Miami Swingers Hotel Takeover: Behind the Scenes and Beyond
Get ready for an inside look at the Miami Swingers Hotel Takeover! Join us as we share the excitement, fun, and unique experiences from this unforgettable event. We start with an overview of what made the Miami takeover special, followed by a break to tell a sexy story from the event, and wrap up with our top tips for newcomers and future events.
In this episode, we dive into the planning and logistics, the vibrant atmosphere, and the standout fashion and activities. Plus, hear personal stories and memorable moments that will give you a true taste of the event.
Mentioned
Libertine Events Swingers Hotel Takeovers https://libertineevents.com/
Global Swingers Events 2024 + 2025 https://www.wanderlustswingers.com/swingers-events/
bed hoppers Podcast https://www.bedhoppers.co.uk/
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Love, Peace, and Respect,
C D
Transcript
You're listening to the Wanderlust Swingers Podcast with Aussie hosts, Kate and Daryl. If you're curious about exploring your sexuality or the swinging, hot-wifing, and non-monogamous lifestyle, you've definitely come to the right podcast. Or maybe you just love travel adventures. Either way, we share our personal, sometimes juicy, sexy stories as well as Swingers Club and event reviews, interviews with other sassy people and of course our global swinging adventures. We try to bring you a look into the diverse lifestyle that the swinging and non-monogamous community has.
We hope you enjoy, now let's get into the episode. G'day guys and welcome to a new episode of the Wanderlust Slingers podcast. Today's episode is going to be all about my recent travel to Miami. This is actually an interview where Mr. H from the Bedhoppers podcast is going to be interviewing me about the event. Now I know, sometimes these event reviews or event kind of topics can seem a little bit boring and that's why I'm trying to put a spin on it. So that's why I had Mr.
H join me to ask me questions, which I had no idea what he was going to ask about the event to get it from my perspective, what I thought was the best about the event, what went wrong about the event and spoiler, something did go horribly, horribly wrong, but spoiler, spoiler, we fixed the shit out of it. So that's what today's episode is all about is my recent Libertine events, Miami, totally, totally exhausted from that trip.
It actually took me I'm getting old guys it took me longer to recover from this trip in terms of jet lag and just the overall exhaustion than I think it has ever taken me on any other trip and I said to Daryl that I think I'm getting old because I swear to god jet lag didn't affect me this much when we were you know 10 years ago when we started traveling around and he's like yeah baby you're older as shit older as shit. So thanks, honey. Anyway, so this is what today's episode is about. I hope you guys stick around for the entire episode.
Please do let me know what you think about the episode because I would love to hear from you. Coming up on our next episode, we're recording an episode about our experience at Killing Kittens in the UK. Yes, that is actually an event. It was their luxury mansion party.
So we're going to talk about that in an upcoming episode and spoiler spoiler another one i also have mallory the lovely mallory coming on the show from the casual swinger podcast and her and i are going to get down and dirty we're going to talk like girlfriends on the show and we're going to talk about some of the stuff behind the scenes that her and i got up to in miami so that's what we've got coming up i hope you enjoy today's episode as always stay fun stay fun, stay fabulous, and I'll see you next time. All right, so a new segment on the Wanderlust Vigas podcast is Am I the Arsehole?
Do you like that? It's cool, huh? Am I the Arsehole? Mr. H is like, always yes. The answer is yes. Let's be clear on this one. Are you the arsehole or am I the arsehole? Am I the arsehole? Is Kate the arsehole? Is Kate the arsehole? Answer's always yes. Let's move on. So, short segment. So, am I the arsehole? This segment is going to be about things that I've noticed during the course of the last episode of this one and something that I might have commented on or et cetera, and or et cetera.
Now, this was a comment and a post on Reddit, which we know can sometimes be the bowels of the universe, but then can sometimes actually be quite useful because that's obviously how we met.
This particular post is about the November Bliss Cruise, and this individual was asking how they can smuggle alcohol on board the November Bliss Cruise, which is swingers cruise we have to buy tickets to the tickets cost thousands of dollars you sail for like I think it's a week or whatever it is and they were saying like the alcohol prices are quote simply laughable and I know damn well someone from this group has sneaked alcohol on so how can you can do it now this is why I'm asking am I the arsehole because here is my response and I'm gonna I mean I'm trying this, but I said, Cy, I hate to be that person, but seriously do better.
All right. Starting out strong, right? Really starting out strong. And I said, look, now Bliss Crews, pretty large corporation, but it's still a business and you should budget accordingly. I then went on to say hotel, you know, again, surmising hotel takeovers, for example, the owner has to contract, as you well know, a food and beverage minimum. And I basically go on to say like, I'm just saddened that people like you would do this to lifestyle businesses. We don't have much. And then the people like you want to screw them over further. Am I an arsehole? No, I don't think you are.
I think what you do have though, is a lot of insight into the behind the scenes work that goes on around events.
And I think if've not stopped to give it a second thought you might think oh it's a bit expensive how do I make this easier on my budget or whatever right but once you start to think about it and the impact it has on the people organizing the people that are working with them the partners all this kind of stuff it's right to kind of point that out so don't think you're an asshole, but I think for someone that's not considered that before, they'll probably be like, oh, why are you telling me this shit? Right.
So he wrote back and he said, oh, yes, you hate to be that person that defends a billion dollar corporation. And then he said, you know, having reasonable alcohol prices that are price gouging, I guess is too much to ask for you. And I just said, look, if you're going to do this on a Bliss Cruise to a large, yes, a large corporation, like I highly doubt that you're going to change your, your, the way that you do things when you go to a smaller, maybe boutique firm.
