Smirnoff Experience Shanghai

On entering the huge hall in Shanghai, it was with a great deal of curiousity of what kind of surprises were waiting for the guests at the next Smirnoff global event, in Shanghai, because these are some of the most innovative and original events worldwide.
Ok here goes; I’ll take you on a walk through of the event…
At the front door you are welcomed warmly welcomed and invited to create your own welcome drink by walking along a bar and choosing the ingredients you prefer. The beverages, flavours, mixers, and garnishes - the choice is not easy as there are 1320 possible combinations… all of them tasty and creative! Great idea! Just around the corner another attraction is waiting for us - the beautiful chill out area has real and fresh smelling silver birchwood forest. Awesome - there you wear headphones and listen to birds singing.... which teletransport you successfully to Russian taiga forests....
We keep on going and on the left we see a tapas lounge - where you and your friends can share a selection of drinks as tapas. Further on is the digital wall, which was at the Moscow event, but no less popular. It's always amazing to get your face painted digitally on a wall and let it disappear again in the darkness of a club...
There we go... a water bar hidden behind a huge wall of white pearls with only girly hands giving bottles of water to passers-by visible.
Then we can get a Polaroid photo with a Moscow background and artificial snow snowing all the time.... on special request there are some Russian winter clothes available and big woollen hats... original and funny. Everybody is encouraged to dress up...Then we get to one of my favourite parts - the Japanese inspired puzzles in big size called tangrams... they train abstract thinking and finding new unexpected solutions...it's quite fun watching people, struggling and training their brain in the middle of a party, specially when friendly helping girls countdown the time, as you have only 1.5 min... (I did try that being cheered on by the Polish group...we managed to build our sailing boat in time).
After this great variety of attractions we come to the main one - the stage, where so many exciting and unexpected performances were happening...


I really loved the battle of drummers, DJ’s and MC’s from The Lab – non-profit Shanghainese platform for DJs - with Tom Middleton. The most surprising probably was to find Chinese Rasta men with seriously long dreadlocks tied up, or ladies drumming as hard as gentlemen. Than we had English rock group Hard-Fi entertaining us with the warm, but grungy voice, which makes you stop and eager to listen to - great performance. And the last, but not the least was the DJ, Sasha playing an electronic rock remix set with a few great hits. If you would like to hear more about the line up - check it out in our Smirnoff Ten videos.

Another interesting place to be and to take a breath between performances, or a good chat area was at the martini bar. It was nothing like any other bar you could imagine. Dark, spacious room with four boards, featuring four different martinis lit up. Just by the entrance you were welcomed with snacks and fruits and directed to go around a huge table clockwise. Waiting for you were specially designed small glasses divided into, and filled with, four different flavours and colours. These you tasted clockwise to be able to recognize them afterwards and to choose your favourite one, in a normal martini glass further round the table. There was basil martini, pear cinnamon, ginger and green tea martini. Then you were moved to a kind of lounge, always crowded, beloved chat area to enjoy your drink.
Generally I found the event focused on and demanding creativity from its guests, like forcing you to make your own choices, to experiment, to interact, to come out of your shell of passive watcher and to enjoy the party in the original way! Cheers!