The Event - General Discussion

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

The Event takes viewers into the kitchen of Wolfgang Puck’s elite catering company as his team tackles some of the industry’s biggest, most exclusive events.

Known as the crème de la crème of the industry, Wolfgang Puck Catering is responsible for some of the nation’s most legendary corporate, cultural, and entertainment events. Placing viewers both behind-the-scenes and inside these lavish affairs, The Event follows renowned restaurateur Wolfgang Puck and members of his skilled catering team through every step of their intricate execution process.

Each episode features a different high-profile event – from the SAG Awards to HBO’s “Westworld” premiere party – offering access to trade secrets and an unprecedented look into the creative development, planning, and immense scope of running a world-renowned catering company.

Begins airing 1/14/21

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I've only watched one episode so far but I had mixed feelings about what I saw in the SAG Awards episode. I love behind the scenes kind of stuff so I was hoping I would enjoy this more. Seeing how much work goes into preparing 1280 dinners and getting them served should have been really revealing, but I felt like we saw more talking heads with the non-cooking higher ups instead.

The biggest moment of sympathy from me came when the SAG Awards people called a few days before the event and said they wanted to change the entire dinner menu to something vegan. I know the VP lady said that they never say no but I would have been FLABBERGASTED. Someone from the SAG Awards party planning staff must have had discussions at least a month before the event to make decisions about about potential menu items and they definitely had a tasting with the caterers, so that is when they should have decided whether or not they wanted to have almost 1300 vegan dinners. Calling the week of and completely changing the menu is a dick move. The poor chefs had to scramble to come up with something at the last minute and had to cancel all the salmon and chicken they had ordered from their suppliers so multiple people get fucked down the chain due to someone's last minute decision. And why go through the farce of trying to look good by having a vegan dinner if you're going to have meat filled food at the after party? Oh, right. It's all for show!

I also felt bad for the waiters (sorry, I meant "butlers") who were told they had to run out to their tables to clear plates and take drink orders during each two minute commercial break. That must have been so stressful. I couldn't tell if they didn't receive any previous training/instructions beforehand or if there were a lot of very forgetful people, but there were a lot of people being told to get their damn thumbs off the plates.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

When they said they were doing the upfronts in the second episode, I thought they meant the annual tv upfronts where networks announce their new seasons. What I was not expecting was a tent in the middle of the Rose Bowl for a bunch of venture capitalists. I was trying to understand how a professional catering company could make so many rookie mistakes including but not limited to:

• making fresh quiche for breakfast but not including the amount of time needed to cool so they could be cut into squares
• leaving all the lobsters back at HQ - shouldn't there be a person with a list of everything that needs to be packed so they can check every tray that gets loaded in the kitchen before it goes on the truck?
• not having enough servers - and it's not like someone underestimated by a tiny bit. They ended up hiring TWICE as many servers for the following day which means someone fucked up in their calculations A LOT
• not having enough bottled water after breakfast on the second day. When you do event planning, you calculate how many beverages you will need based on the final headcount. If you somehow end up with a bunch of venture capitalists stealing cases of Voss water from your event, it still shouldn't be a problem. At the end of the first day, you see how much water you have left and if there isn't enough to get you through the second day, you get some more before the next morning even if that means you have to send someone to CostCo.