Gold & Pioneer Event Venice 2009

part 3: Dragon boat race in Venice and CreArt performance

Time for activity! Although it was really hot on that day, Swatch had organized a Dragon Boat Race with five boats for 18 participants on each boat. Special shirts were distributed to everyone, in five different colours: pink, yellow, orange, green, and blue. We got instructions how to use the paddle correctly:

Very important: The drummer (on each boat, one of the new gold members)!

And then the race went off through the channels in Venice...

I was among the 40 collectors who took a larger boat to our destination on the other side of Venice.

Can you spot the error on the picture?

...arriving at our destination

...the pink crew arrived really late :-)

We had dinner on Murano island, in a small trattoria.

Murano has a reputation as a center for glassmaking, so we also had some activities with little glass pieces:

As we had arrived a little late on Murano, we had to speed up our dinner and the boat back had to drive fast as well to be right in time (well, about 10 mins too late) for the CreArt event at 10pm on the Piazza San Marco.

Billy The Artist was already on stage and he was painting live on a huge canvas. He was accompanied musically by the the Swiss Industrial music band The Young Gods. No electro music this time, they were playing acoustic guitars and drums.

Lots of huge projections on the buildings around the Piazza San Marco. Funnily enough, the VIP area (free drinks!) was more crowded than the 'free entrance' part of the place :-)

the finished picture, signed by Billy The Artist on the right, in the middle

The show has been recorded and you can watch a replay if you want:

After about 45 minutes, the spectacular and interesting show was over. We had clearly enjoyed it as you can see from the picture below:

But the event was not over yet! Another water taxi took us to the Isola Di San Servolo where the aftershow party took place at the Venice International University, a great location!

Two different DJs entertained the guests during the night: Geneva-based duo Luluxpo and Britain’s Calvin Harris.

An interesting exhibition was on display inside the building: A Gift To Marco Polo: Contemporary Art from China. A collateral event of the 53rd Biennale International Art Exhibition. Here you can see a little video from the exhibition, this also gives you a good impression of the party location :-)

The party marked the end of the Gold & Pioneer Event 2009. As in the last years, it was a great and memorable event, with lots of highlights (great concert, a very entertaining press conference, meeting so many familiar faces again, smooth organization, ...) and only one 'lowlight' (loooong bus ride). Another event that I won't forget and hopefully we can meet again around xmas time, possible on the other side of the ocean...

You can see more impressions from the event at www.always-surprising.com, www.swatch.stawi.de, and www.swatchtheclub.com.