Neutrogena IndiBlogger Meet : JW Marriott Hotel, Mumbai

A few days ago, I received an email from the IndiBlogger team in which they announced a bloggers meet, The Neutrogena IndiBlogger Meet which was to be held in the city of bollywood, Mumbai. As it was my first blogger meet, I was very excited for it. I immediately registered myself for the meet and was waiting eagerly for the day to come. 

Neutrogena IndiBlogger Meet

Date: April 07, 2013

Place: JW Marriott Hotel, Mumbai

Time: 1:30 pm to 6:00 pm

Finally the day came and I was really excited for it, I woke up early and started getting ready for the event. The location of the event was 18-20 km away from my house and I took BEST bus to reach there. After an hour of travel by bus, I reached Juhu Bus Depot and from there I started searching for rickshaw which could take me to the hotel (Almost 5 years had past since last I visited Juhu, So I was not knowing much about the area), I had a nice view over Juhu Beach which looked calm and blue but I was running out of time, It was already 1:30 pm and I was still searching for rickshaw. Finally I got one and I boarded it quickly, After a 5 minute ride, I was standing outside the location, JW Marriott Hotel.

Entering JW Marriott

I entered the gate and a few guards were standing there, I asked them the way for IndiBlogger meet and finally got a direction to head to. After a couple of security checks, I entered the Hotel lobby and there I saw a giant door which read "Grand Sangam Ballroom", The door was wide open and I saw many young people there, It took me less than a second to realize that this is it. I entered the Ballroom and was welcomed by the IndiBlogger team, A guy from the team showed me the way to Registration counters, There a girl (also from the team) asked me to enter my email address (The email which I use to login to IndiBlogger), After entering the email address, the registration process was complete and I was told to move to next counter, Where another young girl was standing, She asked me to write my name on a tiny cocktail umbrella (I've been told that it was a part of game which was going to take place at the event). 

After completing everything, I took a seat on one of the tables which were arranged by the IndiBlogger team. Since this was my first meet, I was not knowing any one over there. The Ballroom was well decorated, 'IndiBlogger' Style, The Stage had a Big picture of Prachi Desai in the background (I think she is the brand ambassador of Neutrogena), There were two big screens on each side of the stage where Tweets by bloggers were being displayed. I too tweeted with hashtag, just wanted to see my name on the screen :)

Soon a few guys joined me and took a seat near me, we introduced ourselves, shared each others blog URLs etc. I was not knowing much about the meet, though I had a little idea which I got by reading blog posts about previous meets and by seeing the Agenda given by IndiBlogger. We were now waiting for the event to start, It was 2:00 pm but the team was still busy with registration counters. After a few minutes the event finally began. 

Just the Beginning

One of the IndiBlogger guy delivered a Welcome Speech and briefly talked about the events which were going to take place. The speaker went through the three rules of IndiBlogger meet and they were... First, No one will sit with the people they're already sitting with. Second, Every table should have at least two boys and two girls, And Third Rule was that there is no third rule (lol) "Actually it was just a joke, So please don't comment and ask about it" I'm very bad at explaining jokes with my writing :(

So as the rules said, We had to change our table and find some new people, Everyone was walking here and there finding a place. Instead of walking here and there, I remained seated and after a few minutes, some boys and girls came there and joined me, Again we started introducing ourselves to each other and were happy to make new friends, The IndiBlogger rules were made to encourage people to interact with other bloggers and get to know each other.

Games & Fun Activities

The Moment Under the Sun!

So when the crowd was seated, The host talked about the games and other things, A female host showed up and took over.Soon she explained, Why we were made to write our names on tiny umbrellas. Actually it was a game, Every blogger has to choose a random umbrella from all, It was obvious that the umbrella you'll get would have some other bloggers name on it, So our mission was to find that blogger, know more about him and report to the host, The first five people to do that will win cool prizes. Everyone was excited, On hearing Go, everybody rushed here and there in search the bloggers. I was having hard time finding the umbrella blogger when I heard a guy calling my name, "Jimmie". I looked back and he came to me and started asking different questions like "What is my Blog about?" and "What is My Blog URL" etc. I think he really wanted to win the game :P

So after some time when everyone settled on their places, It was the time when we have to say whatever we learned about the umbrella blogger. So randomly names started appearing on the big screen and we have to get up when we see the name of the blogger (which was on the tiny umbrella) and then publicly speak whatever we learned about him, The bloggers giving more information about umbrella bloggers got cool prizes (one of which were 'Soul by Ludacris' headphones). So this continued for 45 more minutes and many people won prizes, I didn't get a chance here :(

Group Formation

So next we were all divided in different groups and there was a game, Each group have to think of a cool name and have to create an anthem, the twist was that the group name and anthem should contain the word sun or something related to sun. It was fun!, everybody was busy with their group members, everyone was trying to think the best name for their group. So we were given 5 minutes and after that all the groups have to stand up and sing their anthem. This was a funny round, every group sang their anthems one group at a time, I was not very happy with the performance of our group and the reason was the anthem, the anthem our leader chose was some devotional song and nobody was knowing the lyrics.

