How do you organise the opening of a bar, restaurant or venue?

Design the opening as a live preview of the experience the venue will offer. BESO Pedralbes opened with 650 guests, Mediterranean styling, signature food and cocktails, live music, performances and a photocall, in line with its goal of becoming the fashionable tardeo spot.

What makes an opening event get people talking?

An experience consistent with the brand, moments designed for photos and a guest list with the power to amplify. In this case, well-known faces from the social scene and the pool performances gave the night content that circulated well beyond the event itself.

Case study

No Barcelona without Beso: the opening of BESO Pedralbes

BESO opened its Pedralbes venue, at the Hotel Gran Meliá Torre Melina, with an event for 650 guests. The goal: to present an oasis in the middle of the city and make it the official go-to spot for tardeo, Barcelona's late-afternoon party scene.

ClientBESO
Formatvenue opening
PlaceHotel Gran Meliá Torre Melina, Pedralbes, Barcelona

The challenge

An opening has a very specific mission: for the right audience to discover the new venue, talk about it and want to come back. At an event like this, the challenge is to position the place from day one, not just show it off. Opening night defines how the venue will be perceived for a long time.

In this case, the bar was set by the brand itself. One line sums it up: “Barcelona can no longer be understood without Beso Beach”. Opening in Pedralbes meant carrying that identity over to a different neighbourhood and format without losing what makes it recognisable. The stated goal was also ambitious: for BESO Pedralbes to become the official fashionable tardeo spot. A good party isn't enough for that; the experience has to resemble what the venue promises to offer every week.

The idea

The concept was to present BESO Pedralbes as “an oasis in the middle of the city”, combining food, music, performances and styling in a single Mediterranean story. The opening wasn't a presentation of the venue, but a live preview of what tardeo in that space was going to be.

There was Mediterranean styling, Mediterranean-inspired dishes and signature cocktails, live music and fire, dance and pool performances, plus a photocall. Among the 650 guests were well-known faces from the social scene, which amplifies the launch beyond the night itself. It fits because in leisure hospitality the opening is the first campaign: the event has to be the product at its best.

What we did

Opening event for 650 guests at the Hotel Gran Meliá Torre Melina
Mediterranean styling
Mediterranean-inspired dishes and signature cocktails
Live music
Fire, dance and pool performances
Photocall

Key takeaways (expert view)

If you're opening a venue, make the opening the best version of what you'll offer afterwards, and pick guests who'll tell the story for you.

The opening is the product, live

An opening that looks like what the venue will offer every week sells better than any advert. Here the night was a preview of the tardeo they wanted to position: food, music and a Mediterranean atmosphere. For venues and hospitality spaces, the lesson is not to design a generic opening party, but an intensified version of the real experience.

Guests who amplify

Having well-known faces from the social scene turns an opening into news and into content. The guest list is a communication tool, not a protocol formality. For any venue launch, deciding who you invite is deciding who will tell people you've opened, and in which circles you'll be talked about.

A brand that moves neighbourhood

Taking an identity closely tied to one particular place to another neighbourhood means keeping the essentials and adapting the rest. The Mediterranean thread and the festive tone kept the brand recognisable in a different setting. For hospitality groups and venues with several locations, the opening is the ideal moment to prove the brand is more than a place.

Services involved

→Venue marketing →Experiential marketing →Live content