Soooo… after all that hype with the uber fancy invites and the super exclusive silver keys and all (check out my post about it here), I had built up this event in my mind to be something that was going to totally blow me away.

The venue, Fez, did make me nervous.  But I rationalised it by telling myself that surely an event of this magnitude would ensure a night to be remembered, regardless of the venue…

Before I continue, I will point out that I only got to the event at around 10:30pm because I had chosen to first check out the Cosmo Lingerie party (which was awesome btw).  So my view might be slightly scewed due to that.  Maybe cool stuff happened between 8pm and 10:30pm – I dunno.  Some people were like: “Yeah but there was a show and food.”  I saw the tail end of both.  The food was the same as I had at the Playboy Magazine launch party back in May. It looked like their standard snack spread, so nothing special.  The show was the same show they normally have at Fez – again, nothing special.

Venue wise, I still think they could have done better.  Cape Town has so many amazing spots, the Fez just seems like such a blah choice.  Anyhoo, at least it photographs well.  This is the VIP area:

The dance floor area:

The DJ box and a snippet from the show:

Fez was at least packed.  But sadly just with the usual Fri/Sat night Fez crowd.  I couldn’t really spot the “wealthy, well connected types” the Global Party website was aiming to have attend this party.  Actually I had heard earlier in the week that they were handing out free invites at Caprice to random people on the Sunday before.  Then I spoke to other people who mentioned that basically every “event circuit regular” was given a free invite as well.  Hmmmm, me thinks that was a serious FAIL for the PR company handling this thing locally (not sure who they were).  Wasn’t the whole point to collect money for charity?  How are you going to do that with a bunch of people who are just there hoping to score some free food & drinks!?!  (Myself included of course… haha… I’m from PE, it’s part of my genetic makeup! Also I’m not rolling in cash.)

We got there just in time for the local charity auction.  They had 9 items up for grabs, mostly luxury getaways and designer items.  But the final item was a VIP box at the Coldplay concert in October for you & 17 friends.  With drinks, snacks, etc. included.

Before the auction kicked off we got to listen to local a’capella group D-Seven, singing The Beatles’ hit “Let it be”, while they introduced the local charity which would be benefiting from the money made on the auction:  Saving Private Rhino.

The Saving Private Rhino initiative’s objective is to ensure the sustainability of the African Rhino by providing an integrated anti-poaching solution free of charge to every private game reserve in Africa that cannot afford to defend its wildlife.  There’s been quite a few horror stories covered in the press recently around this issue, the latest one was of 3 rhino’s which were attacked on 20 Aug at the Aquila game reserve.  Only one survived, while the other 2 did not make it thanks to their gruesome injuries.  The story really pulls at ones heart strings, especially when you see the horrible images of rhino’s with their horns hacked off.  I just don’t understand how anybody could do such horrible things to these amazing animals.

I’m very glad that this worthy cause was selected as the local benefiting charity.  And at least they were able to collect some money towards their amazing cause.  The first 8 items in the auction went for anything between between R7,500 to R30,000.  Then that last item for the Coldplay box went for a whopping R105,000.  That would work out to just over R5800 pp (18 ppl in total in that box) – I thought that one was pretty good going.   It was taken by Sue Main,  CEO of The Grand.

I did a quick calc – they must have collected about R280,000 in total.  That is pretty good.  I don’t want to take away from that achievement, but I still think if they invited the correct “money muscle”, they would have done soooooooo much better.

We didn’t stay too long after the auction.  The vibe just wasn’t great.  Ended up stopping at the 24 Hour Woolies in Orange street for a late night Cream soda & chicken nugget fix.  Mwhahahahaha.  Now that rocked my world.

My friend Dax told me that Goodluck played after the auction and that they were brilliant.  I WOULD HAVE stayed for that if I KNEW that they’d be playing.  But we weren’t given any information about the line-up for the evening, so had no clue that there’d be something worth hanging around for.  Aaarrgghh.  That’s just bad communication & planning guys… grrr.

My take away from this:  If the invite seems to good to be true, it very likely is exactly that.

xxx