Archive | May, 2015

Things to Do This Week in Lebanon – May 27th 2015

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Another week goes by and it’s time again for my picks from Lebtivity. I’m personally planning to attend “Tout tout a Beirut” in Hamra and “Marché du livre” in Jbeil.

  1. 3a Tari2 El Janneh – Theater Play
  2. Cauet au Liban
  3. Live acoustic Jazz with Arthur Satyan at The Hangout Beirut
  4. Cabriolet Film Festival 2015
  5. The Dream Matcher Experience – Beirut
  6. Marché du livre Jbeil
  7. Beirut Designers’ Week 2015
  8. Ahla Fawda presents ” Tout Tout a Beirut “
  9. Joseph Leon (paris) OAK (beirut) live
  10. Writing and Measuring HR Strategies – Training with MEIRC

Make sure to check Lebtivity.com for more ideas, and don’t forget to participate in their 3rd anniversary competition.

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Things to Do This Week in Lebanon – May 20th 2015

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Below are my picks for this week from Lebtivity. My personal favorite events for this week are The Garden Show & Spring Festival, Cabriolet Film Festival, and Yasmine Hamdan Concert at O1NE Beirut.

It’s also worth mentioning that the cool people at Lebtivity are currently celebrating their 3rd anniversary and for the occasion they’re holding a massive competition in which 33 lucky winners will receive 3 gifts each over a period of 3 weeks. Participating is pretty simple and consists of answering 2 simple questions on their Lebtivity Facebook page.

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My take on new bidding websites BidAffairs and BidZeed

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Every once in a while Lebanon buzzes about certain type of websites. A few years ago group deals websites were mushrooming everywhere, and right now seems the time for auction websites like BidZeed.com and BidAffairs.com.

Judging by their names these website first seem like regular bidding websites, but the process of purchasing their offered items has little to do with the real concept of bidding.

To be able to participate in the ongoing auctions, you first start with buying a number of bids ($17.5 per 25 bids at BidAffairs for example), and from then on each bid you place will increase the price of the item by one cent, and at the end of the auctions you end up paying for the bids you have placed ($0.7 for every single bid) in addition to the final price of the item. So for example if an item in fact costs $500 and got sold for $10 (1000 bids), then the website will earn $0.7 x 1000 + $10 = $710, while the user will end up paying for the number of placed bids plus the final item price.

Some people will consider such deals a steal, but I tend to see it more as gambling since each bid you place is non-refundable. Assuming you place 20 bids and don’t end up winning then you practically have paid $14 for nothing, and there’s actually a high probability for this to happen since the website keeps on extending the auction end time by 15 seconds each time someone places a bid. So it’s not like the whole thing is limited by a clear time-frame in order for users to try to make use of the last few seconds.

I wouldn’t go as far as calling such websites a scam, but they just don’t feel right to me.

Update:

BidZeed team e-mailed me last night to let me know about a feature I missed on their website called “Buy Now”. In case you weren’t the highest bidder at the end of an auction, this feature will allow you to purchase the selected item at retail price while deducting the value of the bids you have spent from the original price.

I thought it’s worth updating the post to mention that such feature exists since it differentiates BidZeed from other similar websites and gives you the option to not waste your bids for nothing, given that you of course want to purchase the item in question at the price set on their website.

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Things to Do This Week in Lebanon – May 13th 2015

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Here’s my pick of events from Lebtivity for this week. My top three favorites that I hope I’ll be able to attend are Beirut street food festival, the sand competition at Tyr’s Rest House, and the Garten opening.
  1. Bikfaya Flowers & Spring Festival
  2. Séminaires Étiquette à la Française “Culture & Diplomatie”
  3. Beirut Street Food Festival 2015
  4. Communication and Negotiation workshop at Skillz
  5. RestHouse Tyr Sand Competition (Summer Season Grand Opening)
  6. L’anniversaire: Spectacle de marionnettes françaises Dim Dam Doum n 1 (musical)
  7. International Museum Day 2015 @ mim museum
  8. “Is He Dead” Play
  9. Shebaik Lebaik… “شبيّك لبيّك”…
Don’t forget to check Lebtivity.com for many more options!
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Things to Do This Week in Lebanon – May 6th 2015

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Lot of cool events are happening this week but I personally found the most interesting one to be the screening of the “On The Rails” documentary by Zeina Haddad which includes stories from the employees who used to work in the railways. The event is taking place this Monday at the UNESCO palace.

  1. Common Fest Beirut
  2. Concert One Lebanon 2015
  3. AUB Honey Day 2015
  4. Karting Inc. 2015
  5. On The Rails Movie Premiere
  6. Aperitivo All’Italiana on the terrace of Mario e Mario
  7. Nazira’s Cooking Classes
  8. Dialogue of Culture – A Spanish Cultural Event in Lebanon
  9. BistroBar Live presents Shady & the band Every Monday
  10. Blissfull Stillness / Yoga Class

Don’t forget to check Lebtivity from endless other options.

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