REPLY FROM GLOCALS' GUY:

Hi guys,

I'm the co-founder of glocals, and was at yesterday's party. 

The long wait last night was indeed badly managed, and I apologize for it. Here's what happended:

The place got packed early (around 21h), with around 1000 people showing up in the 1st hour. That's when we stopped the entrance for security reasons, and only let in more folks once others left. This can happen, and in itself is not a major issue.

However, what shouldn't happen is that the wait outside was badly organised and messy. There weren't enough barriers & security to ensure a more orderly wait and to avoid people pushing ahead.

Although all on-the-ground production stuff was handled by the venu owner (who's been in the party business for years) and not by us, it was our responsbility to ensure and re-ensure the owner is better set up to handle the large glocals crowd. It felt terrible to see glocals folks who made the effort to come out to party with us, and got stuck in the messy wait for an hour.

The main lesson for me here is that when it's a glocals party, glocals needs to have control of the security / entrance matters (and of the bars, where the wait was also too long). We placed too much trust in a 3rd party to run the operations for us, and the 3rd party wasn't set up right for this size of crowd. 

We'll do our best to make it up to you in the next event. There will probably still be a wait outside if our future events get full, but we'll do our best to manage the wait a lot better.

Would love to hear more of your feedback,

Nir

Hey Nir,

I've to admit I'm not so suprised that this happened given what I read in the "Tribune" about that place : http://www.tdg.ch/geneve/actu-genevoise/exboss-fetes-refuse-stand/story/31471634 (in french, but you probably read it well now! :p )

I didn't come partly because of that (looks like it was actually not so bad as I would have arrived at 21h ;) ), but at least I'm sure the people who could come in had a great time except the bar wait, the place looks nice even if pretty badly managed.

Rémy

Yes, I also arrived at the entrance after waiting 40 minutes in the queue, but I had the impression that the staff would only enter people they knew, so I couldn't enter and went elsewhere.

I am sure that glocals staff was doing its best to manage the situation and I apreciate Nir's message.

Every situation is an occasion to learn and improve.

I arrived at 7.40. I wait 10 min .

To me who had to opportunity to get it was a great great party. 

And during the night when I looked outside i saw many people waiting.

I think the so big success of the party was unexpected..reason why people got frustrated.

But I tell you, no more people could have got in from 9. pm ..;it was full

and if more people would have entered, without control, you would felt very uncomfortable ..(and not talking about security reasons also).

So there were some "victimes du succes" as we say in french, and

Thank you for the this fantastic night

as someone who likes organising parties let me say this: if you have something to say about the organisation of the terrace party last night be sure you put a comment on this post.

that said, organising large groups of people is a skill and involves a learning curve. as Jango pointed out, there is a positive here: those kind of messy queues will never happen again at a glocals event. and that is a very cool positive. one exposes oneself to a big risk everytime one dares to try something cool and organise an event for more than a few friends. if it goes well everyone thinks you're great, but if it goes badly you can receive some really nasty and personal feedback! so let's keep the comments factual, the criticism constructive and look forward to our next little party, wherever and whenever that may be!

I agree

The party was great and what you are saying is absolute right.

This place never expected or belived that such a crowed is coming. I guess the owner of the venue could easy sell 3 times the amount of drinks he did. At 22.00 they where already running out of some drinks.

In addition the credit card machines where not working for many cards.

But still, nice idea to use the place for a terasse party!

Thank you!

Thanks for the feedback guys. We know the entrance and the bars should have worked far faster.

Any more feedback from folks who were inside, about the ambience?

I spent all night around the door, and would love to hear from more folks who actually partied on the dance floor...

Nir

I was on the dancefloor.....and the party was really great! 

It would have been perfect if there were more barmaids/barmen

Thanks for the organisation! 

the party was great... no probs at the door, since we arrived early, and left last(ish)... ambience was good and music was good... a sore head this morning but thats my own fault :-)

Great party, absolutely amazing! I arrived very early (7:10), and I did not encounter any major problem. Nice smiles all over plus the free champagne from the lovely volunteers. However, I would love to drink as much as I could. Unfortunately, the waiting time at the bar was so long that I even made a friend in the queue... All is well that ends well.

To sum up: great job!

Thank you Nir for all the efforts and kindess!

I got at the door at 9.15pm and got in at 23.30ish. I had not planned to queue for that long but I needed an important printout that a friend of mine who was already inside (and got some help to be let in) had.  I understand the security reasons behind not letting more people in although as someone already mentioned it, after queuing more than 2 hours, it got more frutrating when the Director of events and colleagues were letting their big groups of friends in (so if they were blocking people outside, why were they letting so many of their friends in...?  it was not just about 3 or 4 people, but much more than that), or would pick a couple behind me (they had their invite printed out in their hands). This happened again and again until I saw my friend at the door, before that, I heard all their conversations in French... which I understand perfectly - there I just kindly requested that they let me in, just to move 1 meter away towards my friend, JUST to pick up my doc and leave, they would not let me in.

i was also shocked by what happened between a security guy and a woman queuing... i can't comment on that but other witnesses were there.

All in all, I think you do a fab job but i just know i will not try and queue again for that sort of event. (This is not criticizing your role but the other French speaking organizers), and I agree with someone else, it is much easier to get in Java for example.

Get there early and there would have been no problem. Like the people that mentioned below that they turned up at 7ish.

