“This year instead of one big Birthday cake we had many small and tasty muffins.”
Every year for the anniversary of Riga, the Riga City Festival brings together locals and visitors for a weekend of celebration around food, culture and sports. The event has been organized and funded by the Riga City Council and its institutions since 2001.
For this 19th anniversary, there was no way Covid was going to crash the party!
The organizers reviewed the set-up to meet the sanitary restrictions while keeping the DNA of the event.
While the activities usually take place in a single venue in the center city with an important crowd, the concept of this edition was “Wander Riga”, with a programming organized in different locations of the city, inside and outside the city center. Every location was monitoring the number of visitors to stay below the limit of 3000 or below half of the venue capacity at the same time.
Through an app, the visitors could find “treasures” in different locations, meet artists, taste restaurants and participate in sport activities. By participating to the different activites, they can win discounts in different partners establishments of the city.
One of the visitors’ preferred activity of the Festival has always been the Restaurant area where seasonal meals are cook by over 10 of the top leading chefs of the city.
This year, the concept remained the same, with the white table cloths set-up neat the National Art Museum. This allowed to double the space for the meals. The event received over 5000 guests over the weekend. The Restaurant has been organised by the Riga Tourism Development Bureau for the past 7 years.
“This year the festival was the most successful ever! The ideal location, traditions of the event developed over the years and the attractive offer and enthusiasm of restaurants contributed to the record number of guests served. In the end, all the restrictions were not a burden. Even more so they allowed to identify the target audience so that the guests could feel more relaxed, safe and united. “
Valdis Vanadziņš, General Manager of Pullman Riga Old Town, restaurant Equus
More photos available on the Facebook page
For more information, contact Délice Representative from Riga, Linda Pukite / linda.pukite@riga.lv