And my point to this whole thing was that, yes, we don't have much because at the end of the day, what's going to happen, and I'm just going to not use Bliss Cruise or anybody else for that matter, but say there's a $10,000 food and beverage minimum. This person takes their own alcohol, they smuggle it in, and so they spend, I'm just going to make it easy numbers, say $500 less. Now, that $500 loss that the company has to pay for has to go somewhere, right? It has to come out of someone's pockets, and who's it going to come out of?
It's actually, in the next event, going to make the tickets more expensive and likely the alcohol more expensive because they've got to subsidize dickheads like this person i said it i meant it no i i'm inclined to agree with you and you know even if you're running small scale events often if you're working with a local pub or club or whatever then actually they do have a minimum spend even if it's just a social it's like you need to hit i don't know a thousand pounds of drinks and if if people smuggling drinks in there, then you've really got to worry because ultimately you're going to have to stump up that amount.
Exactly. A thousand pounds if you're running a social in the UK and you're only, whatever reason, let's say it could be smuggling, could be people spend less money, but say it's only 800 pounds, the bar's going to want that 200 pound for you, right? That comes out of your pocket.
So I've got a question then, would would mr and mrs h be inclined to either host another social in the future knowing they just lost 200 quid and how many hours of their time as much as we love the community at the end of the day if we keep pulling into our pocket we're just making out you know what i mean like yeah it's a hundred percent and it's it's something that's been on my mind for a while actually it's it's that you know that there isn't there isn't a tremendous amount of money involved in it not for in terms of actual making money in fact off the socials we don't really make anything we have enough to pay for the the event and pay for like some goodie bags and everything else gets reinvested so you know i think if you're not even scraping that together then it does make you wonder about it you try and do your best you try and put on a good show you try and make the world a nicer place but someone's always going to find fault with it and someone's always going to want more and that's where you kind of go oh man should we keep doing this is this what we want to do yeah and that's that's where you kind of go well actually we're doing this for altruistic reasons and for the good of the community let's keep going for the moment but at some point that's going to break you yeah exactly so and so to ask the question to get a black and white answer am i the arsehole mr h what's your thoughts no you are not the arsehole i'm not the arsehole segment done thank you let's roll straight into your stuff so you've brought me on here right not to ask me random questions about assholes although i'm very happy to to answer them but before we go any further it's really to talk about miami and your event that you just had in miami so before we jump into that i want to say firstly a huge congratulations on what i assume to be another successful event thank you yes i thank you i appreciate that rest assured though that we are well gel in it about not being there so you you're making me go through not only the fact that i wasn't able to be there but you're making me ask questions about something that i missed out on so yeah just just so in in relation to this new segment are you the asshole yes possibly yes so Yes.
Possibly, yes. Love it. So to kick off, right, Kate, can you tell us about what Miami was all about? What was it? So it is a hotel takeover in Miami, as the name would suggest, right on South Beach, and it's for three nights and four days. And I would say, you know what, I mean, I think the UK and the US is different in this. I would call this a very, very small hotel takeover because it's like 250 people. Whereas I know in the UK people would be like, blimey, 200, and I said that on purpose, blimey, 250 people, oh, governor. Why do we sound like Keanu Reeves in Dracula?
Dude, I totally killed Dracula. No way. So I would say it's a fairly boutique-y event that's very community-focused and very intimate. You know what I mean? Because the intention is that people, I would hope, get to know each other over the course of the four days and then kind of, you know, start to build these relationships up. But that's really what it's about. And, of course, we have the parties and we have all the sex and everything else. But, like, in its essence, that's kind of what it's about. Okay. All right.
people attended what sort of demographics were coming along 250 people attended and we almost collected and i i know mrs h would love this like gotta catch them all style we almost got every single state represented from the from the united states in this i think we're missing like four four states for that didn't attend but everyone else came from all around america they came from Canada, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Belize, Germany. You know, we had people from all over the world kind of come in.
Demographic-wise, we actually saw about a five-year younger group of people at this particular event than what we've seen maybe at other events. Do you think that's because the lifestyle is becoming more popular with the younger crowd? I think yes. I think that's's one of the reasons why. But historically, especially with the Miami event, because it is really, you know, a kind of a more luxury event for us, the price point is a little bit higher than other events.
And I think that that has then, you know, skewed the demographic a little bit older with people that, you know, have maybe some more disposable income because they don't have such young kids, etc.
And so I think that's one of the reasons why that we've always seen it maybe ever so slightly higher than our other events but this time I think we just kind of hit the we were getting more people from google searches more people kind of finding us on social media so yeah I think it's maybe a bit of growth and then a bit of just people finding us just organically through google and giving it a go and I really love that and I also do have to say like the people that were there were significantly more diverse than what we've seen at other events as well so overall like i was super happy about the type of people that attended this event we know that your events are famous for their themes can you tell us a little bit about them you know what these are some of the easiest themes that i've ever done um because people were getting kind of themed out and yes my my themes are notoriouslyiously unique and therefore notoriously difficult, but they're always open for interpretation.
I'm always saying to people, like, it's not that hard. I mean, yes, obviously I created it.