It's common that places get full the later the evenings get. It's just the way things are. People get turned away from nightclubs all the time.....

They can't just let everybody walk in or it would be too dangerous.

People love to complain here. Everything has to be perfect!!!!!

The party was nice. There were a lot of people indeed.

With this kind of crowd you can't afford to serve as they did. It was totally amateur:

opening a bottle, serving one glass of wine, putting a few ice cubes in, struggling with the cashier, etc.

The service should have been done in an industrial sort of way:

someone opens bottles (there was only rosé anyways) and pours into glasses, someone gives glasses out

someone manages the cashier.

It could have been easily 5 times faster. Waiting 45 minutes at the bar for a glass of wine is not cool.

I also agree with other posters that Vogue security guys (and managers...) did not look like very professional and friendly persons.

Agree with the amateur service. Plus they ran out of wine very early, so the next best choice was champagne, just three times more expansive.

So I would give an excellent grade for Glocals and a low one for the people who run the place

The waiting time and queueing is unavoidable at any limited capacity event - it clearly demonstrates that Geneva loves these evenings, and over the last 10 years there have been great nights that have added to the sindy/glocal legend.

Unfortunately at the same time, the catering for what is obviously a thirsty crowd just hasnt learnt. Time and again sindy and glocals events (be it spring, beach or hallowe'en parties) have long lines at the bar and run out of basic booze - last night beer and wine early on - not only does it dampen the mood, but its also entrepreneurially criminal at 1000% mark up on a can of beer.

in short..so close to ticking all the boxes, but just never leave a party crowd thirsty!

Thanks everyone, we're following the thread closely.

The party pics are now live: http://www.glocals.com/photos/events_photos/49342/.

Hello!

First of all, thanks for the party. I had lots of fun but, in my opinion, there were not enough bars for 1000 people (I gave up and I did order not even one drink), which is not very good if the party is for free and you will make money only out of the drinks.

Also the music was too "electro-housy". It was fun to see all this people that have been waiting for some other kind of rithim to approach someone by dancing and they went home alone because it was to electro to dance with someone. Too much people from different cultures and different tastes = mixed music would be the better option, so that everyone gets a little bit of what they like.

A part from that, as I said, it was lots of fun.

Thanks for the organisation!

Arantxa

Reply from glocals guy:

For entry:
I think the solution for next time is indeed some sort of pre-sell (allowing people who pre-bought to come in fast), together with way better barrier management + security staff outside. There will still be people who wait outside if the place is full, but the wait will be managed in a far better, faster way.

For bars:
Fully agree on all the feedfback. There should should have been more bar staff, and the serving system should have been more "production line" for speed (we do this at our other events, where drinks are pre-mixed and the menu is kept to the top 5 best selling drinks). 

The bar staff at this party also focused on the wrong things: at some point I saw the main-bar with 100 guests waiting to be served by 1 bar woman, and this 1 bar woman was busy pulling out champagne glasses and putting them to the light to see if there's no finger marks on the outside of them...total wrong priority.

Music:
Like Arantxa, I also had the feeling the music was too housy this time. It happended in part because the venue's resident DJ (not our DJ) insisted to play his own set for a while, until we realised this and got our DJ back up.

The main learning for me is that next time glocals needs to stay extremly close to the on-ground details.

Nir

i'm sorry to say that but i had a really bad experience!

i was in the que since 8 30 with other 10 friends. Somebody invaded our group. My boyfriend and a friend entered and i had to wait almost one hour to get in. This would have been ok if everybody would have waited like me but unfortunatly the people at the door were not correct: they let get in their friend for example, even if in huge groups, they let enter everybody was saying to have a friend inside (so person per person even big groups were entering before than me) and also were getting in people when they were a bit distracted.

i'm sorry but this is not nice. I asked the reason and they were also replying in  a not nice way. So, i'm correct and i have to be treated like an animal??

Moreover at 11 my boyfriend needed to go out to give a ride to a friend and then he wanted to get in again. I went to one of the organizer that was talking in the same language then me to see if it was possible to let get in my boyfriend again (like everybody was doing) and again he replied to me in a bad way.

this is not acceptable, i'm sorry to say it!

I've been to several glocals party in one year i'm in Geneva and it's always been nice.

this one no.

Can't provide feedback on the party itself but while waiting in line, saw way too many people get funnelled in ahead of us because of having friends at the door and then saw the meathead bouncer punch a woman in the face (cops later came to question the guy).

Decided to bail shortly after seeing this lame act.

I think it's ridiculous that Nir was walking around telling people on line it would only be "about 20 minutes more" when in fact it was easily a 2-3 hour wait, with all the nonsense going on.  Luckily I realized this immediately and left with my group.  You should pre-sell tix next time, a limited amount of tix, and then let people in after a certain hour if ticket holders don't show up....common sense

From what I understood later on, some people had pre-booked their table and stayed there the whole evenings (when pre-bookings are available, then maybe a good idea would be to advise the Glocals community and I guess that if tables are sold" in advance then Glocals can just specify "activity full" then it would allow others to make other plans). I myself am not into that sort of parties. Now thinking about it, it looked more like a St Tropez party, for celebrities and VIPs.  I am not complaining as I prefer other sort of outdoors evenings out :o).

I should have done like pjroots, after seeing what I had seen as I was still under shock once in.