Express & Star

This cheese-themed event is drawing comparisons to Fyre Festival

Many were left disappointed by the Giant Cheeseboard event in London.

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People took to Twitter to vent (Azure-Dragon/Getty/PA)

A “giant cheeseboard” event in east London has left some visitors extremely disappointed.

Organisers billed this weekend’s Giant Cheeseboard event as “Honey I Shrunk The Kids … if they were lucky enough to find themselves in a cheese and wine heaven” – saying there would be unlimited free cheese and mulled wine, cheesecake, guests DJs and more included in the ticket price.

Unfortunately, some who visited the event at Studio 338 on Saturday and Sunday felt these promises were not lived up to, and took to social media to share their thoughts.

Freelance journalist Kate Solomon says her experience at the event was mainly based around queuing for cheese, then bread and then wine – although “the camaraderie of attendees in the seven million queues we ended up in was the redeeming feature”.

As for the cheese, she told us that when she was there on Saturday afternoon, “what had been described as a giant immersive cheeseboard with unlimited cheese was actually a bunch of trestle tables with trays of very average Brie, Stilton and goat’s cheese”.

“There was no cheesecake stall, there was no giant Camembert, there weren’t enough seats and there wasn’t enough cheese – they were very obviously panickedly restocking.”

Some online even compared the hype-versus-reality to the Fyre festival debacle, in which hundreds of revellers were left stranded in an unprepared festival site in the Bahamas.

More than a few attendees were not happy about the event, and took to demanding a refund on the ticket price – which ranged between £30 and £37.

“Once in, it was completely underwhelming. They had also clearly oversold the event.

“The venue was packed and it was queue after queue to attempt to get any basic cheap cheese or cold mulled wine. We quickly decided that was not how we wanted to spend our day and sought out the manager to request a refund.

“Many others felt the same and soon enough a massive crowd was demanding a refund.”

The video above was filmed by Waite at around 1.30pm on Saturday. She said she left shortly afterwards and is unsure of what happened after the video was filmed.

Although there were complaints online, others posted about how much they enjoyed the event.

The organisers of the event issued a long statement refuting the criticism levelled at their event on Facebook, addressing the individual concerns mentioned on social media by attendees.

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