These ones were we did an event that if you've ever seen the TV show called Lucifer, inside the TV show there's a club called Lux that Lucifer runs and one of the theme nights was based off of that so again you can either come as like Lucifer or Mazikeen etc out of the actual show or you could wear lingerie and come as one of the background people or you could come in a club dress and come as one of the background people like there was many ways to approach this so again like I thought that was pretty easygoing and then the final night was a lustful lounge night so that was based again off of like lustfulness because the event itself was about vices about sins about vices and so I was like lust obviously and so again you could have just worn lingerie to that if you wanted to or you could dress up if you wanted to the first night was probably the most difficult for people and that was more of a Adam and Eve inspired event And it was about.
It was called Forbidden Bite, and yes, it was like the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve, et cetera, et cetera. So again, you could have gone as like a pixie. You could have gone in lingerie like I did. You could have gone as the devil. If you wanted to, you could go as Adam and Eve, you know. So there was a variety of things. That's cool.
My main recollection of Lucifer is that for years it was just advertised constantly i must have been like amazon prime and it was always that clip of i'm lucifer bloody morning star yeah and that's all it bloody was for months and months and months that was enough that was enough that's all you need that's all you need he's an attractive guy and you know him with his accent they were just sold. And you couldn't get him to the event? No, sadly, we don't have the budget for that kind of carry on. Okay, that's fair enough. So did people dress up and make an effort?
Any excellent costumes spring to mind? Yeah, we did have people dress up as always. We had some people make their costumes. I wouldn't say they were out as outrageous as the last time you were in Miami, because the last time you were in Miami, you saw people really making their costumes and people that had spent weeks and months doing so. Yeah. Here we go.
say they were out as outrageous as the last time you're in Miami because the last time you were in Miami like you saw people really making their costumes and people that had spent you know weeks and months doing so yeah I think because the themes are a little bit easier this time we kind of had people in like lingerie and stuff like that but you know creative but not from the level of like getting out a fucking hot glue gun and putting it together piece by piece by piece so yeah everyone dressed up everyone looked amazing as always but i would say that the level requirements of creativity weren't necessarily as a negative on the attendees it was more just that i specifically wanted to make the themes a little bit easier for people who had been with us before just to give them an event off where they didn't have to stress about the things and that's fair because having been to one of your miami events before and strutted in leather trousers for at least three hours, I felt that maybe I'd been perhaps, and this is rare for me to say this, a little bit overdressed and a little bit too overprepared.
So what about your costumes then? Did you dress up? Did you make an effort? I did, but I did my usual thing where I waited until the last minute to order anything so for my for my forbidden forbidden bite one i just wore some green lingerie and i had sparkly stockings and you'll see this because i'm pretty sure i'm reusing most of that outfit in croatia when i see you in two weeks with some extra add-ons but i was just basically like a garden i was like oh green and then i had kind of ivy wrapped around me but problem with that is, is that I needed help to do that.
And I unfortunately asked drunk Angie to assist placing the ivy on me. So it was kind of falling off and becoming a bit of a trip hazard later in the evening. But, um, so I did have, uh, I did have Mallory actually physically tear it off my body at one point because we were concerned I was going to fall us over to hit on the dance floor. The final night I started wearing a gown because I was bringing people in from outside, including performers. So I was in this really nice gown for the Lustful Lounge. And then I actually went upstairs and changed into like a leather lingerie piece.
And that's what I wore for the rest of the night. And Saturday, I have zero recollection. Oh, no, wait, I wore a dress.
I wore a dress because I was pretending like I was in the Luxe but I was a very elegant but little black dress lady that's awesome I'm surprised for the plant theme you didn't just cover yourself in glue and then roll around outside for five minutes because that would have been the easiest but then I thought once I get back to my bed at like two in the morning I'm not going to want to shower and then I'm going to have to pay extra house cleaning fees for glitter in the bed so I decided not to to do that. Yeah, getting people to hose you down at your own event, probably not the best look. Yeah.
So people also come to Libertine Events for the sessions and the interactive experiences. Can you tell us about them and your guest hosts? I can, I can. We actually had some new guest hosts this year. So we had the Hump Day Cookies joining us and they're a podcaster based out of the United States. And then we also had a social media couple called Russ and Ash, um, join us as well. And that's, this is the first time they've joined us, but it's also the first time they've ever done seminars on their own in public at a lifestyle event. And that was really great to see.
So we had hump day quickies actually kind of kickstart us on the Friday with like setting your expectations and they had a little worksheet and things of that nature and then on the sunday we had russ and ash actually talk about body confidence now i know that theme has that topic has been kind of felt like it's been done to death but the reason that they're so passionate about it is both of them each have lost over 100 pounds and so you know they wanted to kind of share their personal journey and get other people to share and we had one about boundaries um katherine from expensive connections held one about pushing your boundaries in a safe and healthy way so how do you do that without like pissing off your partner and you know overriding your own requirements and then there was like a cocktail mingle hour gosh what else did we do oh casual did a fantastic episode fantastic session on taking great photos because they do that very very well and so yeah we had an interactive session for the first 20 minutes they were kind of talking about and they had a presentation on the screen and then for the remainder of the time they took everybody up to the playroom and with ring lights and mobile phones because we wanted to say how could you take good photos on the cheap and then they did an interactive instructional session which was another another great session and we got a thing crew did a session on navigating jealousy so lots of different things there.
That sounds fantastic if I wasn't jealous before now I'm most certainly jealous about missing out on all the awesome stuff but talking about sort of missing out we did actually go to a Miami event last year and one of the standout things was the amazing playroom. Now I know people love hearing about these can you tell us a bit about the playroom this time around it was, again, hosted and sponsored by Casual Toys, which is owned by Casual Swinger. And honestly, I mean, I said this at the event, but the playroom that we have in Miami is the best playroom we've ever had, hands down, bar none.
