New Yorkers cherish their summer weekends, so Saturday and Sunday events must make a compelling pitch to would-be guests. For Yelp's latest community event, last Saturday's "Yelp's a Beach" at Long Island City's Water Taxi Beach, the user review and social networking Web site did just that with promises of sand and spirits.
"It's hard to do a Saturday event in New York in the summer," said Yelp New York community manager Jane Kwett, who plans each of Yelp's monthly events in the New York market as well as two larger-scale events each year. "You have to take a subway or a ferry to get to the venue, and people aren't always interested in going through that. We opened up the R.S.V.P. four weeks ahead of time for elite members and three weeks ahead of time for general attendees to make sure it filled up."
And fill up it did. Kwett had to close the R.S.V.P. line the week before the event due to overwhelming response. More than 2,000 people put their names on the list, and more than 1,500 of them turned out over the course of the afternoon.
Once at the venue, the big draw was the the choice of 15 cocktails entered in the party's "Ultimate Summer Cocktail Competition," sponsored by the New York Spirits Awards. Guests sipped on the drinks in between bites of BBQ from on-site caterer Harry's, and Yelp sent out a follow-up email this week instructing guests how to vote for their favorite entry.
As a charitable component, Yelp partnered with the New York City Coalition Against Hunger by setting up a stand where donations could be exchanged for temporary tattoos. The notion of branding all of that exposed skin proved enticing enough for guests to raise almost $3,000, and the coalition said those funds would help buy 500 pounds of fresh, locally grown produce for low-income New Yorkers, help 41 families obtain government nutrition benefits, and subsidize 27 days of an AmeriCorps national service participant's work at a local soup kitchen.
