Whenever a major company sponsors certain events – for example concerts, festivals or art shows – questions arise. Is this sponsorship really necessary? Is there no other way to see the artist? Do I merely serve as the background for the company to create a certain image? So when Bacardi, one of the biggest alcohol producing companies in the world, was presenting its Bacardi B Live – Berlin Edition at the Hotel Michelberger, these questions were inevitable.

To begin with, the line-up of the party sounded fantastic. UK newcomer Afrikan Boy, Canadian electro-rap duo Thunderheist and Brazil’s Baile Funk firestarters Bonde do Rolê, as well as Berlins favourite DJ Shir Khan were booked to rock the stage. Somebody at Bacardi had shown some pretty good taste in music.

Now to make the party as exclusive as possible, tickets could not be bought but were raffled off on the brand’s homepage. Not so great for the fans of the bands who couldn’t get in because of that. Thunderheist were up first to go on stage. Since the patio of Hotel Michelberger was heavily decorated to make the already beautiful setting resemble some tacky beach bar, there was no real room left for a dance floor and only a couple of people could actually dance. Additionally the little space that was left in front of the stage was constantly being crowed by various photographers, but that didn’t seem to bother most of the people in the crowd since they mainly seemed to care whether they would end up on the DOs or DONTs page in Vice.  

Luckily Thunderheist didn’t care either and still put on a decent show, despite the lame crowd response. And even when Bonde do Rolê came on stage and went full blast the crowd was still too busy with… something else. So they did the only sensible thing they could and splashed themselves with fake blood, got drunk and randy on stage and fired confetti canons into the crowd. At least they were having fun, celebrating their DJ’s 30th birthday and smearing themselves with cake and cream. Eventually the live-acts cleared the stage and Shir Khan came on.

Now that the stage was empty and could therefore be used as an extension of the tiny dancefloor, at least some dacing was going on. In the end the music was still enjoyable but the whole evening once more showed that having the right music, the right place and maybe even the right people can still combine into something less than the sum of its parts.

Even after the party the questions still remained. Does an evening like this really have any perceptible effect for such a big company? What was this whole thing good for? Would anybody really leave that party, thinking to themselves: “Oh, what a nice drink that was. Next time I’m in the supermarket I will definitely pick up a bottle of that tasty tasty liquor”? Since I’m no expert on advertising I can only answer these questions with a sincere “definitely maybe.”

As I only found out after the concert the Bacardi Company does struggle with some image problems. Mainly leftist groups and organizations claim that the company finances anti-Cuban terror networks, supports the blockade of Cuba and has been trying to help overthrow the Cuban Government for 40 years. Still the company would propagate their Cuban-image to boost sales of their products. It is certainly correct that leading members of the Bacardi Company have been involved in the foundation of the Cuban American National Foundation, a right-winged Cuban exile organization dedicated to the overthrowing of the Cuban government and have been supporting the foundation with large sums of money. In his book Bacardi – The Hidden War, Colombian investigative journalist Hernando Calvo Ospina claims that the company is heavily involved in fostering the forty year long conflict between the U.S. and Cuba. Others claim that Bacardi’s actions are merely anti-dictator and point to the company’s attempts to overthrow Fulgencio Batista before trying to overthrow Fidel Castro. In both cases the details remain sketchy, but even the Guardian and the Washington Post have already been covering the issue, so it’s most certainly something that needs to be considered by the company and hopefully by the costumers as well. But even without all this information it was still plainly visible that somebody had tried real hard to create an image for this party and the company.

So, thanks for the music. The rest though… not so great.