It ran from 12-5 on a Saturday at the Westin in Copley so we wandered from campus to Copley around 1pm. As we headed in the building, we were met by a guard that informed us that the entrance was being closed for 2 hours due to high traffic and the line was being broken up. WHAT!? We wouldn't get our dose of dessert until 3pm-- no, we decided to wait. Well the line started at the hotel, looped through the mall into another hotel, out the hotel, around the block, back into the 2nd hotel, back through the mall, and in front of the Westin again. INSANE! We decided that the only way to get in was to wait-- or pull a college-move and cute the line. We waited until most of the people had dispersed or stormed off in aggravation before we made our move to the front of the line.
Our tactics worked and we made it into the glorious room of dessert tables and samples. It was a smorgasbord of cakes, cupcakes, chocolate mousse, candy, ice cream, pie, cookies, biscotti, chocolates, pound cake, croissants...I could continue but I'll leave it up to your imagination.
Highlight:
Chart House's Molten Lava Cake (mini muffin size) with vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, and heath bar crunch (15 minute wait)
World's Largest Boston Cream Pie
Chocolate Ginger Mousse with Mango (I don't like mango or ginger but others said it was good)
Bakery Cafe Chocolate Cupcake
Tre Corsi Anise Biscotti or Lemon Biscotti
Spiced Nuts--which I used as topping for a creamy chocolate ice cream
The Brewster's Cow Beer Infused Ice Cream (Sam Adams + Coffee...terrible but some of the other flavors were better)
So after this lovely sugar high-- how could anyone be mad about a little wait at the door??! right? NO WAY! People were pissed so naturally I assumed the blame would fall on NE Dessert Showcase or the Westin, but I received an apology (and optional refend, which I declined) from a different source the following Monday...
Groupon. Since most of the customers were storming around on Saturday with print-out coupons from either Groupon or LivingSocial, I guess they received some hefty hate-mails. But honestly, it isn't their responsibility! It's not! Read the fine print, dear. Technically the venue gives Groupon the right to sell tickets online and should receive a total number of vouchers sold at the close of the online sale day. So even if, they oversold their capacity, they should have known before. I talked to a vendor and she said they were expecting 5,000 people. 10,000 probably showed up. Another vendor said that it was absolutely insane and that he had never seen this many people here before. The NEDS was usually an industry event. So obviously dropping the ticket price by 50% increased demand by quite a bit. And posting it on LivingSocial (in July) and Groupon (in September) was a little over kill. This is apparently a really big issue with small businesses using Groupon as a Marketing tool. They often don't have the capacity to handle the increase in short-term demand-- the rush.
I still stand firm in believing that it is the responsibility of the venue to weigh the economic costs of deciding the advertise on Groupon. Businesses should be more knowledgeable about what they are signing up for-- and maybe THAT aspect is on Groupon to convey.
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