Another new activation at the event was the Audio Bar. At the custom-fabricated bar, guests could choose the type of music they wanted to listen to and then local mixologists Owen Thomson and Jason Strich created cocktails inspired by the vibe of that music. Guests kept the headphones on while they waited for their drinks and listened to recorded tracks of songs or scripted dialogue. “At events, everyone listens to the same soundtrack yet we’re eating different foods and drinking different cocktails,” Event Farm C.E.O. Ryan Costello said. “We wondered, can we mix cocktails based on the audio mood you’ll tell us you’re in?” Since the bar had space for just 20 guests at a time, there were traditional bars set up elsewhere in the venue to keep service flowing.
The New Media Party, returning for its second year, featured several inventive uses of technology at events. Produced by Event Farm, the party incorporated sponsors such as Vntana, which created holograms of guests that were then projected onto the walls of venue Carnegie Library. Other sponsors included Lyft, Microsoft, AOL, and Yelp, which created a listing for the event and allowed guests to post reviews and photos.
