The big par-tee will also be used to promote the relaunch of the magazine, showcasing the emerging vision of editor-publisher Ken Whyte.

An excerpt from the Nov. 3 Globe and Mail story:

Since being named both publisher and editor of the magazine in March, former National Post editor-in-chief Kenneth Whyte has initiated many changes, including the hiring, firing and, in some instances, rehiring of numerous editors, columnists and writers. But all this likely will be seen as but a prelude to the changes that are to be unveiled this fall and winter.

By synchronizing the launch of the revamped magazine with the anniversary gala, Whyte, 45, clearly is trying to create a sense of occasion and renewed purpose for a magazine that, to many observers, has had a hard time finding its niche in a world of 24-hour-a-day/all-news channels and the Internet.

Even the selection of the producer of the entertainment for the Nov. 15 gala seems designed to draw attention and generate buzz. While former Livent impresario Garth Drabinsky has been much in the news in the past five years, the stories have largely been about his enormous legal difficulties, not his skills as the man behind Ragtime and Sunset Boulevard. He's back at his old stomping grounds, the former North York Centre for the Performing Arts, for the first time in almost eight years, putting on a big show and renewing his acquaintance with Whyte.

Drabinsky did advertising and marketing work for Whyte during the latter's 1998-2003 tenure at the National Post.

No doubt the party will result in much coverage. At the same time, Whyte knows that it will all be so much ephemeral sizzle if he doesn't beef up the magazine that the party is ostensibly celebrating. While Maclean's has a paid circulation of about 400,000 and reportedly continues to make money for its parent, Rogers Publishing Ltd., it has lost readers and advertisers and, perhaps most important, relevance over the past 10 years.

Plans are under way to re-open the magazine's London bureau, which was closed as part of a cost-cutting measure. Over all, the periodical will have a much more current-affairs thrust, with a determination to break stories and, instead of duplicating what has been heard on radio and TV or published in newspapers, to advance such stories with its own reportage and spin.

Meantime, the long-running finale feature "The Back Page," currently held by columnist Paul Wells, will be moving inside. It is expected that the cover images will be largely in black and white. Whatever colour there is will be found in the information boxes above the nameplate and in sundry starbursts and corner flashes on the cover.