Last Thursday I got a text from EH that RedBull was hosting a Flugtag Launch Party downtown St. Paul at the Landmark Center for applicants. Yup…totally going to that! We had no clue what to expect. In all honesty, we thought we would walk into some boring room and check out a few sketches from our competition. WOW…were we wrong!
Redbull Selection Event
EH and I walk in to hear loud, bumping music, huge bouncers in awesome suits and promo girls in tight outfits handing out ballots to cast votes for our top 10 favorite teams. Shocking is a bit of an understatement for what we were seeing. We move in further…there are displays with Flugtag drawings scattered through the facility. (Which was AMAZING by the way!). Apparently, they had about ½ the sketches on the boards, and the other ½ in 3 ring binders. We were LUCKY enough to have our sketch in a great spot on display. We noticed appetizers being passed around by servers and several bars set up through the space. We walked over to grab a drink and found that they had RedBull Vodka, Beer and Wine…the kicker, it was all free. What? Unheard of. We immediately started to text up a storm with fellow teammates NW, CA, JB as well as a couple of friends who live in the area (NT and JG). Basically, the texts stated “Get up here, this is amazing!!!” They were all there in about 15 minutes. Luckily…we all live in St. Paul!
Teams promoting their Flugtags with T-Shirts, free drink tickets to the bars sponsoring them and free drinks (that were already free – that was pretty funny). Were we out of our league here? At first, we thought maybe we were, but we quickly realized we had just as good of a chance as anyone else there. Plus, our sketch and video were sheer awesomeness (per us). So…we started chatting with everyone and anyone we could trying to rally for and trade votes. There was definitely some strategy involved here to get more votes. (I should mention top 6 votes were supposedly a shoe in for the event July 24th). We ended up promoting our idea to some “random” guy who was looking at our sketch. Ends up he was a judge in town from Utah. Once I found out he was from Utah…I knew I could get him going. See…we snowboard out there and I know a bit about that ‘territory”! Through some more conversation, I found out that he once lived in Park City, and knew my dad’s friend “Brover” who owns O’Shucks in Park City. Small world. Even though EH accused him of not actually being a judge (which was hilarious), the conversation was still productive. He said we made a good case for our Flugtag. Score! At the same time, we were swiftly approached by a spunky blond girl who wanted to interview us on camera. We signed some sort of release documents and before we knew it, we were being interviewed. There were 2 cameras, lights, speakers and a RedBull rep asking us questions: What is your team all about? Why did you apply? Are you scared of heights? How are you going to build it? What do you do for a living? My hubby CA said he was a “systems analyst” and they didn’t even know how to respond. Yes…we have real jobs! Guess they didn’t know what that was, most don’t. The interview was so fun and we quickly realized we definitely don’t have a problem with shyness or talking. But, we did all want to talk at the same time! All and all, I think we did a fine job even thought we obviously had no experience being on camera! It was an unexpected experience and a total blast! (Dear RedBull – I would pay $$ to get my hands on that video of us!!) I’m sure pieces will surface somewhere…if you read this and see it, send it to me please!
After that, we continued to trade votes, gossip with other teams, and try to figure out who the front-runners were. The St. Paul Vulcans swooped in and caused a scene as always. Lucky for us, our buddy SG’s dad is a Vulcan and offered some protection from the black “V” they like to draw on your face. We knew they had to be a shoe in – I mean how can you not let the Vulcans in?? (They got in).
St. Paul Vulcans
We ended up staying until 9pm, turned in our ballots on the way out, and talked about what an amazing, adrenaline filled night we had. Tomorrow was another day and at that point, could still only wait! BTW – there were 429 applications!
Special thanks to NT who rallied TONS of votes for us. Her approach? Simple. She would simply walk up to any random guy and ask “Will you vote for us?” 99% of the time, they did. Probably didn’t hurt that she is so dang cute! Love you NT!!
Thanks for reading, more to come!
TwinCitiesChick
Twincitieschick 