1920’s Event

Through a series of interactive and immersive experiences, Decadent Times helped bring the exhibition and the Roaring Twenties to life from the decadence and glamour of America’s prohibition Jazz Age and 1930’s Hollywood, to the end of the Great Depression.

To create buzz and excitement pre event, the Ashmolean’s public engagement and commercial teams took over Leiden Square in the Westgate Shopping Centre with Charleston performances by the Gatsby Girls in John Lewis and Lieden Square, whilst acapella group The Beatroots sang 20s tunes. Decadent Times provided a pop-up red velvet tent to give a taster of the activities that people could experience on the night.

As the centre piece of the evening experience, Decadent Times designed and installed a hidden speakeasy at the Museum galleries. Featuring gin cocktails, vintage games, and duke boxes playing music from the 1930s. Attendees could experience first-hand the sounds of the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, Benny Goodman’s famous Carnegie Hall concert, and some good old Chicago delta blues. Actors posing as bruisers guarding the door, flappers and dapper gents, and the occasional suspicious gangster and gal mingled amongst guests to give an authentic experience of what it would have been like to party prohibition style in 1930’s America.

The team installed a vintage gaming lounge in the museum’s roof top bar where visitors could enjoy authentic table and board games, as well as a vintage 1930’s open plan photo booth including an original wooden obscura installed with a modern camera to capture vintage photos with original props and musical instruments from the 1920’s and 30’s. An adapted 1916 wind up mahogany Gramophone played original shellac 78 records from the 1920s, as guests waited for their finished photos to print.

Throughout the evening, guests were invited to join in Charleston lessons and Swing dance classes, and entertained by Flapper Girls demonstrating the fancy footwork of the era whilst musicians played everything from American Swing to Cabaret in the cafe, to cool jazz in the Rooftop Restaurant.