Destination Downtown

[Dapperdan]

The wife and I went last night and had a pretty good time. We visited all the clubs and everything went smoothly. You can get a wrist band and any of the clubs and it allows you to get in free at the clubs allowing to to come and go when ever you want. That's great along Bay St and at the Landing. You can hop from one place to another. The Designated Drive Inc had their cars and drivers out and towards the end of the night we saw people using them.

There were some downsides. The streets along the route between the Landing and Bay St. were pretty sparse with walkers. Also the green M's that were meant to be along the route to let people know were to go were hard to see and we didn't notice them until Bay St.

Most of the clubs were really great at letting you know about the program and they were well educated and there weren't any problems with using the bands to get into the club. The only problem the whole night was with The Ivy Bar. Before they would stamp our VIP card, they told us we would have to buy drinks. My wife informed the person stamping the cards that she doesn't drink at which she was told "well you can get a water then, I just have to make sure you buy something." That spoiled it for us and we quickly left. The Ivy Bar was the only bar to have that rule and out of all the clubs they had the least amount of people. We later did buy something to drink at the Dive bar and then later at Marks.

Overall it was fun and we will definitely be going downtown more on Friday nights. I don't know if I'd go back to the Ivy again. It's a shame since that was the one bar I really wanted to spend time in.

[BridgeTroll]

Sounds like they still have some kinks to work out but at least there is an effort.  I bet Ivy comes around... In the meantime if people would spread the word (positively) in a month or so we may have a critical mass...   Hopefully I can participate next week.

[downtownjag]

dapperdan (O Brother Where Art Thou?) Do you go out downtown often?  I am curious as to the crowd it drew..

[Dapperdan]

It was not too large of a crowd. I imagine it will grow as the word gets out and if stuck up bar hostesses don't insit that you buy a drink. Yes, the name is from that movie

[lastcall]

I also went out for the destination downtown event thought is was alright. It was a little slow for my tastes all over but seeing as the college game was on the night before, I didn't expect much either.

As for the bars themselves, I think they all did a wonderful job. The drink specials were awesome and I got to try out all of the bars in one night without paying a lot of money in cover.

Dapperdan, sucks that The Ivy rubbed you the wrong way. I personally had the best time there that night. The service was super fast and I was also able to register for a Free VIP at The Ivy without a drink purchase. I talked to the door guy (I think his name was Kyle) and was surprised at how nice he was. He had tattoos on his arms but ended up being extremely polite. I thought that was a great change for the normal bone head door guys. Being required to purchase a drink first did not upset me at all. The bars had to of put a lot of money into this promotion and there are a lot of cheap people downtown that were walking bar to bar getting stamps on a bunch of cards without buying drinks. It is those cheap people that ruin it for everyone else like us. I'll admit it was odd and not printed anywhere on the card or in the Folio but a drink cost $2! Not a big deal to me!

I hope the destination downtown thing picks up. It is a great concept and I think with a few more people walking downtown it will be a major promotion for all of the bars downtown. We as quests of this board need to show our support for what is happening downtown. I have read many times on this board the good and bad about downtown and at least they are trying to improve their image and gain exposure!

[Dapperdan]

Buying the drink wasn't the problem. We brought drinks at other clubs. What turned us off was being told that we HAD to buy drinks when it wasn't posted with the promoter or a policy with the other 4 clubs that paid probably as much as The Ivy to participate. Another thing is that my wife doesn't drink so to get a stamp it would we would have to waste money on a drink she didn't want.