Something funny happened last fall at a
Waterstone’s bookstore in London. On an October night just before 9,
Texan David Wills breezed into the Trafalgar Square shop. Fifteen
minutes later, he realized the lights were off, the staff was gone, and
the doors were bolted: The store clerk had unwittingly locked
him inside. Wills tweeted at the store: “Hi Waterstones, I’ve been
locked inside of your Trafalgar Square bookstore for two hours now.
Please let me out.” The hashtag WaterstonesTexan started circulating, and by the time police arrived two hours later to free Wills, he was something of a Twitter sensation.Twitter trends come and go, but Airbnb is perpetuating the Waterstones legacy with its “A Night At” series of pop-up bedrooms in odd places. The first faux-listing was an installation in a Waterstones, designed for an intentional overnighter. (Technically, Airbnb’s first pop-up apartment was staged in an Ikea, but that was a one-off and the series didn’t launch until the Waterstones incident.) Since then, Airbnb has assembled rooms in the cabin of a KLM airliner and a gondola in Courchevel, France. And for its latest: A bedroom installed high in the sky, in the Holmenkollen ski jump near Oslo, Norway.
Billed as “Holmenkollen’s very own fully furnished penthouse … set at the top of the ski jump where champions prepare for flight,” the listing has floor-to-ceiling paneled windows—providing a princely view of the mountains and fjords—modern trappings, and a balcony that looks like it should include bottle service. There are skis too, but unless you’re a professional the ski jump is off limits. (So is smoking, according to Airbnb’s guest rules. But “walking around in your tighty whities is encouraged.”) The price of this Scandinavian dream loft? Zero dollars. Airbnb raffled it off to a lucky winner.
For ski jumping buffs, the site is steeped in the history of the sport. Holmenkollen has hosted the eponymous ski jump festival since 1892, and in 1952 hosted the Winter Olympics. The actual ski jump hill is a focal point: In 2005 officials deemed the existing ski jump too short, so the government decided to raze it and hold an architecture competition for a new one. JDS Architects won and designed the Holmenkollen Ski Jump to encompass every aspect of the sport in one structure. From its site: “The judges booths, the commentators, the trainers, the Royal family, the VIPs, the wind screens, the circulations, the lobby, the entrance to the arena and the arena itself, the lounge for the skiers, the souvenir shop, the access to the existing museum, the viewing public square at the very top, everything, is contained into the shape of the jump.”
So, why raffle an apartment in a Nordic ski jump? Sure, Airbnb has plenty of resources to noodle around with marketing stunts, but taken as a whole, you can see a glimmer of the company’s ambitions in the “A Night At” series. When Airbnb rebranded last fall, it shifted its emphasis from apartment interiors to the travel experience as a whole. And even though the company still largely trucks in lodging, it has long set its sights on being a part of every touchpoint of a traveler’s journey, like—in theory—flights and tourist excursions. That’s why the new homepage shows tiles with cities, not slideshows of treehouses or lofts for rent. And that’s likely just the beginning, given that the pop-up with KLM Airlines kicked off a long-term partnership between the two companies.