When you tell people you are going to Tiki Oasis and they
ask “What is Tiki Oasis?”
How do you answer that question to people outside the
Tiki community?
This year will be my 8th year attending this
event – so I guess 8 years ago I was asking that same question at a surf show
in San Diego. How do you describe the
event to someone that has never been before?
Trying to describe Tiki Oasis to someone that has never heard of it is
like trying to describe Fantasmic at Disneyland to people the first week it opened
and no one knew what it was. ( I’ve done since I worked crowd control on
Fastasmic opening weekend). Describing
Fantasmic went something like this “Well
it has large screens of water that they project movie images on them and there are
floats and a battle on a Pirate ship with fireworks and a Dragon that sets the
river on fire” ---wait a 15 seconds and
repeat to the next guest.
Trying to describe Tiki Oasis is almost as difficult.
I guess I usually would say something like this. “It Is an event that happens in San Diego
every year where people wear Hawaiian shirts and retro clothing and drink Mai
Tais while listening to surf/exotica music. There is retro shopping in the daytime and
bands and rum tastings and things called room crawls with more bands that are
sometimes even better than the bands on the main stage.
It is a place where strange things happen like Fire Eating Mermaids
swimming in the pools or a burlesque dancer hanging out with a guy in a gorilla
suit in an elevator.” I guess
basically it is like Fantasmic -- if Captain Jack Sparrow was putting it on and
handing out free rum (tip your bartender).
Maybe the correct answer when someone asks “What is Tiki
Oasis?” should be not to tell people
about Tiki Oasis. In the eight years I’ve
been it has become bigger and bigger every single year. I remember the first year I came when I was
lured by the Haunted Surf music theme of Voodoo Island. I think I just booked a pool view room
logging onto the website casually one day.
Last year was the first year we couldn’t get a pool view room ---as we
sat down the night the site went live to try and refresh like a nerd trying to
get into Comic Con. This year we were lucky to get a room at the hotel at
all. So maybe we should treat Tiki Oasis
like Fight Club and not talk about it. I came with one friend the first year---now our group could charter a short bus.
How would you describe the Oasis that is Tiki?
I’m running out of words so here are a few pictures from
each year I’ve been so far.
2008 Tiki Oasis Newbie
First Mugs --mine is the Terminator one
First Room Party
This is something you don't see everyday
Zombie Theme
2009 Kim's first year
2010
First time seeing the Hula Girls on the main stage
Thee Swank Bastard on the main Stage
