Pop me up before I go go
Pleeeeeease, no more pop-ups. I'm talking about the whole pop-up [insert retail/food/drink concept here] idea.
About five years ago the concept of pop-up stores and underground experiences was very very hot. Often, in restaurant form, the idea was most successful where regulation was high and creative chefs wanted to side step the red tape and be true to their cooking.
In Australia it’s been a longtime since there has been a genuine underground restaurant.
There was allegedly one in Melbourne Zingara Cucina, which in 2007 made front page news in The Age, made The Weekend Australian Magazine and even participated on a radio interview. That’s a lot of publicity for a restaurant that never existed and was really a case study in viral marketing and I’m guessing part practical joke.
But now you can’t move from pop-ups. In Melbourne there was the Baker D Chirico pop-up store (with brilliant design) over Christmas that became an actual store, which actually very was good.
In Sydney, there was the Stoneleigh pop-up bar, and pop-up dinners reached the elitist audience of all, the dreaded Foodies during the Sydney International Food Festival.
But the promotion in Melbourne’s City Square of cheap New Zealand plonk, NZ sauvignon blanc that tastes more Allen’s Snakes than any wine known to humanity (and is now known popularly as slut juice) that took pop-ups to a new low and very mainstream.
And it has gone so mainstream that Yellow Pages used a pop-up pizza takeaway in Fitzroy with a arrangement by a hot florist Joost to promote its website to so-called hipsters.
So when an invite came through from a mainstream PR agency to put a date in my diary for a one day only pop-up café it was very easy to press “delete”.
Like I said, no more pop-ups but more original ideas, please.
Pleeeeeease, no more pop-ups. I'm talking about the whole pop-up [insert retail/food/drink concept here] idea.
About five years ago the concept of pop-up stores and underground experiences was very, very hot. Often, in restaurant form, the idea was most successful where regulation was high and creative chefs wanted to side step the red tape and be true to their cooking.
In Australia it’s been a longtime since there has been a genuine underground restaurant. There was allegedly one in Melbourne Zingara Cucina, which in 2007 made front page news in The Age, made The Weekend Australian Magazine and even participated on a radio interview. That’s a lot of publicity for a restaurant that never existed and was really a case study in viral marketing and I’m guessing part practical joke.
But now you can’t move from pop-ups. In Melbourne there was the Baker D Chirico pop-up store – with brilliant design – over Christmas that became an actual store, which actually very was good.
In Sydney, there have been many including the Stoneleigh pop-up bar. And pop-up dinners reached the elitist audience of all, the dreaded foodies, during the Sydney International Food Festival. But the promotion in Melbourne’s City Square of cheap New Zealand plonk, NZ sauvignon blanc that tastes more Allen’s Snakes than any wine known to humanity that took pop-ups to a new low and very mainstream.
And it has gone so mainstream that Yellow Pages used a pop-up pizza takeaway in Fitzroy with some floral arrangement by a hot florist Joost to promote its website to so-called hipsters.
So when an invite came through from a mainstream PR agency to put a date in my diary for a one day only pop-up café it was very easy to press “delete”. Like I said, no more pop-ups but more original ideas, please.
