Last Saturday, I went to Hopscotch, the largest premium Scotch, Whisky, and Beer festival. The tickets sold out weeks ago, and I was lucky enough to get an invite from a friend who had a spare ticket. I had no idea how popular this event is until I got to PNE Forum where it was taking place-line around the block. After you give them a $45 ticket at the door, you are handed a Hopscotch shot glass and five tokens upon entering.

Basically, you’re on the floor packed full of alcohol “enthusiasts” and vendors from around the world, and you walk up to stations you’d like and give them however much token they ask for a tasting portion of what they are serving. The token price can range from 1~3 tokens, and they are more than happy to explain the history, company, and even the unique manufacturing process of the booze you’re gulping down.

My five tokens were gone after 10 minutes, so I just went ahead and exchanged more tokens in bulk to carry around with me all night. I felt like I was a kid again, in a very adult arcade. As I was thinking this, I made a tweet saying, “Is this paradise?” with a picture attached. Few minutes later, I got an alert saying Hopscotch replied to my tweet, and it was up on the giant screen at the venue as well.

Being a dork that I am, I thought of Social Media Monitoring & Engagement we learned in class. Not only they monitored Twitter for their specialized hashtags for the event, they took what is purely a digital interaction and put it up on a physical screen for everyone to see, encouraging the rest of the consumers to follow suit. Of course this is common practice, but it was still nice to get an unexpected response from an event, and I must say, I did feel an immediate attachment to the company.