10 Best Ideas of the Week: a Beyoncé-Theme Christmas Room, Alcoholic Milk and Cookie Shots, a Life-Size Gingerbread Bar

Amazon Web Services closed out its Re:Invent conference—which took place November 27 to 30 at the Sands Expo Convention Center in Las Vegas—with its massive Re:Play party in an open space behind the High Roller. The company partnered with creative studio Production Club to design a theme park-style atmosphere with a variety of interactive stations, which included a hybrid ball pit and bounce castle that was filled with 250,000 balls.

Another activity included a game of bubble soccer, which invited attendees to wear giant inflatable bubbles. The party drew 25,000 attendees. 

The pastry team at JW Marriott Los Angeles at L.A. Live designed a life-size gingerbread bar, made with 1,300 pounds of spiced cookie dough and sugar. The structure, which will be on display through December 30, serves holiday cocktails and features bar tools and spirit bottles made out of candy and cookie dough. Guests can have their name engraved in icing on a sponsored gingerbread brick by making a donation through the hotel to the Children’s Miracle Network.

The third edition of the Instagrammable holiday pop-up bar from Drink Company in Washington runs through December 31 at the former Mockingbird Hill bar space. One area features a vintage red sleigh photo op, a real 12-foot Christmas tree, and an illustration of Beyoncé from her “Formation” music video.

Swarovski hosted a holiday pop-up at New York’s Chelsea Market from December 4 to 10. The pop-up, which was designed in-house with help from Medoff Inc., included a replica of the Brooklyn Bridge created with hanging crystals.

Old Navy partnered with PopSugar to host a holiday pop-up on December 9 at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn. The event, which was produced by the Visionary Group, featured a gifting station that allowed guests to take home items from a curated collection in branded boxes. The boxes were a take on PopSugar’s Must-Have Box—a monthly subscription service—in a special edition with Old Navy.

To go along with their gift boxes, guests could customize pop-up cards with glitter, stickers, and their own handwritten messages.

To promote its new series Happy, SyFy created an anti-holiday pop-up bar, which came to New York’s Lower East Side from December 1 to 10. The bar’s ceiling featured over-the-top garland and decorations, including traditional ornaments, mixed with edgy additions like prescription pill bottles. 

Guests could snack on an alcoholic version of milk and cookies.