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| Gingerline's secret mission dining experience |
6pm, dressed in black
and white by my local Overground station (Gospel Oak) with the instruction to
wait for a text. It arrives from the Spymaster alerting me to hop on to
Haggerston to begin immersive pop-up genius Gingerline’s lastest top secret MI1020
dining experience.
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| 'Something fishy' inside the aquarium showroom |
As I exit the station,
I am told to “look for something fishy.” An arrowed sign points to a neon blue
flooded tropical aquarium showroom under a bare brick railway arch. After a
gawp of the fish, I was called up to meet my group and handed a Nokia Lumio
1020 phone, the event’s sponsor to equip me for the secret foodie mission.
Our group huddle to
watch a video on the phone in which the head of spies reveals the enemy as the
Syndicate and sets us our mission to get to the tasting lab via the streets of
London.
Along the way a woman
pops out of a wheelie bin “Boo!” She encourages us to test the phone’s zoom and
IOS feature by taking a group photo, on closer inspection, we captured a sign
in the background which read ‘Phone Val’.
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| Val's busty card inside the phonebox |
The phone’s pin-point
map feature lead us to a phone box and Val’s busty X-rated card tacked up
inside. My group huddles
around the phone’s speaker feature, Val’s voicemail sends us down an alley to
Frank’s burger van where in return for asking about the specials, Frank hands
us a festive warming cup of mulled wine and a cherry tomato filo pastry parcel -
a tad soggy but the polystyrene burger box it came in was a nice touch.
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| Frank's burger van |
An man dressed as a mechanic
beckoned us through a tiny door cut into a vast iron gate, once inside the
garage, he took our coats and jostled us into a toilet cubical revealing the door
to the Spy HQ dining room - transformed into a 60s spy bunker.
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| Inside the dining room spy bunker |
My iridescent crimson
gin and ginger Pink Panther cocktail was accosted by a bespectacled scientist
with a “testing kit”. “Contaminated – I don’t think you should drink for the
rest of the night.” and slides a big bottle of sparkling my way.
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| Video projections from the Spy Boss |
No phones at the
dinner table is out ruled here and I complete a champagne mission to photograph
the ‘bugs’ around the room and win a bottle for my table.
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| Beetroot and ricotta in a briefcase |
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| Lobster and samphire |
In between courses of
earthy beetroots and homemade ricotta and a seafood roulade of succulent sweet
lobster floating in a fragrant samphire broth, projections of the spy boss
giving details of our mission and warning us of the Syndicate infiltration
flicker and buzz on the wall.
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| The battle |
After the tender
venison loin, drizzled in savoury chocolate and blueberry brown sauce, the
lights begin to flash and the evil Syndicate are revealed to be - shock horror -
in our groups! A blogger and a student I had been small talking all evening
jumped up with two others from each table and lapped the room reaping havoc, finally
to be defeated by the friendly white coated spies in a battle with fish laser
guns for weapons.
With full bellies, our
mission is complete. I always knew The London Overground was a great line to be
on but now with the
discovery of Gingerline, transport has never been so fun.
Book tickets for
Gingerline’s latest event The Hideout on their website
Even now, some years later, this remains one of my favourite experiential marketing campaigns ever. I did a write up too: http://bit.ly/1j0jm59
ReplyDeleteBut did you buy a Lumia 1020?
Seems to be a successful experimental dining event. Few months ago, arranged tea party with my friends at one of graceful Chicago event venues. Really had a good time at the event and everyone appreciated all arrangements very much.
ReplyDelete