My Dr. Oetker Suprema Fever Dream
I've been blogging since the late 90s, so I've been to an influencer event or two in my time. Truth be told, I get many invitations to various product launches and other such attention-seeking parties as PR agencies pursue earned media mentions. Telus once took me a Gold medal World Junior Championship game between Canada and Russia. GM once flew me to Ottawa to shoot clay pigeons in the snow and taste all the whiskey I could handle. At this point, I'm essentially a geriatric influencer who has seen some shit.
About a month ago, I received the following email on behalf of Dr. Oetker. I have no idea if there really is a Dr. Oetker, but as a pizza fan, I continued reading...
I've been to TD Music Hall before, and it's part of Massey Hall on Victoria Street. I have never seen an opera, and tried to imagine a "custom-written, one-act opera" to launch a new frozen pizza. I figured there was only one way to find out.
This evening I biked to Massey Hall, got myself a Peroni (there was no Great Lakes Beer) and soaked in an actual opera. It was in Italian and featured actual opera singers. The woman in the elevator who took me up told me it was the first opera ever performed at Massey Hall. I haven't fact checked that yet, but it's a bit of a #mindblow if true.
Here's a little video I took of this frozen pizza opera. You have to see it to believe it.
After the 15-minute opera, there was Suprema pizza fresh from the oven. As mentioned, I'm a pizza fanatic, so I was a happy camper. Influencers were literally photographing the pizza as it arrived. I found this a little annoying because it meant I had to wait to grab a slice.
Now let's talk about these influencers. The overwelming majority were much, much younger than yours truly. Most were in their 20s, and dressed for an opera. Seriously, these people dressed up to attend a mini-opera about frozen pizza. It was wild.
I recognized precisely two people. There was a chap named Joel I knew from back in the day, and Casie Stewart, an influencer I remember from the Raymi the Minx days in the early 2000s. I wrote about Casie and other "Toronto Blog Stars" fifteen years ago. Man, I'm getting old.
In conclusion, this is all ridiculous and I still can't believe it happened and I was there, but this evening I biked to Massey Hall to take in my first opera and it was about frozen pizza. But I got to enjoy that pizza, fresh from the oven, with a cold beer, and I have no regets.