Any party that greets guests with candy on arrival is off to a good start in our books, especially when every other edible (aside from the cheese and cured meat stations) seemed wrapped in gluten or involved an incredibly difficult to eat chicken wing.
But the food is beside the point.
Thursday’s Power Ball was, as always, a notable party. You really should have been there if you weren’t.
Not that we have to tell you, but the Power Ball is the Power Plant‘s main fundraising event and one of our favourite parties on the Toronto event circuit. This year’s Power Ball theme, “Old/New World,” paid tribute to that revolutionary time when digital technology developed from an analogue world.
The theme meant nostalgic reminders of simpler days past and invited vintage and retro-inspired options in dress as well. For those of us who don’t fare well with themes, the modern element meant that any new(ish) dress or suit in your closet would work as an alternative.
If you scooped up a Lounge ticket for the early portion of the evening, you couldn’t have missed the unique performance by award-winning English British artist Naomi Kashiwagi. It involved live gramophone glitching as she played 78-rpm records re-appropriated on a wind-up gramophone. In other words, every hipster’s wet dream.
Making for no shortage of Instagram activity was the B.Y.O.B. (Bring Your Own Beamer) installation. One pleasantly over-stimulating room featured a mixed bag of the works of 31 artists projected on the wall for all to see (and snap).
Admittedly, some of the art was plain creepy… as in, we weren’t the only ones to question for a moment whether the dogs featured in two installations of Jon Rafman’s were in fact real and stuffed (shudder). Rafman also took over the main corridor with eerily lifeless dummies hanging from the ceiling, along with body parts bound and mounded on the wall that were made complete with oozing bodily fluid. Let’s just say it was a little too graphic for Instagram without looking like a total perv.
You didn’t have to search the sprawling venue for a bar – they were practically in every room. No wait times and free-flowing drinks ensured guests got their money’s worth. As we all know, wait times for booze can make or break a pricy charity event.
Most of the suit-wearing dudes opted for the Johnny Walker bar, where they drank it straight or in one of two signature cocktails: Johnny Walker Billionaire or the Johnny Walker Basil Smash. We stuck closely to the Ciroc bar, where the easy-on-the-eyes bartender had our next Ciroc Apple Blossom (apple puree and Ciroc Peach) ready when he saw us coming.
To balance out the booze, Marc Thuet’s outdoor gourmet hotdog station, complete with every topping imaginable, was a decided crowd-pleaser.
Other perks included discounts on Uber cars, free valet, DJ/VJ Sorenson’s two-hour multimedia performance, and watching the joy in some wild guests’ faces as they tried to borrow one of the stuffed dogs for a cocktail.
As usual, the lakeside outdoor area was the place to converge come midnight. Some of the city’s biggest influencers in art, fashion, entertainment and pretty much every other profession (Candice & Alison Events and Pennant Media Group ensured the who’s who graced the gallery) caught up, became friends and talked shop well into the evening.
A few even indulged in a make out or two (yeah, we saw that).
#LYNL | (Live Your Notable Life)
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