SugarCity was proud to host its first public event on the Easter Weekend in 2015. Online food magazine Culy took its first dive into the offline world to organise the inaugural edition of the two-day Culy Food Festival. Eat, drink and play were the order of the day in a weekend that was packed with firsts for both Culy and SugarCity.
Culy is a leading online food inspiration website and the festival needed to reflect the essence of Culy.nl in an offline setting. The collaboration between Culy and the Food Line-up therefore came as little surprise. Their team specialises in developing and organising new concepts, enabling a successful transfer from an online to offline experience. Following months of preparation, the former factory was transformed into a culinary Valhalla. The event combined modern and retro decor, accentuated by the scaffolding wood.
SugarCity was the ideal location for the Culy Food Festival. Monique van Loon, founder of Culy, explains: ‘We were looking for a venue for the festival that is easy to reach by both car and train – that’s almost impossible in Amsterdam. We were also after a raw and rugged location; we didn’t want a fancy trade fair venue. We quickly decided on SugarCity’s former factory buildings: they exude so much history and it’s pretty cool. The festival itself is also fairly rough and ready, without too many frills. So it would have been odd to have chosen a refined venue. SugarCity offers a great sense of resolution, which also fits perfectly with the Food Line-up’.
For many visitors, the Culy Food Festival was their introduction to SugarCity as an events venue. Culy reported that numerous visitors were pleased to have the opportunity to explore the inside of the venue, instead of simply driving past or viewing the location from inside a train.
After two sell-out days and 5,000 visitors, SugarCity was able to reflect on an extremely successful first public event, and is already looking forward to the second edition of the Culy Food Festival.
