Tastemaker - what makes a successful food event?

Event:  TASTEMAKER Tour

Date: June 26, 2018

Location:  Evergreen Brickworks - Toronto

Ticket price: $60

Website: https://www.thetastemakertour.com/

WHAT MAKES A GREAT EVENT?

I found myself asking this question after attending the Saturday afternoon session of the Tastemaker Tour.  I was able to attend as media so I don't want to say anything negative towards the organizers because through no fault of the organizers it was a success or failure depending on your perspective.

Because I have a lot of experience with attending and organizing and volunteering at events I have a very big picture view of events.   From the perspective of the organizers this was an extremely successful event because it was SOLD OUT and filled with people for all 3 sessions.  It had some of the best Chefs in the city making some great food and their food was so popular that they ran out of food on the first session from what I heard.  From the Chefs perspective it's great that so many people ate and enjoyed their food.  So looking at the event from their lens it was a huge success.

But looking at it from an attendees perspective there was disappointment if you were in a line that ran out of food.  The main area as shown below where there were 2 separate lines for the 2 main chefs where lines that went from the booth to the very back of the large Brickworks space so I would say at least 100 people long to wait to get food.  Because there were 2 lines you had to wait in line for 2 dishes from one chef and then get back in line for the other line for the other chef.  I was there when it was Rob Gentile from Buca and Grant Van Gammeron from Bar Raval and other restaurants. 
I stood in line for a few minutes and then gave up because with the short 4 hour session I figured I would probably spend most of it in these 2 lineups so I opted for getting food from the other vendors and the Chef cooking demos.  I skipped the lines because I have had many chances to try both chefs food and because I can go to their restaurants anytime I choose to and know that I will see them at other events so it wasn't as important to me to have to try their dishes but they were the big attraction of this show so most people were there to try their food.

Besides the fantastic Chefs that were there serving up their own unique dishes there were a few other great vendors.  I really enjoyed this Smoke Show sauce or condiment I suppose and probably should have tried to buy one because I don't even know where it is sold but it was delicious.

I also really enjoyed the chicken meat pies and paired with a fantastic lime cocktail, that was probably the best thing I tried at the event.

Grant Van Gammeran - Bar Raval, Bar Isabel etc.

Elia Herrera - Los Colibris and Host Pay Chen at the Chef Demo stage

  

The meatballs made by Chef Herrera were very good and the other chef with her, I am not familiar with who she is so forgive me that I don't know here name but she made some asparagus crostini that were very fresh and light.
Some of the samples were pretty tiny but it was nice to see Brookside giving out little boxes of their chocolate. 

So I don't want to say it was a bad event because it had all the elements of a good event but I think was a victim of it's own success with too many people attending and lessening the experience of it by having to spend the whole time standing in lineups instead of enjoying the food.

This event was organized by a group that have done other events and there was great promotion for the event so that increased the attendance but I thought the $60 fee was steep considering it was really hard to try all the food. 

Food events in Toronto are like no other.  We have a city full of food experience loving people who flock to these types of events where they can try all kinds of things in one place.  Many events have failed because of the over abundance of attendees so I know this is a difficult thing to navigate in this city.

My advice for this event in the future is to re-configure the set up of the event so that the lines don't bleed into each other and maybe spread it out a bit more and have more space to actually sit down and eat the food so that people aren't just standing on cement floor the whole time.  Us old folks get tire pretty quickly so this would make it more enjoyable to spend time enjoying the food with friends.

Personally I left still hungry because I gave up on the Chef lineups but hopefully the people that got their food enjoyed it. 

My other blogger friend opted not to write a post because her experience wasn't enjoyable but I decided to take a look at it in a different way and look at it from the perspective of a blogger who attends many events so I have seen the good ones and the bad ones,  I wouldn't say this one was bad but it had some issues and if you look at the event from the perspective of an attendee who isn't able to go all over the city to try all these different foods then it's great.  From the perspective of the organizers and chefs it's fantastic because there were so many people.

I decided to write this post to get you to think about the Big Picture when you attend an event and try and put yourself in the shoes of the people that organize them and the people that work them and people attending them to make an objective decision about whether the event is a success.  In my opinion all parties must walk away from the event having the feeling of a great memory being created and having had a great time.   That's True Success.