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At Bombora, we’ve been exploring different ways to make virtual events more exciting. From celebrity bingo all the way through to escape rooms and dance classes, we’ve been experimenting with creative ways to make both internal and external events engaging for attendees.
Our latest event with Klarna presented the perfect opportunity to explore the world of cooking events, and we found that it was an amazing way for the brand to connect with its partners. In this blog post, we’ll go through our process of creating a virtual cooking experience and why they’re a great way to bring excitement to your audiences at home.
Our events producer, Jessica Crimin, explains that virtual cooking classes are a fantastic event to host because they’re easily customisable and allow you or your client to make it your own. Cooking experiences are also perfect for engaging with audiences as they really encourage interaction and participation throughout the event. This level of interactivity makes this type of event perfect for team building, fostering relationships between your employees and colleagues.
We work with our clients to hone in on a cooking event that will resonate with their audiences and reflect their brand’s personality. It’s important to think about what the aim of the event is and how brand personalisation can be woven through the cooking experience. For example, if you’re dealing with a more sophisticated audience, think about inviting a Michelin-starred chef. On the other hand, if your audience consists of families, you could explore pizza-making classes or something that children can get involved with.
We’ve also been thinking about hosting seasonal events, planned around different seasonal holidays. Consider events where cooking can be incorporated, such as Chinese New Year, Christmas and Easter. We recently hosted a pancake day event with Klarna, which was really well-received by their audience. Seasonal events are an especially fun way to bring joy to your employees, customers or partners, allowing them to celebrate the holidays with engaging events.
The creative conception process goes beyond the type of cooking event; it also includes how you’ll make the event unique to your client or your brand. This can be done in several different ways, including branded merchandise, set design and guest chefs. The key is to make sure an aspect of your brand is woven into every element of the event so that you can leave your attendees with a positive brand experience.
Providing the ingredients for your cooking event is essential. It makes the process for your attendees completely hassle-free and will have them excited and ready to go to your event. At Bombora, we believe that unboxing experiences play quite a key role in bringing the event to life, giving audiences a physical element of the event. As well as including the ingredients for the cooking experience, we like to add extra merchandise or equipment that might help our guests. Think along the lines of wooden spoons, spatulas or aprons to get your attendees into the spirit of cooking.
If you’d prefer not to send out the ingredients, make sure to send out an ingredient list to your guests before the event so they’ll have everything prepared for the big day.
A fantastic way to make your cooking experience more engaging is by elevating the production value. At Bombora, we wanted to create a filming format that makes the experience seem like a cooking show. We used three cameras, including one which was placed overhead looking down at the kitchen counter, and switched between the two angles to capture the essence of a cooking show. This format is also great because it allows the attendees to see what the chef is doing, making it much easier to follow along with the recipe.
You can also take your production to another level by hosting your cook-along on-set – either in a dedicated kitchen or a studio with a set design. For our event with Klarna, we sourced a sleek kitchen where we could host our cooking experience, giving the event a much more professional look and feel.
Inviting a guest chef is a great way to bring excitement to the audience experience. Depending on the budget and the audience, there’s a whole range of special guest chefs who you can invite to lead your session. Working with these chefs, you’ll also be able to tailor a recipe or experience to their expertise. For instance, you can invite a specialist Sushi chef for a sushi-making class or a pizzaiolo for a masterclass in pizza making.
If you have more budget to impress your audiences, you can even consider inviting celebrity chefs. Whatever you decide, ultimately having a specialist chef will add another dimension to your event, providing the opportunity for your audiences to build their skills in the kitchen with an expert in their field.
At Bombora, we bring ideas like virtual cooking classes to life with premium production, creative set design, and unforgettable experiences. Whether you’re planning a seasonal cook-along, branded team-building activity, or an interactive event for partners or clients, our virtual events and remote webinar services have you covered.
From multi-camera studio setups to guest chef bookings and fully branded ingredient kits, we’ll deliver a seamless experience from start to finish. Let’s cook up something amazing; get in touch today.