Being an avid Harry Potter fan you can only imagine my excitement
when I found out that ‘Wasted Promotions’
were bringing to Dublin a Wizards Assemble, Harry Potter themed Pub Crawl. I nearly danced around my kitchen imagining
all kinds of like-minded weirdos crawling through Dublin armed with wands and
robes leaving the passing muggles in a state odd resentment like jealousy.
The time was 7pm the date was 17th February 2017
and the mood was nervous excitement (well for me) my partner was entertaining
my seriously embarrassing excitement because she loves me and knows she’s
better off just letting me be a total dork than having to deal with my total geekiness. Having conned four more of our family members
to attend, the six of us pranced gaily up the stairs of Capitol Bar and met our
‘reps’, were told we are in group one, were given a bracelet and ordered our
gillyweed cocktails.
After about ten minutes of admiring each other’s costumes we were told
that group one was leaving and to down our drinks and be on our way. In a rather rapid rush what seems like about
100 of us were escorted down the back stairs and off to Harrys on the
Green. I asked the ‘rep’ how long we had
here and she said ‘half an hour’. I ran
to the bar, only to face a wall of wizards trying to order a drink.
After twenty minutes queuing
I ordered our group a drink. We had ten
minutes to down it. We decided to get a
plan in place and prepare to be ready to leave in front of the group in order
to be able to get a drink and enjoy it at the next bar, so with our second drink
downed we legged it to the front of the group and were met by group two on
their way in. We battered our way by
them and then trudged up to Wexford Street, into Karma, where we met with a
young ‘rep’ who handed us our chop sticks covered in glue, sorry I mean
Wands. Mine was still tacky with spray
paint and poor Joes was falling apart but we were still in high spirits and
eager for the games and spot prizes that were to be showered upon the group.
By the fourth bar ‘Opium’ on Camden Street we were growing
suspicious. Our ‘reps’ were confused,
there were no spot prizes and all wizards and muggles alike were starting to
suspect that there was nothing of note in plan for the evening. I spoke to two lovely Beletrix Le Strange
characters who decided they were going to skip the next bar to try and get a
drink in time to enjoy it because all they seemed to do was stand in a que and
down a drink in five minutes.
By the time we got to Whelans Bar I manged to track down a rep
and ask was anything going to happen bar the constant queuing, her reply was “I’m
really sorry, I was just told to turn up at six and make sure you get to the
bars by a certain time, I don’t know nothing”.
Having had a few drinks I managed to laugh out loud and slag “Wasted
Promotions” management of the event to all the other Wizards who were
conned. Some of the guys and gals we met
came up with the plan to change groups so we managed to hang with a group from
group 4 for a while who were hilarious. After
a couple of drinks in Whelan’s we headed off, lost our group, our wands were
now just wooden chopsticks and I wanted to strangle the “Wasted Promotions”
organisers with my Gryfindor tie.
When I fell in the door last night I was intoxicated to say
the least. Downing drinks in order to
keep up with a too fast paced pub crawl is not what one would call drinking
responsibly but to top it all off, this morning I awoke to a notification from
Wizards Assemble Facebook page thanking everyone for a wonderful night. As I watched the negative comments pouring
in, I jumped on board and started in on the discussion. It was becoming quite enjoyable in a morbid
kind of way watching the comments pile up about others disappointment in the
event and as they continued to come in they started to be deleted. Imagine, whoever is controlling their Facebook
page is (I'm going to say allegedly) deleting the negative comments. Seriously,
how pathetic. (I do realise that I was
dressed up to go to a themed night, so I shouldn’t really be calling anyone
pathetic except myself, but seriously).
Now, don’t get me wrong, I had a blast, but this had little
to do with the event. My merriment had nothing to do with Wasted Promotions and
everything to do with the company I was in.
The event was badly managed and a total waste of time. My advice to anyone thinking of going to any
of these events is, don’t, gather your ticket money together and have a Harry
Potter themed night at a house party. At
least this way you will get to enjoy your drink. Wasted Promotions, my opinion,
aptly named. PS: I’m not a skin flint,
€8 was cheap as chips for a ticket, but I’m not sure what I paid for.
