Special thanks to all Waterfront Magazine readers and friends that made it out to Houston Ave restaurant, 33 Yonge street in Toronto on Saturday Dec 31st to help us ring in the New Year. It was an incredible party by all accounts with lots of new faces and many Eco conscious individuals in the crowd. Indeed, everyone got a glimpse of our waterfront lifestyle magazine as we dispensed over one hundred copies of the latest issue alongside other branded giveaways in complimentary gift bags just after midnight.
This year, once again we proudly teamed up with Laura Bilotta, matchmaker and new relationship and dating advice book author from Single in the City. Laura shared details of the party with her massive database of Singles socialites which basically guaranteed the event would be a big success.
Over four hundred and fifty elegantly dressed individuals attended our New Year’s Eve Gala, which Laura has called An Elegant Affair for the last twelve years.
This year the annual celebration grew a little bit bigger, and became a little better with new delicious snacks, and Houston Ave ‘s own specialty drinks, and some crowd-pleasing technology. Each year there are more expensive giveaways, and more fun professionals in the mix as everyone comes out looking to network, mingle and have a great time.
Jib Strategic Donated The WallRUs Social Media Feed Wall
This year our 2016 New Year’s Eve party marked the debut of some cool new interactive elements including a social media wall that was a contest with business telephones from Standard Telecom as prizes. Rob Campbell from Jib Strategic, a Toronto advertising agency that specializes in community engagement, hooked up the ‘interactive’ social media wall from The WallRUs to thrill the masses. It was indeed truly interactive because all night long people were texting and tweeting their thoughts and smart phone photography and videos plus the hashtag and a few minutes later these rich media elements would show up on screen to the shrieks of delight and personal recognition from the guests.
The high technology installation inspired the assembly to share themselves digitally as they consumed the delicious food and drinks and musical styling of DJ Lynx.
Much like the party, the music also fused together and celebrated many cultures
To please such an eclectic crowd where every race and age representing over thirty years of musical influences and preferences is present, is no easy task for any disc jockey, but DJ Lynx really rose to the challenge in the most amazing way. To everyone’s delight he played tracks that fused old classic rock songs into modern dance beats. Imagine if Michael Jackson was performing Fleetwood Mac, or The Cars or Queen – that’s what it sounded like, and the dance floor was packed all night long.
At midnight, the dancing stopped and there was a dramatic live countdown on the video screen which was echoed by DJ Lynx over the entire sound system.
The crowd counted down too and then cheered and kazoo-ed in the New Year as the champagne popped and the bubbly beverage flowed from the bar with staff free pouring from bottles for several minutes. After toasts upon toasts some ritual songs were sung aloud, and we all settled into 2017. But just before people got back to dancing and carousing, Waterfront Magazine founder and editor, Karim Mirshahi and Single in the City’s Laura Bilotta took a few minutes to address the crowd.
They both did a shout-out to sponsors as they dispensed some prizes and plugged their upcoming magazine and book launch related events, respectively. Then it was back to the party which lasted until 3am at that venue, but certain after parties at nearby hotels and private residences lasted much longer (so we were told). Happy New Year – may 2017 be your best yet! Thanks again from all of us at Waterfront Magazine.
