Tampa Bay will be front and center of the sporting world this weekend as the 2018 NHL All Star Weekend comes to town on a very quite weekend in the city. We say that facetiously as the league specifically chose Tampa Bay to host the grand event during Gasparilla, a time when the entire city invades downtown together with one mission: PARTY.
And there will be plenty of that, starting Friday, January 26th and running all the way through the All-Star Game on Sunday, January 28th. There are a TON of FREE things to see and do surrounding the All-Star festivities starting Friday for the NHL’s interactive zones (appropriately called PreGame) taking place in the silver parking lot at Amalie Arena (directly in front of the Marriott Waterside), as well as in Cotanchobee Fort Brooke Park, directly behind Amalie Arena. There will also be things to do on Ford Thunder Alley including games, sponsorship areas, giveaways, meet-n-greets, mascot games, entertainment and interactives, live music, DJ’s, live television broadcasts from the NHL Network and so much more. This takes place Friday from 5pm-10pm, Saturday from 12pm-11pm and Sunday from 12pm-3pm. There will also be a FREE concert event at Curtis Hixon Park on Friday night featuring Fitz & The Tantrums! Saturday is surely going to be the biggest party day of all with the Gasparilla Pirate Invasion kicking off the day, leading right into the NHL Skills Competition that evening. Sunday concludes the party with the NHL Beach Bash at Pier 60 in Clearwater and of course, the 2018 NHL All-Star Game, featuring 5 members from the Tampa Bay Lightning: Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point (filling in for Victor Hedman, Andrei Vasilevskiy and Head Coach, Jon Cooper. Not too shabby, Tampa.
Street Laced was tapped to handle various phases of the upcoming weekend. The Tampa Bay Sports Commission tapped our grassroots team to saturate the market with rack cards and posters promoting all of the family friendly FREE events, to be spread throughout the Tampa Bay area, targeting local retail, lifestyle, food service, entertainment, fitness & sporting outlets, family friendly establishments and more, stretching as far west as Clearwater (Beach Bash) and as far east as Brandon. Over 50 downtown partnerships were also included in the promotion, allowing their customers and patrons to register to win tickets to all the events, including the game on Sunday.
The NHL contacted Street Laced to provide entertainment options for their main performance stage in Cotanchobee Fort Brooke Park on Friday and Saturday. Having great partnerships with companies like ESP Tampa & Jane’s World Entertainment (we also gotta send a BIG shout out to Brokenmold Entertainment), booking atmospheric and eye-catching talent would be no issue. LED drum lines, lyrian dancers, LED Robots and more will be on hand to WOW fans and create a welcoming vibe to the party in the park. The NHL created a Biergarten in the middle of the park for the weekend, so it was only fitting to secure a Polka-style/Oktoberfest band (St. Denis) to handle the duties for a few hours on Friday and Saturday. And on Sunday, Street Laced DJ’s own Jake Dela Cruz will be mixing LIVE at the Beach Bash at Pier 60 in Clearwater and will feature a round-robin style youth street hockey tournament, organized by the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Lightning Made Hockey program, where 15+ teams from around the country will compete against each other in order to claim the All-Star Beach Bash Champion title! Other entertainment includes kids’ games and inflatables. Fans and visitors are encouraged to visit the beautiful white sands of Clearwater Beach, America’s #1 Beach for this exciting event.
And of course, Vice President of Street Laced, Greg Wolf, who also serves as the In-Game Host for the Tampa Bay Lightning, was brought in by the NHL to host the Red Carpet Player Walk on Sunday, as well as events surrounding the Skills Competition and All-Star Game, which features a LIVE PERFORMANCE from Kid Rock! There really is no phase in this upcoming weekend that Street Laced hasn’t had it’s imprint on. We hope you will enjoy it as much as we will!
For all the details surrounding the weekend, visit: NHL All-Star Weekend 2018