This is not an invitation to 24/7 drinking and alcohol poisoning, but rather a game play to be seen to be partying hard and still going strong on the third day.
With all the presentations, booze cruises, black tie affairs and awards, there is plenty of time to go awry and mistime your bid for inclusion in the ranks of extreme party animals and endurance kings of Sun City.
I have it on good authority that some of the most outrageous partying from previous episodes of the Loeries was done and completed by those who weren't partying all weekend, but were at the scene when it really counted.
Much like a goal poacher in football or an opportunist on the race track who seizes the opportunity - having remained on the fringes for most of the competition - the legends at the Loeries save themselves for the career enhancing opportunity.
The bottom line, fact of the matter, is that while not many would admit it, partying hard at the Loeries and lasting the whole game earns you a certain kind of awe, if not respect from advertising peers. As succeeding in the advertising industry is a game of extreme creativity and selling brands, how better to establish oneself than by building and sustaining ones own brand at the Loeries?
There will be those that emerge relatively unscathed from this coming weekend and go down in advertising folklore and there will also be the pretenders and wannabes.
Receiving an award and partying hard is almost a given as the two at the Loeries go hand in hand and are coupled on the tote. In fact partying if you are there just for the party is also good, but as they say in the classics... the booze doesn't run out on Friday night.
That in essence is what this weekend boils down to. Three days of discussion, networking, partying and meeting people in the industry. The thing to memorise is to take the hangover back home with you on Monday rather than nursing it through Saturday and Sunday, while missing the party.
