Tech Tours Seek Spotlight

Why should politicos get all the limelight when hundreds of reporters descend on Los Angeles for the Democratic convention next week? Civic boosters will try to divert some of their attention to L.A.’s technology firms with bus tours and harbor cruises featuring some of the city’s high-tech hotshots.

One of the bus tours will stop at EC2, USC’s high-tech incubator; online retailer EStyle, which runs the Babystyle.com and Kidstyle.com Web sites; and downtown’s 548 Building, which has been rewired to attract Internet start-ups. A second bus will head to the Westside to visit Internet incubator ECompanies, special effects firm Rhythm & Hues Studios and Web developer Razorfish. In Pasadena, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will let reporters visit the Mars Yard, where engineers test rovers on simulated Mars terrain, and Caltech will offer tours of its seismology and Human Genome Project labs.

If those tours aren’t enough to lure the media away from Staples Center, there’s also a New Media FantaSea yacht cruise that can accommodate up to 100 reporters and TV camera crews. Journalists from Mexico, Germany, France, Japan and Korea have already RSVPed for that cruise, according to event organizers.

The hype-a-thon is sponsored by the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. and LA TradeMark, a consortium that includes the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce, the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau, and Mayor Richard Riordan’s L.A. Business Team.