Last week, Nathaniel and I, being the adopted Londoners at Hatch, jumped on the Central line from our office near Spitalfields and headed west to Shepherds Bush for Lost Lagoon, Captain Morgan’s latest experiential experience, and an experience it was…
Situated underneath Shepherds Bush’s iconic w12 shopping centre, it is about the last place you expect to find the ‘World’s Biggest Underground Boating Lake’.
Finding ourselves debating whether this can be in fact the correct location, Nathaniel and I tentatively enquired of the whereabouts of the Lost Lagoon. With Nathaniel’s previous claims of ‘I don’t like owt new’ reverberating through my mind, his uncertainty was almost palpable. After being reassured that we were in the right place and having waited a couple of minutes for the rest of the party to assemble (of which there were none), we were led around the back of the building to a small entrance, where the guide abruptly stopped and banged on the door.
The door opened and with the flash of our wristbands, we were led down what looked exactly like what you’d expect from the underground of a 1980s shopping centre…
After passing through the underground maze, we were met by a Captain Morgan deck-hand, which marked the start of the activation.
After being blindfolded and led through to a darkened room, a member of the ‘crew’ gave us a quick run down of what was required of us, while we enjoyed the first cocktail of the evening. It involved rowing from island to island, collecting ingredients on the way which we would use to create our own concoction at the end of the boat trip.
Unfortunately, the boat-ride was more treacherous that anticipated. As it turned out, neither of us has a penchant for cartography, and we must have missed the class on orienteering back in school, as we continued to get lost around what initially seemed a place impossible to get lost in.
A sign of just how bad we were at it was the fact that we ended up absolutely drenched, something which we were later informed only happened when you rowed in the wrong direction. We were merely embracing the rebellious pirate spirit, and after a while, we collected all of the ingredients necessary. It was time to meet the Captain.
Greeted with a ‘Hazaar’ by those who had already completed the quest, we chose our preferred goblet and created the rum punch which was a result of the ingredients collected along the way. With Caribbean food to accompany the alcohol, we were able to sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labour.
Overall, it was a cool activation, which will certainly get people talking – and more importantly, posting to social media. With plenty of alcohol clients on our roster, it’s always interesting to see the ways brands can get their message out to the masses and see how we can learn from them when it comes to own work.
