The New York Times Food Festival Presented by MasterCard
On the first weekend of October, the New YorkTimes shared its love of food with New York City, launching the first ever NewYork Times Food Festival.
The New York Times partnered with Empire toproduce both a large public-facing festival in Bryant Park as well as two fulldays of live Talks programming at TheTimesCenter, uniting more than 20 exceptional chefs and restaurants, foodjournalists and experts with thousands of passionate foodies.
The Bryant Park component featuredrestaurants and chefs hand-chosen by New York Times editors Sam Sifton andChristine Muhlke including Frenchette, TAK Room, The Beatrice Inn, EmmySquared, Adda and more. All of the participating chefs sold items not availablein their restaurants, all inspired by classic New York City street food.
Saturday morning, The Park opened with aceremonial “noodle cutting” by Mayor Bill de Blasio and New YorkTimes CEO Mark Thompson on the Main Stage using an 18’ lasagna noodlein place of a traditional ribbon. The Park’s iconic fountain entrance revealeda playful, yet elevated food festival design with red patterns and clean, picnic-inspiredaccents. A substantial portion of the Park showcased curated restaurants andchefs to the public to allow for the community to experience the event.
In another portion of the Park attendees paidan admission to allow them access to food and beverage available for purchase. Insidethe ticketed area, more than 4,000 attendees over two full days foundthemselves in a food-lover’s paradise of reimagined street food.
The New York Times partnered with Farm toPeople to provide the Marketplace, a retail environment sellingartisanal food items and New York Times merchandise. Additional partners includedThe Best of Smorgasburg with seven of the Brooklyn institutions’sbest vendors and Ample Hills Creamery servingtheir new, exclusive Times-inspired ice cream, “The Flavor of Record”.
At the East end of the park, the NYT CookingStage hosted live cooking demos by Thomas Keller, Angie Mar, Alison Roman, MelissaClark, and many more. A smaller Workshop Pavilion featured specialty sessionsincluding aFall wine preview with Times wine critic Eric Asimov, mixology master classes presented by Tequila Don Julio, Bulleit,Tanqueray Gin & Johnnie Walker, and cake decorating classes by Instagramwunderkind Heber Clawson.
The main stage featured sets by DJs Coleman,Aaron DRM, Rich Medina and Natasha Diggs who kept the crowd dancing on thelawn, while custom modular seating supported by Uber Eats and picnic tablesgave the attendees a place to enjoy their food. Uber Eats also sponsored twoclever installations featuring bicycles and takeout boxes promoting their#LetsEat campaign.
Presentingsponsor MasterCard hosted a tent where card holders and attendees wereinvited to “Experience the Taste of Priceless,” enjoying custom macarons andcomplimentary sparkling wine pours. Their tent featured a gorgeous logoinstallation of illuminated florals for their #StartSomethingPricelessmessaging while elegant cutouts in the wall lit displays of the macarons infloral scenes of yellow and red, representing the Mastercard logo.
Just blocks away, The TimesCenter hosted two full days of live journalism, interviews, andbook signings in partnership with Kitchen Arts & Letters. Panel discussionsincluded Eating as a Living: Life of a Food Critic featuring FrankBruni, Ruth Reichl, Sam Sifton and Pete Wells from the New York Times and Bourdainand Beyond featuring Andrew Zimmern and Pati Jinich in conversation withKim Severson. Other participants included Massimo Bottura, David Chang andAction Bronson, among many others.
Downstairs at the TimesCenter, Johnnie Walkerand Bailey’s provided cocktail tastings and Guinness allowed attendees to“Personalize Your Pint” with custom-printed photos in the foam. REI invitedguests to customize their own trail mix.
For this first-time festival, Empire servedas overall producer of the outdoor festival and TimesCenter activations.Empire’s role included ideation, layout, design, tenting, permitting, security,staging & technical production, staffing, culinary integration, sponsorideation and activations, management of registration and operations of stagesand much, much more.
Empire is a leading producer of world classFestival and culinary events and we were honored to work with The New York Times Company to help produce this successful, first-everNew York Times Food Festival.
To learn more and sign up for information onnext year’s Festival visit https://www.nytfoodfestival.com
Guests received their first taste of technological innovation at registration, where they were welcomed by name on a reactive LED screen installation covering the full width of the entry wall. A large lunch café was created with a décor scheme that incorporated custom-built, ceiling-high steel LED frames draped with foliage to create smaller, intimate restaurant-style spaces that displayed both technology and nature.
A series of breakout sessions presented content targeted to attendees’ varied interests, while imagery displayed throughout the venue showcased real-life applications of how products designed to empower developers help to unleash the power of data and reimagine possibilities that will improve our world.
Every element of Microsoft Connect(); from registration, breakfast and keynote, to lunch and evening cocktails, were custom-designed to communicate exacting brand messaging and to deliver a high-touch guest experience to this important audience. The keynote and breakout sessions were livestreamed through an onsite studio built for this purpose and content was watched online by millions around the world.
Empire is proud to collaborate with Microsoft on this annual, top-tier business communication event.
To view excerpts of Connect(); 2017, please visit https://www.microsoft.com/connectevent
