For the debut of Bacardi's Big Apple liquor, Floyd's nightclub at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Tampa was transformed into a Garden of Eden-like space with lots flowers and foliage. The decor was based on the new libation's green apple flavor, which translated into the liberal use of the color green throughout the space.
Mark Kissel, district manager for Bacardi, and Caroline van der Poel, of the liquor distributor Premier Beverage of Central Florida, hired conceptBAIT to create an atmosphere that was sultry, sexy, and over-the-top. Invitees—a who's who of Tampa socialites, politicians, and athletes from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Devil Rays, and Lightning—walked into an indoor garden exploding with emerald tones and smart branding ideas.
Four- by three-foot centerpieces with 15-inch bronze-colored apples were lit from above in a glowing haze of green. Strings of moss, hydrangeas, and apples hung from the ceiling, along with a 10-foot green spiral made of spandex, used to mimic Bacardi's apple peel logo. The club's permanent martini-shaped steel structure was adorned with cherry blossoms, apples, orchids, and roses hanging from ribbons.
The event's V.I.Ps had their own areas, draped off by 30-foot walls of sheer white fabric with floral tiebacks, with real grass below their feet and their own secret gardens, made with a multitude of leaves, mums, orchids, bear grass, and other green-hued botanicals.
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino catered the event and provided food stations bearing whole roasted pig, venison sausage, a raw bar, a sushi bar, and desserts like truffles, pastries, and chocolate fountains with goodies to dip.
Choreographer Ruddy Sanchez of New Century Dance Company produced three performances that were a little Adam and Eve and a little S&M. In one of the numbers, female dancers poured entire bottles of Big Apple all over themselves—á la Flashdance—enticing the male dancers to lick it off.
—Vanessa Goyanes
Photos: Nelson Pizarro/NP Studios
Mark Kissel, district manager for Bacardi, and Caroline van der Poel, of the liquor distributor Premier Beverage of Central Florida, hired conceptBAIT to create an atmosphere that was sultry, sexy, and over-the-top. Invitees—a who's who of Tampa socialites, politicians, and athletes from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Devil Rays, and Lightning—walked into an indoor garden exploding with emerald tones and smart branding ideas.
Four- by three-foot centerpieces with 15-inch bronze-colored apples were lit from above in a glowing haze of green. Strings of moss, hydrangeas, and apples hung from the ceiling, along with a 10-foot green spiral made of spandex, used to mimic Bacardi's apple peel logo. The club's permanent martini-shaped steel structure was adorned with cherry blossoms, apples, orchids, and roses hanging from ribbons.
The event's V.I.Ps had their own areas, draped off by 30-foot walls of sheer white fabric with floral tiebacks, with real grass below their feet and their own secret gardens, made with a multitude of leaves, mums, orchids, bear grass, and other green-hued botanicals.
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino catered the event and provided food stations bearing whole roasted pig, venison sausage, a raw bar, a sushi bar, and desserts like truffles, pastries, and chocolate fountains with goodies to dip.
Choreographer Ruddy Sanchez of New Century Dance Company produced three performances that were a little Adam and Eve and a little S&M. In one of the numbers, female dancers poured entire bottles of Big Apple all over themselves—á la Flashdance—enticing the male dancers to lick it off.
—Vanessa Goyanes
Photos: Nelson Pizarro/NP Studios