The Eat! Vancouver Food and Cooking Festival set record attendance this past weekend thanks in part to a new venue and rainy weather.
Show manager Heather Angeard told BIV on Monday afternoon that 38,956 people attended the three-day event at the new Vancouver Convention Centre, surpassing last year’s record attendance of 31,016 by more than 25%.
“We’ve never done more than a 21% increase in any year,” she said.
The festival, which ranked ninth on BIV’s list of top trade and consumer shows in Metro Vancouver last year (Issue 1035, August 25-31, 2009), was reportedly expecting roughly 33,000 attendees.
Angeard noted, however, the rainy weather was the key contributor to the surge in attendance this year.
“The rain was a huge incentive for people to seek out something [to do] indoors.” She also cited people’s curiosity about the new convention centre as another reason for increased attendance.
The unexpected turnout led to fairly long lines for popular exhibitors and some of the scheduled programs and events including the wine, beer and spirits tasting area and the cheese seminars produced by the Dairy Farmers of Canada.
The restaurant sampling area was amongst the most crowded even with expanded 20-foot-wide aisles.
All the aisles were expanded from last year’s configuration at B.C. Place, where the event had previously been held. But Angeard said they would make more changes for next year’s show to again try to mitigate the heavy crowds at its most popular areas within the 100,000 square-feet of space.
“We’re thinking of taking the restaurants and breaking them up into pods of four to break up some of that congestion.”