They really set the standard high. So high, in fact, that I'm getting very stressed about the Texas playrooms because now that they've set this bar, i have to kind of follow through with them at my other events right so it's great we had the the swing in there we had the liberator furniture so all the sex furniture there was bondage gear but there was also sensual rooms couple rooms we did have a massage table as well with a tent outside the tent did not survive the weekend um so we had to actually deconstruct it on Sunday due to the crazy weather that, that, uh, ensued.
So the, the massage area kind of become a bit defunct by Sunday, but the other, the other equipment inside definitely got well used and the lights, the music, like they've got it down. I, again, I truly don't think I could do as good a job. And it, I mean, it, it took like, God, I want to say like six hours to put together, maybe even seven. And that was like three people doing it. Oh, wow. So was it well attended? Were there people having some sexy fun? It started later.
So I had the, we had the playroom attendants in there again this year and we were checking on the people that were in there. And from nine, we opened them up at nine and from nine to kind of like 10, 30, 11, we were constantly checking in. Hey, how's it going? Do you need any help? How are we going for towels? How are we going for sheets? Like what's happening? It was dead zone really surprisingly. And I just, I'm always confused by this because people are always saying, Hey, can you open the playrooms during the day? That is some of the constant feedback we get.
And of course we have to consider the cost of doing so like, right.
Because if I've've got to hire the playroom attendant i've then got to pay the cleaners at the hotel to stay on for an additional shift two of them and then we have to get in there and make sure okay it's clean and then once the cleaners come out we've got to get back in there to make sure the playroom's set up correctly right so there's a hell of a lot of cost involved in doing that and when i see nobody's in there at nine i'm like uh guys you asked me to open it at four but if no one's in there at nine like who's going to be in there at four like come on so it was really funny that it was this slow burn and then at 11 and 12 it was like everybody wanted to be in there and then you know you get people saying like oh fuck it was so busy i couldn't even like find a place to you know kneel down while i was giving my husband head or whatever and again And I like well if you come tomorrow like come at nine or come at ten because there's like no you got your pick of pick of the bedrooms pick of the equipment like go for it so it did get busy and definitely obviously as always busy on the final night.
That's always a given I think.
Now clearly there's a lot of prep that goes into making such an incredible event what i want to know is when did the idea for this one come to mind can you tell us about the effort that goes into making these events a huge success the effort i don't want to talk about because it's ridiculous and makes me exhausted thinking about it to be honest where did the idea come from so we've been going to miami now this is like the og for us like when we looked at starting to host these in 2020 Miami was supposed to be our first event and then of course COVID happened and we kept delaying it but Miami's kind of become our OG home so that's kind of where the original thought came from but the theme of this event was created in our kitchen Daryl and I were sitting around one morning having a coffee and I was like what the fuck am I going to call the next miami event i have to constantly think about and you know we try to make these the overarching theme vices we try to make it work from both a seminar perspective but then also a costume perspective so it has to kind of work for both where the overarching theme matches everything sat around and all of a sudden daryl was like well you know miami vice and then i was like vices uh-huh great so that's kind of how that.
Super easy. I know you said you don't want to go into too much detail about the effort, but I think it's really important to recognize just... I'm exhausted. I can imagine. When did you start planning this event? Just to give people some context of how long it takes to get from A to B. I mean, the first time I did it, it took about 12 months. Now it takes about five to six. Five to six months of planning, preparation, you know, setting up the website even, setting up the webpage, setting up the ticket merchant stuff.
Also, every month I have to manually create 120 invoices because people are on payment plans and our old system, they kicked us off because we're a sex industry.
And so the new system, I have to manually every month go and create 120 invoices um plus all the ones for san antonio plus all the ones for vegas so that takes about two to three days a month just purely from an administrative perspective so but yeah five five or six months of figuring out who was going to be there how we're going to be there what's going to look, the themes, the entertainment, the performers, the bar staff, like all of that security stuff and how they're going to do it. All that stuff takes about five to six months. That's amazing. No wonder you're a bit knackered today.
It's not surprising. With all this in mind, do you have any behind the scenes stories or tea that you'd like to spill? Behind the scenes, if you're at the event, you already know this, but if you weren't, and we'll probably talk about this actually with Casual Swinger, but Sunday we got some rain. And originally, actually, thank God our event was when it was because I don't know if you've seen the feedback, but after we left, Miami was flooded, unfortunately. So the Miami airport was flooded. A lot of homes in Miami were flooded, unfortunately.
So a lot of people had, you know know lost some stuff down in Miami afterwards and I think we the tail end of our event maybe caught the early signs of that it wasn't expected and also Sunday we got this like oh some rain and it was really unfortunate because it ruined our photo shoot and everybody was dressed in pink suits and it was like very like Barbie-esque and I was loving it and then the rain kind of ruined the photo shoot which is a bit of a shame but fine that's salvageable not a problem so the photo shoot was ruined I went to a panel I came back out and all hell had broken loose basically so the weather really took a turn on Sunday afternoon and our events are outside underneath an entertainment tent and this year we had partnered with Casual Swinger to start purchasing our own audio visual equipment right because we always normally hire it bought all this stuff right and we were all set up outside and i come out of this panel and all hell has broken loose and the light truss had at some point been blown over and so we lost i think about four lights off the they smashed um we had pushed our speakers into the center of the tent thank god but even those were a bit waterlogged so we lost, I think, about four lights off the, they smashed.
