Maybe I wasn't drunk enough, but my experience of the super-hyped, hotly-anticipated and…read moreoutrageously overpriced Hot Tub Cinema left everything to be desired.
8 of us purchased the group ticket option at £29 per person - pretty steep, but who's going to pass up the promise of attentive beverage service whilst sitting in a hot tub enjoying an excellent (surprise) film?
First off, the email confirmation we received listed a food & drink menu, complete with associated prices. According to the hosts, as the event used to be BYOB, they wanted to keep prices low for their patrons. However, when we arrived at the venue, everything was more expensive (a beer - half a plastic cup of unspecified beer - was £4 instead of £3, etc) and the tokens were worth less. When I inquired at the token exchange table, the host said "yeah the email was wrong." Cool. Fanks.
As a hot tub experience, it was horrendous - the space was a sort of dark cramped warehouse, and the hot tubs provided DEFINITELY weren't designed for 8 people; it was a struggle for us to cram our bodies into a tight circle in the inflatable tub (no bubbles, btw) and although they'd set up 2 screens facing each other (presumably so people at different angles in the circle could contort their bodies to see the movie) it was far from relaxing - and one of the screens cut out (and stayed out) 3 minutes into the film.
When I say "film", I of course mean "video" - the surprise movie was being played on somebody's laptop; frequently throughout the viewing the video would stop and we'd have a nice long look at the presenter's Macbook desktop background - and when the movie resumed, we would have missed everything between the points of interruption. Finally, the sound was atrocious - people in my tub were asking each other "did they not conduct a soundcheck?" because as terrible as the acoustics were in the echoey, high-ceilinged warehouse, the presenters' only solution was apparently to crank the volume up as high as it would go - resulting in ear-splitting sound effects (a door slamming, a car engine) and practically inaudible dialogue.
The tub-side-service throughout the movie was OK - their token system (allowing actual wallets to be stored in the cloakroom) was fairly effective, but (and should I really be surprised at this point?) they were out of almost everything listed on the menu sent by email, so when someone ordered caramel popcorn they were instead brought salted - and after it was handed to them in the moist, dark environment, the "waiter" would say "it's all we have tonight." Only one member of our party actually ordered an "entree" (hotdog) and said it was bad.
After the video ended they turned on some music (Gangnam Style, etc.) and all the wasted hipsters gyrated happily in their tubs for about another hour.
In concept, Hot Tub Cinema is amazing. In reality, a huge waste of money, and ultimately just kind of depressing. Maybe since we went "off-season" we missed out on the magic that would be a rooftop viewing?
If you go I'd recommend getting nice & drunk beforehand, checking your high expectations at the door, trying to get into a tub with fewer than 6 people, and not getting too hung up on the idea of actually being able to watch a movie. Hot Tub Cinema's tagline is "AN UNFORGETTABLE EXPERIENCE" - and I agree; I just wish it were in a good way.