Island Getaway

To mark the arrival of summer, Malibu Rum threw a concert on Toronto's Centre Island complete with tropical cocktails and a performance by the band Bedouin Soundclash. “Malibu is a summer brand and it’s from Barbados, so that always inspires us,” Kirsten Devitt, the company's brand manager, said at Friday's event. “We thought we’d come out here because of Malibu being from the islands. What better place than the Toronto Island to have a little party?”

Malibu partnered with radio station Flow 93.5, Bedouin Soundclash, and the Toronto Institute of Bartending for the event, which included a free evening concert for 1,200 people at the Paradise Restaurant & Event Venue. “We wanted to keep it kind of intimate,” Devitt said. The company also invited the media to an afternoon cocktail reception to sample drinks created by bartender Brad Gubbins—including a Bedouin Soundclash cocktail—and to listen in during the band's sound check. “We thought it would be fun to do something in the afternoon and try some cocktails,” she said.Malibu issued the tickets for the concert through mobile ticketing. Fans simply had to text the word ‘ticket’ to 212121—in honour of June 21, the first day of summer. “We've done some stuff in years prior to celebrate the first day of summer, but this is the first concert we’ve done. We thought about different bands,” Devitt said, adding that Bedouin Soundclash seemed an appropriate fit given the reggae influences in their music. “They just worked on a couple of levels,” she said.

Thanks to the Malibu bus, which sat adjacent to the ferry dock, getting supplies and equipment over to the island wasn’t a big hassle, Devitt added. “We loaded it up with all of our goodies [on Thursday morning] and brought it over. So it made it easy.”