World Cup Fever is about to take over DC Nightlife! Get ready for a wild ride as Panorama Productions and Ultrabar play host to the 2010 World Cup Kick off party!

 If not for The Spice Girls who’s “Posh Spice” eventually brought David Beckham and his underwear campaign into trash magazines, I would know zero about soccer.  Technically, I still know zero about soccer, I just know one soccer player and more about his Cologne and tattoos than his prowess on the field.  The closest I came to soccer was on a pee wee league before I was old enough to make decisions about what activities filled my afternoons and those memories are about as distant as my own birth. Yet, World Cup fever is about to hit DC Nightlife, so I am trying to get prepared.........Here we go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 So, the World Cup is apparently upon us and I couldn’t be more clueless.  Of course Ultrabar, never one to miss the opportunity to throw a party will celebrate the World Cup with a series of events.

In an effort to broaden my horizons, of course I turned to my fail safe, Google and Bing.  To my amazement it’s a huge deal.  Who knew?  The World Cup is like the Olympics, but for just soccer.  The next World Cup will be held in South Africa, between June 11 and July 11 2010.  Held every four years, the World Cup is the most widely-viewed sporting event in the world,  (says Wikipedia) where an estimated 715.1 million people watched the final match of the 2006 World Cup held in Germany.  That’s a lot of people, though I was not one of them, it got me thinking…

Is this really true?  In comparison… 

The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games attracted the largest global TV audience ever.  Between August 8 and August 24, 2008, 4.7 billion viewers — or 70% of the world’s population — tuned in to watch the Games, according to Nielsen.  In comparison, 3.9 billion watched the 2004 Athens Games, while 3.6 billion followed the 2000 Sydney Games on TV. 
 
So that’s obviously more, but that is for the entirety of the games.  However, it was also recorded that 1 Billion people watched the opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.  
 

I know these numbers are huge, but they are hard to grasp without a frame of reference.  There are 309,312,891 people in the United States of America. If everyone in the U.S. lined up single file, the line would stretch around the Earth almost 7 times. That's a lot of people. In comparison to things that apply to my world, it was estimated that 43 million people watched the Oscars this year in the US.  American Idol is reported to attract over 63 million votes and Led Zeppelin have sold over 110 million albums in the United States alone.  It was also just reported that over 400 million hate Justin Bieber (you can quote me on that one).  

Though Ultrabar holds about 800 people, you can be one of the lucky ones to celebrate the kickoff event for the World Cup on June 4, 2010.  Chroma (the VIP 3^rd floor ) will host the event with DJ Saam spinning Dance, house, international, Hip Hop and a few  soccer anthems.  There will also be free admission all night for those wearing a team jersey.  World Cup games will be aired on each of our flatscreeens and an authentic jersey giveaway contest will also be held.  Drink specials will include $3 Guinness and $4 Dos Equis beer, $6 rum and cokes and $6 Café Paton shots.  For VIP TABLE RESERVATIONS CALL 202-638-4663 or email us at info@ultrabardc.com

♪♫♪ OLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE OLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! OLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE OLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! ♪♫♪

Having a difficult time ordering drinks over the loud music?  Well that’s a weekly dilemma for many customers and bartenders in the DC nightlife scene.

I’ve mentioned several times before that my hearing is on the fast track to becoming legally deaf.  Bartending in nightclubs takes a toll on the eardrums.  I constantly find myself unintelligently saying “what?”, “huh?”, “excuse me” in response to drink orders.  To cope with this working hazard and avoid serving the wrong drink order, I’ve searched far and wide for a solution.

Almost at a loss, I realized many of us (bartenders) are coping with our club deafness by using hand signals to communicate.  Holding up fingers to communicate the price of a drink, scribbling notes on napkins, tons of finger pointing and lip reading, are some of the ways bartenders have utilized in order to deal with the hearing shortcomings that are associated with loud amplified music.  Guests have also compensated by texting their orders and holding up their phones.   Thanks Gallaudet! Clever!

However, I recently came across an article about gang signs……. could some of these primitive hand gestures that bartenders use to communicate be mistaken as gang signs?  There was an extensive chart displaying many common gang signs.  What if beyond my knowledge I’ve been throwing out gang signs to unsuspecting guests. 

Another hazard for bartenders coping with loud music is that we must place our ears right on someone’s mouth to hear even the slightest hint of what the guests are saying.  I feel as though this is more of a downer on my end than the guest in the event they forgot their gum that evening.

Maybe I should start with some sign language courses, but what is the real use unless the person you are trying to communicate with actually knows sign language as well.  It’s like the years of French I took in school, besides having forgotten the grand majority of those 8 years; I’ve known tops, ten people who were fluent in the language. 

Perhaps we can all begin with some baby steps, say give a signal for at least the drink specials we are now offering.  Besides the open bar on the main floor Fridays and Saturdays 9pm-10pm, we now have $3 Guinness beer, $6 rum and coke, $6 Patron espresso shots, and $150 Kettle One vodka bottles. 

It’s all about learning to adapt, and if Helen Keller can figure out how to pump water out of the well in the backyard, than figuring out how to communicate with a customer in a loud nightclub should be a cinch!