Foodies Festival Syon Park

Participating as a trader, I am extremely disappointed with the unprofessional way this festival is run!
We are a small business and had booked two of their events in 2021, but due to personal reasons had to cancel one of them. We did so well in time to be entitled to a refund (only 70%), but have since then had excuse after excuse why it was being delayed and to this day (it's been a year since the cancellatio) have not received our money.

Furthermore the event we did take part in was a waste of money and time!
Pitch fees were totally overpriced and most visitors are not interested in buying products, they come for the free samples.
I would not recommend this to any small business owner! You will lose lots of money and the few new customers you might get are not worth the effort!

Dear Fellow Foreigners

What a great day! My wife and I are very saturated by food and drink festivals from living in Washington, D.C. While we love the festival life, they are so frequent that you run the risk of coming across a boring, overcrowded, or overpriced festival. For that reason, my wife was in my ear the whole time about how if this PAID festival doesn't cut it, there's hell to pay. After all, this was one of MY event choices for our week in London. Well, she turned around quickly.

Now, I will keep this broad, because I feel each vendor deserves their own Yelp review (which I will soon provide) and the festival organizers should get the spotlight for now. The day was full of planned events held in their various theatres: Tasting Theatre, Drinks Theatre, Chefs Theatre and the BBQ Arena. The presentations included an urban bee-keeping demonstration, a BBQ and beer tasting, and master classes from a number of notable chefs from Masterchef and beyond. Between those, we were able to bounce around to various (amazing) pop-up restaurants, bars, and food stations. Whatever cuisine you can think of was there, from jerk chicken and a hog roast to fudge and confections. And, of course, loads of libations.

Our plan was to stay there for an hour or two, but we found ourselves sucked into its charm for the 5 hours between us getting there and closing time. A huge contributor to this was the rotating music performances they had. It had a music festival vibe to the whole thing, which invites a spirit of relaxing with a good drink in one hand and a truffle-Mac-and-cheese hot dog in the other (Ok, I admit it, the hot dog called for two hands).

It also gave the promise of a chilli eating contest at the end of the event. Yum, right? No. Not our chili, my American friends, but peppers. This would prove to be my closest brush with death yet, as I was about to sign the entry form when I walked by a tent that was selling chillies and I put 2 & 2 together. This was an amusing way to end the day, and enough of a draw that a large crowd stayed until closing.

Overall, it made for a day worth the money (of which I spent no small amount) and gave us a lot of variety, relaxation, and great photos and memories. Check it out!!

Thanks to Yelp, I went to this year's Foodies Festival located this time, at Syon Park, not in the gardens of Syon House, which is separate and totally self contained with it's own entrance in the Park. The Foodies Festival is located opposite, in the Park, on a smaller scale than Taste of London, and unlike Taste which is more about tasting, the Foodies Festival has less of the tasting, and if so, mostly portions smaller and less generous, although the Tasting Theatre is a lot of fun, but a mad scramble to get a taste of anything. The Chefs Theatre is very popular with previous winners of Masterchefs showing why they are Masterchefs! Love this section, as you get to meet and talk to the Masterchefs at the end, as I love Masterchef, this was the highlight of my day!

Food festivals are also family friendly and this one, in particular, has a children's cookery theatre, which is a nice touch. You can end up spending quite a lot, so it always seems strange to me to have to pay an entrance fee to spend money! Also unlike Taste, no freebies to take away. If you enjoy watching and meeting famous cooks and chefs and eating and drinking al fresco, with a little live entertainment, and if the weather is warm, it can be a lovely day out.