Waitrose Winter Food & Drink Festival

Client: Waitrose

Waitrose wanted to create a festival of food and drink that showcased their seasonal Own Label and supplier products in a must-go, immersive, entertaining and engaging destination event. The event should appeal to a new younger, broader audience alongside their existing, Waitrose foodie customers.

Taking place across three days at London’s Tobacco Dock, visitors could select from four, four-hour sessions and purchase tickets from a dedicated website. The self-guided experience included 189 different interactive food and drink activations and stands showcasing and sampling 800+ food and drink products in 15 themed rooms. In addition to zoned areas (eg. Beer & Cider Halls, Wine Vaults, Spirits Lounge), there were dedicated Waitrose experiences. These included the Waitrose Christmas Room with hands-on classes at Waitrose Cookery School, immersive drinks experiences, tablescaping, wreathmaking and tree decorating workshops; bookable masterclasses in the Masterclass Theatre (eg. Macaron and cocktail making), free drop-in demonstrations and talks in the Meet the Experts demo kitchen (including the Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett ‘Dish’ podcast); a very popular Cheese Room, a Sip & Putt golf experience, a Food Court selling perfectly prepared meals using Waitrose products; a Champagne Bar and a Goody Bag Treasure Hunt. An App also allowed visitors to track preferred products and were sent their bespoke list post-event. 97% of the 8,000 tickets and 100% of the masterclass tickets were sold with 91% of visitors saying they would return the following year; and 82% planned to purchase products they had sampled from Waitrose.