{"id":184,"date":"2014-05-26T13:04:21","date_gmt":"2014-05-26T12:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stuffbysofia.com\/blog\/?p=184"},"modified":"2014-08-06T10:23:10","modified_gmt":"2014-08-06T09:23:10","slug":"the-hippodrome-casino-the-stark-differences-of-advertising-vs-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stuffbysofia.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/the-hippodrome-casino-the-stark-differences-of-advertising-vs-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hippodrome Casino | The stark differences of advertising vs. reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

So there I was on a Friday afternoon, entering the Hippodrome Casino on Leicester Square (don’t ask). I have never in my life entered a venue where the difference between advertising and reality has been so big. Not to mention that I have never entered such a cheerfully depressing space.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Hippodrome is basically a very old building and I do remember it as an abysmal club. Enter the entrepreneurs who a few years ago invested upwards of 40 million (I read on wikipedia<\/a>) to turn it into an award winning casino. I do wonder what the heck those judges were drinking.<\/p>\n

The people behind the Hippodrome want you to think that the following promotional photograph – plastered on a staircase wall somewhere – is the reality:<\/p>\n

\"Hippodrome<\/a><\/p>\n

Isn’t it great? Mysterious young woman (you can imagine her scantily clad too), glamorous, in a space where dreams come true. Everything so tasteful, so suave, so glamorous.<\/p>\n

The reality is light years away from that advertiser’s dream. The ‘pit’ (I can only think of the central gaming space as ‘the pit’) is one of the scariest and saddest places I have ever seen.<\/p>\n

\"Hippodrome<\/a><\/p>\n

Naturally, my view of the pit may be a little bit affected by the fact that I don’t gamble (never saw the point) and so I don’t get the thrill.<\/p>\n

What I can talk about however is the rest of it. The decoration, the lighting, the bar quality and all that. And it’s all even sadder than the pit. I imagine that some team of designers got together and threw into the mix materials and colors that they thought meant glamour and money. Twinkly lights, red, black, leather, a bit more leather and mirrors.<\/p>\n

The result is a horribly tasteless space which desperately tries to be glamorous and reeks of The Only Way is Essex<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"Hippodrome<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Hippodrome<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Hippodrome<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Hippodrome<\/a><\/p>\n

Drinks are very expensive (\u00a38 for an Aperol Spritz) but during happy hour they do come with passable “tapas”.<\/p>\n

\"Hippodrome<\/a><\/p>\n

The only space where I could actually breathe was the ‘smoking terrace’ – this is a a nicer space, if only because you can drink and smoke and joke about, completely forgetting where you are.<\/p>\n

\"Hippodrome<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Hippodrome<\/a><\/p>\n

Needless to say I will not be going back in a hurry.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/em>
\n Disclosure: We went to the Hippodrome Casino\u00a0on 23 May 2014 and paid for drinks in full. No prior discussion with the venue\u00a0took place.<\/em>
\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/em>
\nHippodrome<\/em>
\nCranbourn Street<\/em>
\nLeicester Square<\/em>
\nWC2H 7JH\u00a0<\/em>
\nTel.\u00a00207 769 8888<\/em><\/p>\n

hippodromecasino.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So there I was on a Friday afternoon, entering the Hippodrome Casino on Leicester Square (don’t ask). I have never…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[71,12,72],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-the-rest","tag-casino","tag-featured","tag-hippodrome"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.stuffbysofia.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/hippodrome.jpg?fit=1600%2C1200&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xPqU-2Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stuffbysofia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stuffbysofia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stuffbysofia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stuffbysofia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stuffbysofia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.stuffbysofia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":300,"href":"https:\/\/www.stuffbysofia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions\/300"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stuffbysofia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stuffbysofia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stuffbysofia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stuffbysofia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}