We had pushed our speakers into the centre of the tent, thank God, but even those were a bit waterlogged. So we didn't know even if the speakers were actually going to, these are brand new, these were like a week old. We didn't know if they were even going to work. So my behind the scenes is that the weather turned absolutely pear-shaped.
But inside of half an hour, we had all the equipment gathered up, all the equipment moved inside the lobby and all the lobby furniture moved out of the lobby pushed to the side and basically the lobby completely rearranged into being able to host our party that night final night it was really funny we we were in the lobby resetting up the trust right and redoing because you got to think all the cords and like yes we moved the move the equipment in half an hour but the setup is another hour and a half to two hours long just to get all the cords and everything plus getting everything kind of sorted and making sure that it even worked you know was another thing and making sure that we had enough time to dry it out before we even tested anything you know so that was a bit stressful but what i do want to say is that it was really funny because when we were resetting up people were walking walking back from lunch or like a late lunch, walking through the lobby going, oh, this is cool as hell.
We're having a party in here tonight for the finale. Like, that's so cool. I love the fact that tonight is going to be different and it's in here. And we were like looking going, yeah, it's because we just got fucked over from the rain.
But it ended up being an awesome night actually i think it was i think it was uh great like the the outcome was absolutely fantastic so just so you know we did lose about four lights the rest of the equipment worked um we ended up having to buy fans at the last minute and get them delivered from like instacart to make sure that there was enough cooling in the lobby it was a whole big thing but that's some behind the scenes that's um that's amazing that you're able to to salvage that and still put on a great show that people really enjoyed i think were there any other major challenges whether aside or would you do anything differently actually the security this year we didn't have any security challenges because that's always like my number one thing oh people were trying to jump the fence people trying to do this people trying to do that there was none of that this year we did have one person try to sneak in but that was about it so that was pretty good we didn't really have too much drama there on the security front and everything else worked pretty much like clockwork i wouldn't say i mean it was the most labor intensive event we've ever held like we worked our asses off i think we're working like 19 hour days but it was absolutely fantastic the outcome for me i think was fantastic what i'd like to know is what made the event for you, what made it special and what memories are you going to take away?
The energy, more energy, more energy. Why does this keep coming up in our shows? More footwork, more energy. The energy this time I think was the best energy that I've ever seen at any of my events. Again, full stop. The people there again, they just seemed really high energy. They seem ready to party. They seem really happy. They seem great to be there.
So that was really invigorating and people were on the dance floor more this year than I've ever seen at another event in fact because we moved the party inside we didn't have to comply to noise ordinances in the Miami Dade area so we actually get the party going an extra hour and 15 minutes or something and to the last song people were still on the dance floor dancing granted it whittled down to maybe like 50 or 60 or 70 people but the fact that we still had at 1 15 odd in the morning 50 60 70 people maybe 50 actually might be getting carried away there dancing with us is insane and really great to see so we kept partying kept dancing all night long basically like we shut it down and everyone was like yeah that was fantastic that the energy was the best i've ever seen more energy that's really it's really good to hear that that the people that are waiting for the playroom also had something to do in the meantime well that's what we say when we're like you got half no 45 minutes like if you're gonna go play now is the chance yeah knock out a quick one quick you got 45 minutes and then we're shutting this thing down i also want to know about the feedback that you got have any negative feedback, any comments or challenges?
Yes, it's really funny, you know, because at the event you hear everyone seems to be having a great time. And then you also hear a lot of positive feedback and then you could do to get reviews. Right. So and I know you feel this way, too, but I got I think so far we've had about 40 reviews and 98 percent of them are super positive. And then there's a few that's like, hey, you suck. And it's always just that little, oh, but you can't be everything to everybody, right? And I've always said that, like, pick your event based on what you like to do.
But it always kind of is like a bit of a stab in the heart. You're like, dude, what could I have done? But what I will say is we had some bloody fantastic ideas from people.
this is why review and feedback is is so super important because one of the recommendations again kind of leading on to that mingle thing we spoke about earlier was to have a dinner sign-up sheet for people that might be a little bit lost souls like so okay yeah have a dinner sign-up sheet and say you say okay anyone who signs up before i don't know 4 p.m and you go up and you put your names down and you say, Kate and Daryl, two people. And we do it in the restaurant, maybe on site at the hotel. So it's nice and easy.
And then we set up some big group tables and it itself becomes a mingle event where people can kind of have dinner together.
It's not necessarily, I'm not saying like two on two, I'm not partnering people with each other, but like more of a group dinner where there's like, say 20 people who don't have dinner plans, who will kind of want to hang out with people people and I think that would be a really nice addition to the event and I just thought that was bloody brilliant I think that's great I love that idea and I think that could work you know breakfast would be a great like especially like first day as everyone's had the the heavy night everyone's probably feeling a bit like ah socializing socializing is a bit uh a bit heavy and a bit difficult but actually just chilling out and having breakfast and chatting to people and talking about the night before is is a great idea i love that yeah i thought it was brilliant and you know so out of some of the feedback where somebody was saying you know hey we really felt like there wasn't you know we were struggling to you know have dinner with people um for that you know it's different a desire or whatever because at a desire during the pool you can kind of say to people hey i made a booking at for four people at the restaurant tonight and most people are like oh a covented booking at the restaurant rather than the buffet i'm in you know so what a go um whereas you know it may be in a larger group like this it's a little bit more difficult but i think having those like little sign-up sheets we can say yeah cool i'm gonna be part of a group meal for do that.
