Two hundred single people, one room in Dubai, and four letters across the night. Every letter names one person who was handed your name in the same second.
Apply→Ten minutes. Nothing is charged to apply, and not everyone gets in.
The show is the trailer. The letters are the format.
It does not open at a time. It opens when the stage goes dark, so a show that runs long can never split the room in two.
One name. One face. One sentence that person wrote about themselves. Somewhere across the room another phone lit up with yours in the same second, so you are both already walking. Nobody has to be brave first, because nobody had a choice.
Your own sentences travel the other way. One line you wrote is printed on a stranger’s letter, word for word, and you will not know which one until they say it back to you.
The first is the mistake. Cupid sends it first on purpose.
You never get the same person twice. Once a letter has been sent, Cupid closes that door for the rest of the night.
When the room comes out uneven, somebody is sent to a pair instead of a person. Make it three, find them, stay for the drink. Cupid says so rather than faking it.
They can pass. So can you.
Two strangers talk without ever seeing each other. Then, at the same second, both answer whether they want to meet again. Thumbs up or down. No conferring.
The blindfolds are for the two on stage. Everyone else can see perfectly.
Two hundred phones call each pair before the thumbs, and Cupid has already called it too. Cupid scored the room days earlier and made its calls before anyone sat down. Nothing is decided live. Nothing is adjusted once the thumbs are up.
The best caller in the room is named at the end. That is the whole prize.
Nobody is going to tell you whether you were right. That happens in a room, on a Thursday, with two hundred people finding out at once.
Everyone is handed a blindfold at the door, because your entry code is printed on the band. Eight people in the room will wear one, and you go up only if you ticked the box that said you would. There are cameras, and they point at the stage. Everywhere else you are a person at a party.
The city is not short of people. It is short of introductions.
In most rooms there is one person everybody is looking at. This one has two hundred.
Cupid reads every application before the room is chosen. More people write in than there are seats, and that is the entire door policy. This edition, Cupid matches man to woman.
You set the age window you would actually meet inside, and Cupid never goes outside it in either direction. Make it generous and the room gets bigger.
It also asks your star sign, purely so it can be rude about it.
Cupid casts the room again from the people who have written in. Apply once. You are read once, and then you are called.
Applications keep. Read once for this room, and already read for the next.
Seven questions, ten minutes, and a star sign Cupid will be rude about.
Answer carefully. Cupid can only send the person you actually described.
Apply→Ten minutes. Nothing is charged to apply, and not everyone gets in.