One of the more elaborate gatherings I visited last weekend was in a parking lot at the University of Maryland for its game against Temple.
"We pink to create very detailed parts of our dresses without resorting to elaborate draping, gathering or ornamentation," Ms. Mulleavy said.
"VOCAbuLarieS" is a madly elaborate virtual gathering of singers from all over the world: some 1,400 vocal tracks layered and edited into a chameleonic chorus that alludes to Western and non-Western traditions, sings in more than a dozen languages and still swings most of the time.
No one gives more support to the World Economic Forum than those leading American corporations that each pay $26,000 a year in dues and fees to cover much of the cost of the elaborate annual gathering held, until this year, in Davos, the Swiss ski resort.
Strict in his habits, lavish in his generosity, he was an affectionate father, taking great pleasure in elaborate family gatherings.
The information that flows into the Vatican from missionaries and churches -- perhaps the world's most elaborate news-gathering network -- is information the State Department would like to possess.
There is an elaborate system of gathering points to unlock rare audio and visual material from the Apple archives.
More often, though, grousing simply feeds on itself, sometimes devolving into elaborate self-contained gatherings in which the central activity is bad-mouthing and mimicking the boss, said Dr. Morrill of the University of California.
Mr. Spies's Las Vegas excursion — complete with its own slogan, "We Still Believe in America," a cheeky play on Mr. Romney's campaign slogan, "Believe in America" — is perhaps the most elaborate of the Republican gatherings.