I think it would be brilliant. So that's one of the things that we got from the feedback. And then I'm going to actually bring in to San Antonio already in October. So I love it. I love when people do that sort of thing. Cause I don't, same as you, we don't know everything. We can't think of everything. Tell us what's going on. Well, I also quite like the idea that you could, you could have some of the hosts in there as well.
So get a chance to meet the people that you you've maybe come along to you know and spend some time with and yeah i think that's great so any other challenging feedback yeah the feedback was also that we did host a welcome orientation and actually it was a host requirement that they all had to come to that because the intention was to have everybody in the room to say these are the hosts right and that way you know you physically can see some of their faces because not everyone's public like you and i are and unfortunately not everyone could come to that welcome orientation it was about four i want to say 4 p.m on friday so the first day and some people missed that and so some of the feedback was like i didn't see and i didn't know who all of the hosts were so there was some feedback there there that I thought, okay, do I need to do that session later in the day?
But what the feedback was was also maybe on the first day, like I make the security shirts and they're quite visible, maybe on the first day what I can make is a host shirt. So having people's names on their host shirts and then having their like logo on the back and something like that.
So when they're walking around, you can clearly see they're a Libertine host that's true it's so difficult though because i think you this this is one of those bits of feedback where you can i mean you can you can get to meet people via the chat you get to meet them through the thing there's only so much you can do like horse water drink right yeah but i don't think there's anything wrong with with going out of your way to provide people with the information that they're missing i think you know it's it's a good thing to do but it's one of those bits of feedback where i would i would probably be sat there and i'd be going stupid like you could have joined the chat you could have joined the zoom calls in advance you could have joined this you could have done that but at the same point if someone's missed that information and missed that opportunity then of course they're going to want to know who the host is.
So, you know, you're right. It's good to provide those connections for people. Yeah. And one last major piece of feedback, which again, I laughed about because in October we had, um, and we had about a number of different DJs coming through over the course of the weekend. We had different DJs for daytime sessions by the pool, afternoon sessions by the pool, night sessions.
And the feedback we got collected from October was very very much a hey i don't know whether we need the dj by the pool because it's kind of a really great mingling time a lot of people are talking not so much dancing by the pool so really do you need a dj and the consensus generally from the community was no play some play some playlists and call it a day you don't need to set up the tent you don't need to have an additional speaker system you don't need to have an additional dj you don't need all of that audio visual stuff and so what we did was we actually took those funds and redirected them elsewhere right for the event but this crowd like i said was probably five years younger and they seem to be more of a party during the daytime mood as well as nighttime like i said everyone's on the dance floor and so the feedback we had this year was actually and it was half half actually we would have really liked to have a DJ by the pool and so what I've taken from the feedback in October where they said absolutely 100% unequivocally not needed to this time half of the people kind of saying you know what I think that's a good idea to bring it back what we're going to do I think next time is actually run no DJ for the first half of the pool party so say from 12 to 3 it's good mingling time it's nice and like chill background beachy music holiday music you know funky and that's from 12 to 3 but then from 3 to 5 or 3 to 5 30 we're going to bring up the tempo and we're going to have a DJ by the pool so I think that way it kind of covers both options if you want more of a chill more of a mingle in the pool talk then you go there from 12 to 3 once we hit three we're going to bring up the tempo and we're going to kind of bring up the mood into a bit of a party vibe I of a mingle in the pool talk.
Then you go there from 12 to three. Once we hit three, we're going to bring up the tempo and we're going to kind of bring up the mood into a bit of a party vibe. I think that works because I think if you go full party in the morning, I think people are just going to be maybe a bit hungover. People are still sleeping. Yeah, exactly that. And plus, if you bring them up too soon, they're going to get too drunk and then not meet the night parties.
Exactly and these are the sort of things That I know that you and I When we're arranging events that we think about for hours on end and that we talk about and you know it's these the minutiae of like when do you start the music and when did people don't think about it they just go i either like that or i didn't yeah that's where the feedback is so important but it also can be really frustrating because you kind of think oh fuck we thought all this all through and we thought that we had it perfect for this this group and then the mood changes or some something slightly different or it's a slightly different crowd and it's you know you kind of go oh it's they want this instead yeah that's great that's really good feedback yeah no it was it's good feedback what i do know is that working on these things as i've referenced is incredibly challenging did you manage to find any time to relax and have some fun i danced every night i danced every single night and i stayed on that dance floor until the party finished and then we packed up the equipment that was really something different for me the the fact that i was like yeah i'm gonna i don't care what's going on by the way my feet oh my god i put my i i think it was maybe quarter past two in the morning on the sunday night and it was myself casual swinger hump day quickies podcast popped by for a little bit we had the triple x files and we were sitting just hanging out in the pool and i just put my feet in the pool and it felt like i can't even i can't explain it like i.
Like I think I did, I think I did a total of about 80,000 steps, of course, across the Friday through Sunday. But yeah, that was, that was like massive highlights for me. But I was intending, fully intending to spend some more time with people for this event. That was like my one thing. That was my, you know, I always told people like, have a goal when you go to an event. That was my goal. I want to spend more time with people.
and the event assistant that I'd hired at the very last minute had a job interview all of Saturday so she had contracted me on Saturday and was supposed to be working all Saturday which would free up my time to go and spend with people and at the last minute a couple of days before the event she advised me that she had a job interview and I'm not going to begrudge anyone from potentially earning a living so she went off and did that and that kind of really put a spanner in the works. And then with the weather issues on Sunday, of course, that just threw everything into a off kilter.
