Shhhh...

Recently I’ve been posting a lot about growing trends for pop-ups and guerilla activities. Increasingly, these niche events are gathering operational momentum through the development of online communities accessed predominately through Facebook, blogs and mobile organizing tools. Secret-ish societies are forming to host underground events that are available only to a select crowd of people in the know, and are providing personalized individual experiences just for you and a select group of friends.

Not always entirely legal, in that they don’t always comply with licensing and fire code legislation, or are cash only, they are becoming an increasingly popular option for a good night out or intimate online experience.

Food

Kilburn The Underground Restaurant is a popup restaurant in London that has just caught my attention. Held in the chefs house, her blog acts as menu and chronicles the trials and tribulations of running a fine dining establishment in your front room. The blog is a great read, and based on reviews/photos, a pretty decent meal. Quite interesting that her paypal account, originally used to process guests payments, has been blocked – but luckily wegottickets.com has taken over this service. Now that it has started to get a bit of mainstream press I can only hope the exposure doesn’t kill it off. If you are in London, you better get in quick to experience the next Mexican themed meal.

(Note - You could also try a similar set up at the Secret Ingredient on Facebook)

Film

Secret Cinema started up in 2008 as a way to view films in a themed location with a select group of people. Quickly sponsored by Nokia, the group is now staging monthly film extravaganzas in secret locations around the UK. Sign up for updates, but Tell No One!

Sounds

Black Cab Sessions puts your favorite musicians into a black cab to record a song. They are simple and intimate moments with incredible artists as they sing their way through a city. This session with Brian Wilson is a must see. (Thanks Annette!)

PopUp

The craze for pop-ups has spawned temporary restaurants, stores, cinemas, landscapes, magazines and hotels.

A recent evolution in New Zealand saw YellowPages team with local businesses (all listed in YellowPages obviously!) to create the Yellow Treeehouse – a pop up restaurant located 10m up a tree.



All in all it seems to be both a terrific example of a branded popup, interesting design exercise, and good restaurant: Word of mouth buzz – check! Architecturally inventive – check! Decent food – check! Like Melbourne’s’ Greenhouse by Joost or Londons Flash by Bistroteque , it is the popular new kid on the temporary block.

However, as an interesting twist on the traditional popup, Yellow Treehouse also offered a popup job. A job to present the process of design, construction and running of the restaurant through video and daily blogging.

Tracy Collins was selected from a pool of applicants with experience in presenting, project management, restaurants and piano accordion and her job has been central to the message of the campaign. Tracy gives a very likable 2.0 face to the campaign, in a professionally structured and edited way.

I heard about this amazing project when my flatmate Matt spotted it in the Rodney Times. I’d set the goal of challenging myself this year and thought ‘why not?’. I auditioned, then got a call a couple of days later saying I was shortlisted. I turned up thinking there would be ten of us and there were only three. Wow. Two days later I got the job. Yay!

The timing was great. Just the other week I was sitting in an Indian restaurant thinking I really need more work before Christmas as money was a bit tight. Obviously someone is smiling on me. Otherwise I’d be playing my accordion which I do professionally (honestly) which is great but has its ups and downs. I also do a bit of presenting and have trained in Film and TV make up. This project couldn’t have come at a better time but is definitely going to be a challenge. Not only do I have to find all of the people we need on Yellow but once the restaurant is built, I’ll be helping run it. Brilliant eh?

In another pop-up job opportunity, The Queensland Tourism Board has recently launched The Best Job In The World Campaign.

They are calling for applicants for a job to live on Hamilton Island (above the Great Barrier Reef) for six months. The job carries a salary package of AUD$150,000 for a six-month contract.



They are looking for someone:

with an adventurous attitude, passion for the outdoors and good communication skills. A broad range of experience is considered and Tourism Queensland will be selecting applicants based on: - Enthusiasm for the role, Entertainment value (personality and creativity), Presentation skills (being media-friendly), At least one year's relevant experience.

If you think you fit the role there is still 14 days before application close.

You will however be facing competition like Osama Bin Laden – The Guardian reports - The people at Queensland's department of tourism were still a little taken aback when the world's most wanted man sent in a video explaining why he was the perfect candidate to act as caretaker of Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef.
In the 30-second clip, which is available on YouTube, a prankster with a questionable sense of humor has overdubbed footage of Osama Bin Laden and used subtitles to make his case for the job. "I enjoy the outdoors and sandy areas," the subtitles read. "I've got experience with videos, delegating tasks and experience with large scale event co-ordination."

Osama has been showing up in other strange places recently – most notably joining Idi Amin in a (risky/questionable?) campaign for the Samsung i450 Music Phone.



The association of Osama with these campaigns – both unexpected and intentional – shows an interesting shift in his pop mythology as he continues to elude capture for his crimes. Like the Branson/Guevara pairing, its sure to be controversial.

Now it will be interesting to see who and what pops up next!