Friday, May 29, 2009

Swiss Award Show

I attended the local awards show last night. I've been to several industry awards shows in my career, and this was just like all the others:

A darkened venue, a C-list celebrity MC, award recipients thanking a crowd who doesn't care, creatives aghast their work was beat out by apparent dreck. The only difference was this was all in French.

The afterparty also featured fancy-looking but mushy-tasting appetizers and music levels that prohibit decent conversation. Normally, I can put up with this for a couple of hours. But last night I split after 15 minutes.

In Chicago, I could always approach people I didn't know at parties, even just to say, "Hey, man. I like your work." Friends would introduce me to other friends. I'd finally meet people I'd only spoken with on the phone. I always had someone to talk to...in English. But not knowing anyone outside of my agency, and not really feeling like practicing my "Où est la bibliothèque" French with a bunch of sauced and smokey Swissvertisers, I split.

I did, however, thoroughly enjoy the tram ride home. I don't usually get to ride the tram, which is much more spacious and futuristic than the bus.

Tram ride: 1
Swiss award show: 0

1 comment:

Chantal said...

I know what you mean about Swiss advertising award shows...I went to one in Geneva and it was all in French. Even my German-speaking colleagues were mad about that. None of us knew what was going on (except our colleagues from the Geneva office) so we just drank the free champagne and left. Luckily we had an excuse--the last train to Zurich leaves before 10pm.