So in between that, at some point you managed to dance the night away. I danced the night away. I did. And cool your feet down in the pool at some point. On Sunday, Sunday morning or Monday morning. Yeah, I think it was like 2.33.
I'm not exactly sure of the time, but there was a was a moment where I said you know what I can't do it anymore bye guys good night and then I like some sort of creature from the dark made my way back to my room and it was really funny because the next day the XXX files were like man people were horny on like Sunday night early Monday morning because it took us like half an hour to get back to our room everyone was stopping us wondering where we're going what we're where's the play.
And I said, it's funny, a single person approached me and they were like, yes, because you are hunched over, walking like the hunchback of Notre Dame with your shoes off across the thing looking ragged. And I was like, yeah, that tracks. Just growling at anyone that comes to me.
Before we start to get into the final final question or so what i want to ask is uh how so people are going to be coming to events what would you recommend uh what should they do to prep for these type of events and how would you sort of what advice would you give them to to manage through them yeah so i actually recently i shared a post and it was the six p's of of attending lifestyle events so um prior preparation prevents piss poor performance and i'm going to do a video about this actually i think because for me in the lead up to an event i like to think about yeah like health stuff for example we're going to spicy island in two weeks i don't have any contact lenses that is a crucial part of me packing so tomorrow i'm actually going to go in and get some contact lenses.
So it's little things like that, like health stuff, costume stuff. I also don't have any costumes, but that's fine. Doing these kind of preparations, but then joining the chat and starting to engage with people and looking at the schedule and thinking about what you might want to do, but by the same token, not overdoing it and over-analyzing and over-booking yourself, allowing some spontaneity in there.
So those are some of the ways that I like to say to people that that's the best bet you know make sure that you're prepared but that you're allowing for spontaneity because you might meet people and then if you're like halfway through a conversation like sorry I've got to go to this scheduled event you know it's kind of ruining that spontaneity yeah yeah like even on Sunday with the rain Jason and Sarah bought some games with them and so the rain kind of moved people inside and then you know some of the attendees were just setting up games in the restaurant area saying you know if anyone wants to come play a game let's hang out and at one point one point i walked past and everyone was having a bloody great time laughing and carrying on so you know allow allow for some spontaneity and then the other thing and you know i say this all the, but I never follow my own advice is to get some rest, hydrate and eat and make sure you're looking out for your body because, you know, it's a, it's a marathon, not a sprint.
Well, I definitely will be poking the side with water throughout the course and ensuring that you get some rest in a couple of weeks time. But yeah, I'm with you on the prep and making sure that you're in the right space. I think so many times we've been to events and overcommitted. It's like, yeah, we're going to go to do all these things. And then you can't do all of them. And then you're like, so you've got to recognise that you've got to pick the bits that mean something to you. And I do recommend doing some of these things because they do help you engage with other people.
But overcommitting is a big thing and going too hard on the first night yeah it's often and if you do see mingle events go to the mingle events you know because those are you know if you're needing or you want not even if you're needing help but if you're wanting to break out of your existing friend group maybe or whatever that looks like you're just wanting to find somebody new to talk to for the day or for the evening or what have you go to the bloody mingle events like they're there for a reason and they need to be really well occupied and that's one of the things that was a takeaway for me you know making sure that we have enough mingle events but honestly um some of the feedback actually somebody said on the feedback like oh it'd be great if you had a mingle event and i'm like we had like four or six of them i don't remember um you know like maybe go to those i think sometimes again like people just miss they're like oh we weren't available and stuff like that but what i am thinking about doing is niching down the mingle events so i got this idea because of the fact that jason and sarah were playing the games in the lobby yep and i was like that can be one of the mingle events next time so sometimes a mingle event and if you just slap a name tag on somebody and you're like just go forth and mingle if you're already an introvert or you already don't know anyone or you're already nervous or it's your first time or you're shy or whatever this looks like, like me throwing just these people into a ring and just being like, charge.
If you don't know what you're doing, you don't know what you're doing. So the fact that we just assume people can mingle, I think in itself, is a bit of a failure as an event host. So what I'm starting to think about is niching down these mingle events or doing a mingle event specifically, come and play something to do. Come and play some games with us. Come and make some cocktails with us. Come and do X, Y, Z. You know, that way when people are mingling, it gives them a way forward, not just throwing them and hoping for the best.
Yeah, I think that that can be quite challenging going into that sort of large group of people and just sort of expecting to work your way through it. But also I think like breaking it down into smaller groups is a pretty good idea. So, you know, let's grab 20 people and let's do a little mini mingle event with a task or a game or something and offer a variety of them so that, you know, you get to know people, but it's not overwhelming, particularly for those folks who struggle with that large group dynamic. Exactly, exactly.
And, you know, we always say like people are friendly like just go up and say hi i'm kate and people are going to respond to you and then they will absolutely but where do you go from there you know and if it's harder to take their first step whereas if people walk in and i'm like oh grab a seat we're about to play this really stupid not safe for work game kind of charades type thing then it takes the load off people because everyone's being a little bit silly or whatever and then also they've got something to do with their hands or something to do that you know need to come up with the topics on their own i really want to see a large group game of gutter head that would be that that's on my cards i think somewhere down the line we need to arrange this cool yeah let's do it and uh you want to be on my team okay good sounds good all right we've booked this now.
Right, so my last question for you. So this isn't the very last Miami event that you're running. How can people come along to your other events or find out more? People can just basically head to the libertineevents.com website. So we have all our events listed on there.
