Secret Boston, LLC is an American social-media company. The company was founded in February 2010 as a Facebook page and is currently an online and offline platform featuring Boston-related events, ideas, and people.

Fashion's Night Out

In 2011 and 2012, Secret Boston was the official producer of Fashion's Night Out Boston (FNO Boston) an annual retail event started by Vogue Magazine in 2008 to encourage people to spend money and stimulate the economy after the financial crisis. For the first time in over 15-years Newbury Street was closed to traffic so shoppers could celebrate in the street. Secret Boston's founder introduced Mayor

Thomas Menino Thomas Michael Menino (December 27, 1942 – October 30, 2014) was an American politician who served as the 53rd mayor of Boston, from 1993 to 2014. He was the city's longest-serving mayor. He was elected mayor in 1993 after first serving three ...

on a stage built in the middle of Newbury Street to officially kick off the event. Participating retailers included

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, Barneys,

Copley Place Copley Place is an enclosed shopping mall within the mixed-use Copley Square in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It features direct indoor connections to several nearby destinations including four office towers, and the Bosto ...

, Newbury Street Association, and Faneuil Hall.

Before I Die Wall

In 2012, Secret Boston along with the Ames Hotel spearheaded the installation of Candy Chang's
Before I Die Wall
on The Rose Kennedy Greenway to kick off Fashion's Night Out Boston. The unveiling was hosted by Secret Boston's founder and Ben Mezrich the author of The Social Network, the book about

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's creating Facebook that was made into a movie by director

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RedBull Flugtag

In 2016,

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invited the Secret Boston community to participate in "

Flugtag Red Bull Flugtag (, 'airshow' ) is an event organized by Red Bull in which competitors attempt to fly home-made, human-powered flying machines, size-limited to around and weight-limited to approximately . The flying machines are usually laun ...

" a DIY aircraft challenge that took place at the Charles River. Six Secret Boston teams participated in building an aircraft prototype. One team, SPHINXTOR won and was and invited to fly their craft at the main event.

COVID-19

In March/April 2020, Secret Boston hosted a "Social Distancing Sing-a-long". Each day, Secret Boston published a daily playlist on Spotify and every night at 7pm housebound Bostonians throughout the city took to their windows and balconies to sing the songs together

Controversies

In 2015, Secret Boston was accused of spreading a rumor that the band U2 would be playing at The Burren, a local Irish Bar in Somerville, Massachusetts. Hundreds of people and every local news outlet showed up and waited hours on the street for U2 to arrive. At midnight, the crowd dispersed when U2 published a Tweet that they would not be showing up. The following day, Secret Boston was criticised for using social media to manipulate their community with an unfounded rumor in order to gain attention. In 2021, Secret Boston became embroiled in a conflict with an

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backed European company called Fever who began using the "Secret Boston" name to sell tickets to Bostonians who believed they were buying the tickets from Secret Boston. On June 4, 2021 Boston Magazine published an article "The “Real” Secret Boston Is Spending $250,000 to Go to War with the Other One". As of now, the companies are in litigation.

References

{{reflist American companies established in 2010 Social media companies