-commerce site Vinobest, and announced a foray into Europe.

To industry insiders, the scenario sounded familiar. Mass flash sales—deep discounts that expire usually after one to three days—had been touted as the first real innovation in e-commerce in years, and start-ups that applied the flash-sales phenomenon to the luxury market had investors salivating. But the former venture capital darlings suddenly seemed to be hemorrhaging employees. Earlier this month, another site, Boston-based Rue La La, slashed 60 of its 550 employees after months of growth.

Suddenly, the question is being asked: Could flash sales for the well-to-do wind up being more of a marketing gimmick than a business model?

A week before Lot18’s conference room trail of tears, Betabeat broke the news that Gilt Groupe, the high-fashion flash sales powerhouse, was also shedding staffers. Back in November, Gilt Groupe CEO Kevin Ryan happily boasted about hiring a worker a day in 2011. But by late January, the company was admitting that 10 percent of its 900-person staff had been dismissed, despite the company’s having raised $138 million less than a year prior at a $1 billion valuation.

Mr. Ryan assured the press that Gilt would have its head count back up by the end of March. Insiders say the layoffs are part of a prudent debloating before the company packs up its PowerPoints and sets out to pitch investors in the ritual pre-IPO roadshow. Gilt has raised about $238 million from investors and Mr. Ryan says a public offering could happen by the end of the year, but insists it’s unrelated. “Forget IPO,” he told Betabeat by phone. “I think it’s the right time to cross over into profitability.”

The other companies had similar explanations for downsizing. Lot18 had grown too fast, management explained, and those being let go were “nonessential.” Lot18’s cofounder and CEO Philip James, an oenophile who has two wine start-ups and a Mt. Everest climb under his belt, emailed a statement: “Lot18 is a business built on core fundamentals and we expect to reach profitability on the money we’ve raised. I’m not going to preclude the possibility that we’ll raise capital in the future, but that would be for growth.” Rue La La brushed off its layoffs as a product of “restructuring,” “outsourcing” and “consolidating.”

With $500 million in revenue in 2011, Gilt Groupe is moving toward full-price and private label offerings, and is likely to emerge from the moment of reckoning on top of the heap thanks to its buying power with brands. (Unlike some competitors, sources say, it never resorted to the black market in flash sales early years.) But scuttlebutt from inside Gilt’s velvet rope is that some of its new verticals are falling short of hopes.

When Gilt Groupe arrived in November 2007, its sparse home page conveyed maturity, taste and exclusivity—a black and gold gateway into your own private sample sale. Super savings don’t have to be gauche, Gilt whispered, a relief amid the Great Recession, both for the luxury brands that found themselves unable to move handbags and for their status-conscious customers.

Mr. Ryan, a Doubleclick veteran from Silicon Alley’s early years, borrowed the idea for Gilt from Ventee-Privee, the grand-mère of flash sales sites, which launched in 2001 and claims a $3 billion valuation. But for the public face of the company, he put forth cofounders Alexis Maybank and Alexandra Wilkis Wilson: leggy, blond, accomplished Harvard Business School classmates, and living embodiments of the Gilt Groupe customer (chairman Susan Lyne joined later). Their first sale was a still up-and-coming designer named Zac Posen, whom they met at Harvard, natch.

As Gilt captured media attention, mindshare and $25 million in revenue in its second year, luxury flash sales sites began raking in venture capital. Ideeli has raised $64.8 million; Beyond the Rack is up to $53.6 million. In 2009, Rue La La was acquired in a deal worth $350 million; in early 2011, Nordstrom acquired Hautelook for a deal worth $270 million. One Kings Lane, the original Gilt Home, has collected a tidy $63 million in VC funding. Daily Candy launched a private shopping club; eBay launched a high-end fashion deals site. The luxury craze isn’t over: The Clymb raised $2 million for a members-based deals site for the outdoor market over the summer and Los Angeles-based LuxeYard just announced a $3.5 million investment last week.

Retailers had always struggled with the problem of unloading unsold merchandise without degrading their brands, relying on outlets like Ross Dress for Less or T.J. Maxx. Gilt Groupe presented a sleeker option, and the membership structure of “private sales” lent it an air of exclusivity. “It felt like you were walking through Barneys, it’s just that everything is 70 percent off,” said one former employee.

Gilt Groupe also found macroeconomic forces aligning in its favor. On the heels of the consumer boom that preceded the recession, estimates are that luxury goods inventory rose to 10 times its normal level. And Gilt was poised to help. By 2009, it was up to $170 million, and by 2010, $423 million. “They were just the shit, right?” said Matthew Carroll, founder of the outdoor brand Cloven Footwear and a Gilt Groupe vendor who has written something of a dissertation on the company’s meteoric rise on Forbes.com. “In 2009 I worked with them and I felt honored just to get an invite to the service. I felt cool.”

Soon, manufacturers began cutting production, and by 2010 the supply of high-end goods had dried up. Flash sales start-ups responded with varied approaches. Ideeli went downmarket. “I’m not the most popular guy at parties in New York because all our friends are after high-end brands,” Ideeli CEO Paul Hurley sheepishly confessed to Reuters. “But the opportunity is much larger elsewhere.”