We are going back to Miami next year in 2025 from the 16th to the 19th of may funnily enough with this particular location they have been telling us that they're changing over to a residential property and they are they indeed actually are like i think two years ago there was a news article about this investor group coming together and what's happening and all the rest of it and i was like great and then we thought the last one was going to be the last one and then they said said, hey, we can actually fit you guys in for May 2024. And we thought, brilliant.
Definitely, we're coming back because we love this property. It's great. It fits our personality of our events really well. And recently, I was talking to the owner and he said, you know what? We can offer you May 2025. And I said, listen, at this fucking point, it's sounding like a marketing gimmick. Like, oh, quick, book now, last event.
Like, it's like a, you know, somebody said to me the other day in the community oh you sound like a 40 off rug sale company like constantly closing down and i said i know i actually said to the owner and the gm you're making me sound like this like please stop it if you guys are going to change like just hold up your end of the bargain here because i don't want to keep going oh yeah we're coming back and then or last one but that is actually what i'm told is the last one because the end of july in august they are officially changing over to residential so sadly that will be the last time we're hosting at this particular location we are going to vegas and san antonio this year and those are already all sold out so that's 100 sold out so no more tickets there and i'm currently in conversations with another property to try and talk to them about hosting our first event there as well.
So, we'll see. So, check the website for more details. If not, get in touch. Write to us and we'll send it to Kate. It's fine. Yeah. But our events, libertineevents.com really is the easiest place to find them. Kate, thank you so much for bringing me onto the show today. That's all of my questions. It's all right. It is always my pleasure to have a chat with you. And, you know, I'm very lucky that I get a couple in a couple of weeks time. That's all I get is chats with you constantly.
And if you start waking me up with coffee chats at ridiculous hours in the morning, you're not going to be friends. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. So I hope everyone enjoyed that little talk about Miami and what's been going on behind the scenes and all the good juicy goss that's there as well. If people want to find me in the world, I'm Mr. H. I'm from the Bedhoppers podcast. You can find us all over the place. We've got a website, emails, all that sort of stuff. But just look up Bedhoppers and you'll find us around on the interwebs. Thanks, Kate. Thank you so much.
Now, it's always really difficult when I want to talk about the events, but I'm trying to make it fresh and interesting, hence why I had you on the show to interview me, right? But what I do want to put out there to people, if you have feedback about things you would like to know when people are talking about events, because I know sometimes it can just feel like, you know, rinse and repeat, drop me an email, email at wandolarswingers.com because as we've alluded to a few times, we are going to Croatia in less than two weeks. Holy shit, it's nine days.
Oh God, I really need to get my costumes together. We're going to the panic on my face. We're going in nine days to Croatia and we're obviously going to be there together and experiencing this event. I've been before the bed hoppers haven't. So my question is throwing it out there.
What do do you want to know guys let us know the kinds of things that you want us to to follow up on i always try to talk about especially when i'm going to other people's events like the demographic who was there who's it good for who's it not good for you know i know i did that with cup dog um so let us know hit me up in there in the emails what's going on anything else to add mr h i'm looking forward to spicy match i think that's going to be really really fun um i'm really excited about the whole process of getting there and and kind of having a really good time and experiencing an event that's quite unlike anything that we've ever been to and you know navigating that with mrs h and having having some friends there is going to be really really helpful but i can't wait to share it all and I can only assume that I'm going to be roped into some level of social media throughout the course of the week.
100%. Ha ha ha ha. I have more plans for the social media than I do for my outfits at this point in time. And it involves us doing acrobatic stuff on a stand-up paddleboard, and that's all I'll say. I'm joking. That's actually not going to happen. But we do need to get violently drunk and then do some form of exercise the next day in Croatian heat whilst trying to record because that is a, you know, a historical moment for us in Singapore, and I think we need to recreate that.
I think, well, actually, we have a couple of well-documented drunken moments, and perhaps, you know, one of my favourites was the interview where the whistle or whatever it was a buzzer went off every few minutes i had another drink pre-desire maybe maybe we need to recreate this we need to go back to oh god 2000 and whatever it was making me feel ill thinking about it uh we can do that we just need to make sure that's not not gonna impact our evening too much but i but i feel like we can do that at the event that'll be a funny little um maybe we can just do it but without getting violently ill we can try to be responsible adults and put some Thank you.
impact our evening too much but i but i feel like we can do that at the event that'll be a funny little um maybe we can just do it but without getting violently ill we can try to be responsible adults and put some sort of cap on the amount of prosecco and rosé that i'm sure we're going to be drinking um by the way i haven't told you this but i actually booked a poolside bed for friday oh we have our own like cabana i booked it you booked it just for yourself to get rid of us. Just me. Just you. Can't stay with us. Don't look me in the eye. Don't look me in the eye.
I booked a cabana on, I think it's on Friday. I have to check my notes, but I think I booked a cabana on Friday. It's very special. So it's poolside. We've got some shade. And it comes with a bottle of champagne and a fruit platter. So we're going to be fancy pants on Friday. Very fancy pants. And if there's one way of luring Mrs. H out, it is that bottle of bubbly and a fancy area. Well, it's also luring other people to us. Like, can I have a corner of your bed? I don't know. Can you? Do you put out? Like, what's going on here? How do you put out? What sort of things do you put out?
Do you have a five-star rating on Yelp? What's the situation? How good are you at social media? Can you do the splits? Anyway, thank you so much i really appreciate you coming on and spending time with me my pleasure thank you
