Sweet Dreams

Or a beautiful nightmare? The Sweet Tooth Hotel was definitely a dream.

A common frenzy that I never took advantage of in L.A. was the amount of pop-ups and cool installations that took place. I honestly cannot say why other than not knowing about them, but also just not seeking them out because I assumed they cost a lot of money. In hindsight, however, I wish I did go to more since they are so fun and unique. Lucky for me, I guess Dallas is catching onto the trend because for the full month of June, they are hosting a cute pop-up called The Sweet Tooth Hotel. It can easily be confused with or compared to the extremely popular pop-up, Museum of Ice Cream. which branches to N.Y.C., L.A., San Francisco, and Miami. But this exhibition does not have any correlation. Naturally, I had to go and I took my friend, Naomi, with me!

In the exhibition, there are four rooms curated by different artists. The “hotel” is adorned with life-sized candy, an overdose of pink, and of course neon signs on neon signs–all the great, adorable things that make for endless Instagram opportunities. How it works is you buy a ticket online (obviously) and you are given the option of a $20 general admission ticket or a $40 keyholder admission ticket; general admission just means you get to enter the exhibit at a certain time and touch and see everything whereas the keyholder admission ticket also has three boxes that you get to unlock in some of the rooms, two of which holding items you get to keep. I opted for the general admission ticket because, well, I didn’t want to drop $40.

The exhibition is timed, unfortunately. It is a small space so obviously there is a safety hazard around that as well as likely a “novelty experience” appeal. You get a full hour to explore and the concierge rings a bell at the 25-, 15-, and two-minute mark before closing. Since we chose the earliest time available at 9:00 a.m., the group ended up being very small at around 12 people. We could all freely move about the space and have ample time to explore each part while getting an exorbitant amount of photos. My favorite part was that everyone was so mindful of each other, repeatedly saying, “Oh my gosh, let me get out of the way of your picture!” We all were truly like kids in a candy store.

The exhibition is sadly only on for two more weeks, but it is open seven days a week with time slots after traditional business hours too! Another bonus is its location–it is surrounded by four parking lots which most (if not all) offer the first two hours free. They also validate your parking anyway so it works out. I went on a Saturday morning and actually found quite a few open spaces right next to where you walk up so I didn’t even have to use a garage. The whole experience was seamless and I was smiling all day afterwards.

I wish this exhibition could stay forever so I could go multiple times, but this just makes me really excited for the new things that are coming into Dallas. I hope we continue to follow trends in other major cities which would make sense as more companies are moving their headquarters here. Maybe this city is more than just eating and shopping after all. 🙂

xx, AE

P.S. Sorry for the lower quality photos on this one–we took pictures with our cell phones because the short time limit was definitely not the time for me to figure out how to do low-light photography on a DSLR.

As always, please make sure you are following me on Snapchat (@alexasdrawde) and Instagram (on the sidebar) to see what is happening live on my adventures!!