Desperados Hosts London's Most Welcoming Party Ever

Partnering with party legends Elrow and UK dance music pioneer, Skream, Desperados transformed Magazine, one of London’s newest venues, into the most welcoming house party and turned people’s wild party ideas into a reality.

Skream said: “Dance-floors are the most welcoming places on earth. They bring people together in a space where everyone can unplug and let go. So, my idea was to take this up a notch, to throw the most epic house party where everyone and their ideas are welcome.”

In pursuit to be the most welcoming house party, Desperados conducted research to uncover people’s perceptions towards party culture and common annoyances on the dance-floor – all to create an epic night out shaped by party goers themselves (Markettiers, 2019)*:

• 74% believe that partying unites people, so Desperados decided to throw an Epic House Party to bring people together.
• With 84% of millennials saying they feel welcome in London, Desperados chose the city to host its most welcoming Epic House Party, following other epic parties this year across Europe’s leading party cities.
• Partygoers find long queues for drinks the most annoying part of a night out, with 77% saying it’s frustrating. To make sure no party time is wasted, Desperados invited an eight-armed bartender...an octopus, to serve up the drinks. This idea was imagined by Rob Zwart of the Netherlands.

With over 50% wanting to experience an epic one of a kind party from their nights on the town, Desperados is giving partygoers their moment to shine by introducing the Human Mirrorball. Georgina Steele from the UK dreamt up the idea and will be elevated as the Human Mirrorball herself on the dance-floor 12 metres above the crowd.

• 72% find spilling their drink on the dancefloor on a night out frustrating. In response, Desperados specially designed a robotic hands-free Desperados arm, dreamt up by Kevin Odirile Setlhare from South Africa.

Across 2019, Desperados challenged consumers to enter their epic party ideas through social media using #WeAreTheParty, bringing the most epic ones to life. Some of the other ideas present at the Epic House Party included:

• Friendly security – grandmas, like Grime Gran – because Risky Roadz from the UK, wantedall guests to be greeted with smiles to get the party started.
• Feeling the music through custom built haptic jackets, dreamt up by Hermon and Heroda, from Eritrea and Ethiopia.
• Being able to see the stage if you are shorter in height, an idea from Laurentine Van Landenghem from Belgium.

Diederik Vos, Global Brand Director and chief party curator, Desperados, commented, “Parties are the perfect place to unleash creativity and we wanted to embrace this by giving partygoers around the world an opportunity to shape their own adventures. For this act, we worked with partygoers from across the world, to bring to life what they want from a party experience.”

Alex Bennet Grant, CEO of WE ARE Pi adds: "This year we have taken Desperados party starting experimentation to the next level with events around the world almost every month at the centre of a global brand campaign, not on the fringes of it. This is modern marketing playing out live on social and it's incredibly exciting to create, watch play out and then see the positive impact on brand growth."

Epic House Party is the main event in a yearlong series of acts titled ‘Epic Parties Imagined by You’, where Desperados ignites the party spirit by collaborating with partygoers to bring their most epic ideas to life. Through the series, events have been hosted in some of Europe’s leading party cities including Amsterdam, Warsaw, Berlin and Barcelona.

The year-round integrated campaign was created by WE ARE Pi, with Executive Creative Director Rick Chant directing the experience and resulting content.