Gilt stayed the luxury course, opting to sell more categories to that same affluent urban sophisticate. After Gilt for women, there was Gilt Man, then sites for kids, design, travelers, foodies and so on. Around Christmas 2010, they even sold a few Volkswagen Jettas. “Gilt was one of the first ones to get into flash sales and I think they wanted to do that for every luxury vertical and be the Amazon of luxury, rather than a flash sales site,” said a former Gilt employee. “It was really a sprint to own the market,” said another former employee about the new verticals. “At the time we were growing faster than eBay did, we were growing faster than Amazon did out of the gate. It’s slowed now.”

Mr. Ryan prefers to err on the aggressive side. “I certainly would rather launch five new things—and they might be verticals, initiatives or different promotions—and maybe one of them doesn’t work and that’s O.K. That’s fine. Being the last person to market? Certainly you’ll be a loser,” he said, adding, “From my point of view, to date, all of our verticals have worked.”

Not everyone agrees. Some of those new verticals, like Gilt Home and Gilt Taste, involved increasing the ratio of full-priced to discounted items. The men’s site Park & Bond, on the other hand, was Gilt’s first exclusively full-priced venture. To sell its move up-market, Gilt Groupe borrowed some gloss from the glossies, tapping Ruth Reichl, Gourmet’s raven-haired high priestess of haute cuisine, for Gilt Taste and partnering with GQ for Park & Bond. “They really went after people, really recruited, really made a big deal [of marquee hires] to the press, dangling stock options,” said one former employer. “I have to ask was any of that done with a sustainable business in mind.”

The reaction was mixed. “I understand there’s foodies out there, but then why did Harry & David go bankrupt last year?” said a Gilt Groupe fashion vendor. “They had people who had bought their shit at Christmas every single year for like 20 years and they still go out of business for specialty food.”

Park & Bond “was a huge, huge bomb,” one former employee said. “That whole part of the business is essentially being picked apart and sort of let go.” The departure of Park & Bond president John Auerbach was announced at the same time as the layoffs (Gilt said he left to pursue other projects). “Everybody knew Park & Bond was in trouble because they were trying to be aspirational, and being aspirational as a retailer is dangerous,” explained one Gilt Groupe vendor. “They were trying to buy these $10,000 jackets because ‘we need to be high-class, we need to be ultra-luxury.’ Well, that’s cool if that’s your goal, dude, but if it doesn’t work it doesn’t work.”

Not all the Gilt Groupe’s reaches were met with as much skepticism. Jetsetter, the luxury travel site, gets rave reviews from customers and does 40 percent of its revenue in full-priced offerings. But Gilt City, which bills itself as selling “experiences” and therefore overlaps with both the Jetsetters and Groupons of the world, failed to get much traction beyond a few core cities. Along with closing six markets as part of the layoffs, the company announced Gilt City president Nate Richardson would also be leaving.

Some of January’s fat-trimming was more literal. A tipster to New York spotted a new sign in Gilt’s normally generously stocked pantry: “Gilt has made a New Year’s Resolution to cut the following items from our purchasing diet across all locations: all fruits, all yogurt, all cheeses, Thomas’ English muffins, granola and health bars, Rice Krispie treats, Poptarts, and Pellegrino.”

When asked, Mr. Ryan cheerfully dismissed speculation that Park & Bond would fold into Gilt Man and rumors of Gilt City’s demise and promised all the remaining verticals are here to stay. “Park & Bond is doing very well, although not as well as we had in the budget,” he said. Mr. Ryan said the problem was merely one of single-digit inventory write-downs: “We bought more than we could sell.”

One former employee implied that missed projections were more than a miscalculation. “I think the feeling among the staff was that the revenue projections were pretty wildly irrational,” the source said. “I was not convinced that Park & Bond was being set up for success. I thought, if we make these revenue projections, it will be a miracle.”

According to the source, either the “premise was framed incorrectly” or the strategy was simply, “Let’s do this so that we can say we did it—on the backs of a lot of selfless, really talented people,” the source said, citing long hours and staffers' commitment to the project.

Gilt Groupe President Andy Page responded to that idea by email, citing the changes inherent in a dynamic company. “Our performance is based on actual results, not what we forecast—especially for a new business. We reforecast every month, for each of our businesses, and our investors have visibility into that process. The way we demonstrate our ability to start a full price business is to create a successful brand, sell a tremendous amount of product and delight our customers. We did all these things. Park & Bond is the fastest growing business in the first 6 months compared to any of our other properties, but it was still over resourced.”

The same former employer disputed claims Gilt Groupe has been making to the press for years that the company is immune to industry-wide concerns about sourcing inventory. “It’s all spin and its all calculated to have a successful initial public offering, the people who have made it be damned,” the source insisted.

“I currently have visibility into our sales through June and anticipate having more access to product than we require,” Mr. Page replied by email. “That is for several reasons including our relative competitive positioning (more brands using us exclusively) and the volatile holiday season which left brands will a strong excess on hand.” He added that Gilt’s position in flash, “is currently the strongest it has been since I joined the company almost two years ago.”

For now, Mr. Ryan seems content to watch the industry shakeout from his Park Avenue perch, a familiar scene from his DoubleClick days. “I’ve watched this movie since 1996 where an area gets hot. In 1997, we had 37 competitors in ad-serving. Five years later, we were down to about five.”

The story had an portentous ring, especially when Mr. Ryan added, “We bought a bunch of them and a bunch of them went out of business.”

ntiku@observer.com, ajeffries@observer.com

A version of this piece appeared on page A1 of the February 1st, 2011 issue of the New York Observer.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story said the Lot18 office has a fireplace; that is incorrect.