The Expo was held during the hot September summer in Thessaloniki, Greece and chefs attending the Expo would need to take a breather from all the action. So we created The Chill Room. A play on the double meaning of 'chill', this dual purpose space was inspired by traditional restaurant cold rooms, offering young chefs both a relaxing space to kick back connect and chill, as well as a cool escape from the heat. From the ceiling, we hung cardboard posters of the hanging meats synonymous with restaurant cold rooms.

THE CHILL ROOM

We borrowed from the interior of a traditional cold room, giving it a designer twist with vinyl strip curtains to keep cool air in, custom-made furniture and bean bags, phone charging stations, free WiFi and interactive cardboard artworks of chilled meat carcasses that messages could be scribbled on.

FUN SELFIE PROPS

The Chill Room was littered with fun cardboard props that delegates used to create the perfect selfie with their friends.

HUMOROUS CUT-OUT STANDEES

To add to the youthful humour of the venue, we created cut-outs where young chefs could take fun pictures to upload to their social media pages, spreading the reach of The Chill Room even further.

HANGING MEAT CUT-OUTS

We hung cardboard artworks of hanging meat from the ceiling to further build on our theme. Each cut-out was embedded with fun typography, encouraging the delegates to write or draw on them.

COOL AIR

It was clear that the young chefs felt right at home in The Chill Room. This enabled us to us to have meaningful interactions with them, prompting a relationship of trust with the brand.

Since the congress, we have seen several young chefs post photos of themselves in The Chill Room at the event, further increasing its reach. In fact, the reaction was so positive that one of our regional team members asked that The Chill Room be sent to him for a repeat exhibition at another event.

We believe that we have cracked the code when it comes to engaging with young chefs and will certainly duplicate this model for future events where we want to connect and engage with them in an intimate and informal environment.