Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Real Guinness, fake Bono

Irish biotech lesson #1: Beware of Guinness in a bottle.

Around 4 p.m. yesterday, the BIO conference floor broke into a freewheeling festival of "hospitality events" - wine tastings, open bars, and fiestas designed to showcase all the different nations and states selling themselves at the convention.

After some loud announcements that the conference floor was NOW CLOSED, the Irish national pavilion remained conspicuously thronged, as bartenders passed out wine and cracked open bottles of Guinness. And Guinness, it turns out, will foam through the neck of a bottle for a very long time after it's opened. Numerous convention-goers, as they fanned out through the acres of convention floor, kept having to stop and hold the bottle away so the foamy suds didn't erupt all over their cuffs.

Irish biotech lesson #2: Even better than the real thing.

Months ago, when BIO was being planned, the invitation went out: Would Bono come? Apparently he was interested. His people talked to the BIO people. And the talks broke down - perhaps because the singer-cum-world health activist didn't want to deliver a keynote address under all those drug-company banners. Enter Pavel Sfera. The ridiculously convincing Bono lookalike, who has been known to cause a commotion in Boston just by sitting in a café, wandered the floor on Monday drawing a crowd of "is he or isn't he?" onlookers. Sfera, who doesn't always make an effort to explain he's not actually Bono, said he was at BIO to troll for corporate entertainment gigs from biotech companies. He signed autographs and engaged a number of people on discussions of world issues, and left them feeling like they just… might… have met the actual U2 singer. And what about his clearly American accent? "It's a willing suspension of disbelief," he said.
(By Stephen Heuser, Globe staff)

Posted by Boston Globe Business Team at 08:12 AM

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