One of the groups played smart and used the popular song 'Give me some sunshine' from 3 idiots movie but unfortunately the judges were smarter :D There was tie between group 1 and group 2 and since i was in group 3, we lost.

Defend the Balls with Umbrellas

Now it was time for the next game, In this game all groups participated (2 groups at a time) So the rules of the game was; First Group A will throw smiley balls at Group B and Group B will defend the ball using Umbrellas then both the teams will switch sides, The aim was to defend as many balls as we could. It wasn't as Easy as it sounded! The twist was that the umbrellas we were using for defense had big holes :O

So the game started and all groups participated sportingly. Our group won the round but unfortunately the game was won by group 6. Each member of group 6 got a cool 'Soul by Ludacris' headphones; While they were celebrating their victory, I was trying not to get jealous of them ;)

Snack Time!

After all the fun, At around 4 pm, we were given a tea break and snacks were served. The Snacks were delicious! there were two different corners for veg and non-veg snacks, the tea was amazing!!! During the break we interacted with other people and made some friends. I met a blogger named Arpan from t4tricks.in, We clicked some pictures at the venue and were waiting for the break to get over.

Meeting Tara Sharma :)

After the break, the event started again. We were shown clip from a New show called 'The Tara Sharma Show', It was the season 2, This show is actually a video diary of Bollywood actress Tara Sharma, In which she shows her daily adventures with her kids (Zen & Kai) as they grow up. The first season of this show was a Success and now she is back with Season 2.

Tara Sharma was invited to the IndiBlogger Meet, She was wearing a bright yellow dress and looked gorgeous. She stepped on the stage and said a few words about her show and Neutrogena products, After that people started asking her questions and she answered them well. This questionnaire continued for some more time and after that she left the venue bidding good bye. After this event I learned many new things about Tara; 1) she is a blogger 2) she uses Neutrogena products (which i thought was a promotional thing) and 3) She finds pronouncing Dermatologist difficult, which I thought was funny and 4th one was !?! let me think....Ahh forget it

Why Neutrogena Products are Better than Others?

So after Tara Sharma left, A Dermatologist showed up. I think his name was Dr. Parekh. He explained us the importance of Sunscreen lotion and what things we should check before buying a Sunscreen lotion. I learned many things which i was not knowing before, It was fun. The Doctor also showed us a UV experiment in which he compared Neutrogena with other leading products, I was surprised to see the results! The sunscreens of leading brands were not so good at UVA protection whereas Neutrogena gave full protection from both UVA and UVB rays. 

After that people started questioning the Dermatologist about Sunscreens and other skin products. During this questionnaire, I learned many new things like; We should not only go for SPF but should also check if the product provides protection fron UVA. I learned that when swimming using Water Resistant sunscreens we should reapply the sunscreen after every 30-40 minutes or else we'll lose the protection. 

Twitter Contest... And the Winner is....

At the Start of the meet, We've been told about a Twitter Contest which was going to held there. In this contest, We have to tweet with #Neutrogena and the tweet topic was 'Under the sun', So everyone present there was eligible for the contest and there was no limit for the entries. So At the end of the event, The winner was announced. The winner was a Girl who got a Nokia Lumia 620 Smartphone (Of Course I was jealous :D)

Concluding with Harlem Shake

As we moved to the end, Everybody was doing Harlem shake to be a part of the viral video. Then a Group shot was clicked, After a great event now it was the time we bid farewell. 

The Group Shot

Everybody got a Gift Hamper from Neutrogena which was a Complete Sun Protection kit which also contained a 4GB USB Drive. Everybody also got a cool IndiBlogger T-Shirt which said 'Indian By Birth, Blogger By Choice' 

So overall the Meet was amazing and I had lots of fun. I interacted with many bloggers, Learned different things and had a great time at JW Marriott. This was an epic afternoon and I'm looking forward to be the part of other Meets. Till then... Good Luck!

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About Jimmie Luthra

Jimmie Luthra is a Mariner, Tech enthusiast, Blogger and Gadget reviewer. He is fond of technology and is usually found playing with some piece of tech. He is also a Guitarist, Music lover & fitness freak.