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GUEST POST: MORWENNA FRANCIS
Last night Andalucia.com had the pleasure of attending Bang & Olufsen by the Sea, a "champagne afternoon and high tea party" held at La Cabane Beach Club in Marbella. The event was to celebrate the product world premiere of their latest sound system, BeoLab 14, along with the launch of the Creation 5 music-radio-video app that our graphics guru, Cheryl Gatward, has been working on.
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Having heard that it was going to be the party of the year, we weren’t disappointed when we arrived. La Cabane has a fantastic beachfront location, with plush carpets and floor-to-ceiling glass windows through which we could watch the stormy sea. Unfortunately it wasn’t exactly beach weather, however the DJ kept the summer vibe going inside with a good playlist of summer beats playing through the surround sound.
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There was a great turnout for the launch, and as soon as we stepped through the door we were offered glasses of champagne and high tea-style seafood appetizers. The food was exquisite and very pleasing on the eye: I’ve never seen such tiny, perfect tarts and sandwiches, beautifully arranged on cake stands on every table. I was very impressed with how a Spanish caterer had managed to perfect the very British concept of afternoon tea!
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We settled ourselves onto some extremely low sofas for a while to enjoy the food, while we listened to a special rendition by a pianist on the Bösendorfer grand piano and then watched while the same piano played Elton John to us. The keys were moving as if an invisible Elton John was there!
The theme of the evening was Les Miserables, and several staff dressed in costumes with this theme were dotted around the room, brandishing pretend guns. The connection with Bang & Olufsen was that the sound experts had collaborated with Universal Music to remaster the film’s soundtrack, creating a special edition for those with the new BeoLab 14 soundsytem. During the evening we were treated to a demonstration of these innovative speakers and it certainly sounded like the singers were in the room with us!
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Around the room, Marbella-based jewelers Gomez y Molina had displayed their sparkling jewels, and Bang & Olufsen had set up plenty of their products to try, including the Creation 5 App: the world’s first application that allows music, radio and video to be used together in the same place, which has been created for easy use with the Bang & Olufsen sound systems. It has been described as “iTunes on steroids”, so it’s definitely one to try!
It was a very enjoyable evening, with enough to please even the less technology-minded.