Dine in the mouth of the wolf.

In 2013, I lead the integration of restaurant Bocca Di Lupo into British Summer Time at Hyde Park – Bocca is a luxury restaurant in London known for serving arguably the best Italian food in the country.

Pop-up restaurants are featured in most large music festivals, often featuring easy-to-make foods like grilled cheeses, hot dogs, cheeseburgers, and the like. But unfolding a luxury pop-restaurant that serves high-end Italian cuisine and wine at a music festival had never been attempted before. By promoting the restaurant as a backstage celebrity gathering, offering meals and wines that paired with each headline musical act, and offering different packages that allowed varying degrees of access, we generated lots of excitement and demand for Bocca Di Lupo throughout the festival.

The success of Bocca di Lupo was heralded as one of the great non-musical successes of British Summer Time 2013, garnering universal praise from its patrons and critics. Our foresight of the demand for luxury food and beverage offerings paved the way for other major concert events. Since that time, luxury pop-up restaurants have started to become commonplace at festivals. Indio California’s three day Desert Trip concert recently offered a “culinary experience” package at a rate of $179 per day or $499 for the weekend. Coachella began introducing high-end amenities in 2014 and in 2016 was dubbed a ‘foodie haven with top chefs.’

With concert ticket prices increasing each year, we understood early on that concert goers preferences were evolving. Bocca was a new and innovative avenue for our festival to interact with her patrons. The concept of upscale yet accessible culinary offerings has now become a major attraction and staple at top music festivals in a way that had previously not existed. The Rolling Stones team said they've never seen this level of restaurant in a musical environment.