Taking an overseas city break is a great experience, but somehow it always seems like the locals are having all the fun. If you’ve visited Berlin, Germany, and wished you knew where to find the best entertainment or the “in” places to eat, you can relax. Plus One Berlin has launched the city break with a difference – you not only stay in a modern studio apartment in Berlin’s trendy Kreuzkölln district, you get the company of a local resident who can show you where it’s all happening.

Plus One Berlin visitors have a choice of accommodation and a selection of local hand-picked guides who are chosen for their knowledge and passion of the city. When a guest makes their reservation, guests are given a login to enable them to browse and select their guide. Once they pick a local guide, they indicate if they wish to experience the local area by going to a restaurant or be taken to popular local hangouts.

Plus One Berlin is a great example of exceeding expectation by thinking outside the box. Hospitality entrepreneurs from around the world, here is a value add service idea to add to your offering!

Consumers are always up for new and unique experiences that provide them with an adrenalin rush and a wow factor to remember. Well, Wish.co.uk is offering a Zombie Shopping Mall experience where people have the opportunity to fight against zombies in a disused shopping mall located at Reading, 25 minutes from London CBD.

For £119 per person, participants can fight real life human zombies (actors of course) around the abandoned mall for up to 3 hours. Willing participants are briefed and provided with weapons to defend themselves against the roaming zombies. 

The Zombie Shopping Mall experience commenced in March 2012 and is currently available on select dates through to 28th July 2012. 

As the Reading shopping Mall is disused, it's unknown how long the Zombie Shopping Mall experience will continue. 

Perfect example of a niche concept drawing the crowd based on an unique experience with a limited period offering, Skirmish paintball business operators from around the globe, what are you waiting for!

There are some real over the top business ideas that we have seen over the years but this concept probably takes the cake.

Belgian company Dinner in the Sky offers event organisers a new option for their events that will shock and awe its clients and guests. Dinner In the Sky as the name suggests, host events such as weddings, dinners and entertainment events suspended via a crane 50 meters above cities in 40 countries around the world.

Their latest platform is more like a real restaurant. Patrons are seated in a roller coaster style seating with a seat belt and are served by waiters and chefs while they enjoy the view and experience. The platform can be customised to varies formations from one large table to 8 tables with 4 guests per table situated around a central bar.

Festivals are going to new levels to attract punters by adopting this concept. In an Australian first, an airborne bar named the Ele[V]ator will hold 20 fans suspended 50 meters above the concert crowd via a crane. On the 26th February 2012, as part of the Soundwave 2012 festival in Sydney, Foxtel TV music Channel [V] will be hosting the airborne suspended bar which will rotate above the crowd allowing high flying punters to look down onto the band stage.

Access to the Ele[V]ator is invitation only, via a competition run by Channel [V] through social media. Great innovative marketing and PR by Channel [V] at the same time providing shock and awe experience to punters and fans they will never forget.

Brands, great PR idea for your next major event!

We all have goods and items around the home that only appear to collect dust and loose there value hence we flog them on eBay. Well it now appears that digital content is not safe from the second hand resale market.

This month, Boston startup ReDigi launched the world's first online eMarketplace that allows users to sell and buy legally purchased pre-owned MP3's and digital music tracks. It's launch this month attracted more than 130,000 users to the site in the first week.

Users select songs and albums they wish to sell on the site's music platform, which are offered at fraction of the price available on competitor sites Eg iTunes. The site manages and monitors the source of the tracks. Once the track is sold, the asset is removed from the sellers music library and any device synched.

Is this legal I here you ask? According to Redigi CEO John Ossenmacher the answer is yes. Ossenmacher claims that while we take for granted that we can sell and buy books, CDs and DVDs, our digital cousins don't enjoy the same rights. They are digital bits just stored on a different media, the digital bits are the same.

It will be interesting to see how the music labels react to this new eMarketplace for unwanted digital music.

Ticketometer is taking the risk out of the concert business.

Introducing a platform where bands, promoters and venues can create concerts that only happen if the minimum number of invitees are reached.

At the moment still in beta, the platform has yet to flex it's full features but at the moment still offers a basic set of features that allow organisation and target setting for cities in the US.

Web 2.0 has been offering a legion of startups that are working towards a more efficient existence online and offline. And Ticketometer certainly seems like one that could potentially enhance the quality of life for a music industry that has been slowly heaving itself into new technologies and mediums.

Could this also pose a direction in thinking in regards to potential overheads? We've seen the pop-up store happen for retail, now Ticketometer for venues and artists, Airbnb for the renters, and what next?

As well as an overhead saving grace for venues and artists, Ticketometer has the potential to encourage the fan-artist relationship. …Really want to see that band in your third tier city? Rally your friends, and your friend's friends and they may just make it.

As we have seen with many other social media community recommendation sites, Sydney based startup Barology is taking the concept to a niche market, the nightlife scene.

Barology has created a search engine platform with over 643 bars and clubs in Sydney. It provides nightlife adventurers and party goers with the latest information such as menus, current live feed offers to video showcases, reviews and ratings on Sydney bars and clubs.

Barology emphasis is on growing the Barology community and driving the crowd to determine what are the hottest bars and clubs in Sydney via reviews and ratings.

At the same time, providing Sydney's bars and clubs with a promotional channel and opportunity to draw the crowd with special offers, incentives, great customer service and experience.

Co Founder of Barology, Paul Somers, says "We have a great deal more up our sleeve in regards to  our webiste and our efforts towards mobile app integration which we believe will continue to excite over the coming months".

We see great synergy with Barology and SceneTap (featured in our July spottings) who provide realtime snap shot of the male to female ratios at nightclubs and bars.

Barology, another great example of a startup grabbing an existing concept and taking it to a niche market with a twist.