Food, Culture, Vinarterta, Events
Glaze Amazes Guest at Toronto Picnic Event – Technology Meets Outdoor Fun
Jul
Glaze Amazes Guest at Toronto Picnic Event – Technology Meets Outdoor Fun – is an article by Icelandic technology company Glaze.is. It’s about the latest Arden Jackson and Vínarterta adventure. We beta-tested the fabulous new Glaze Order and Payment App for food service management for our ‘Taste of Iceland’s Independence Day Picnic in High Park’ in Toronto on June 17.
Here’s some background to the story:
We were asked by The Icelandic Canadian Club President Gwen Morgan and the Embassy of Iceland in Ottawa to help create a free non-ticketed music, food and cultural event to celebrate Iceland’s National Day of Independence in Toronto. Of course, I was in!
The chosen site was the beautiful High Park in Toronto. With gates closed to traffic and access for our trucks on event day and limited street parking combined with it being a non-ticketed event, the project was for my part, a very fun opportunity, but potentially a caterer’s nightmare. So, I set out to organize the menu, and how to bring in and install our kitchen and team for what could be service for 50-200 people, and marketed the event widely, The Icelandic Canadian Club set up pre-registration on their site and social media to help us plan for numbers, and the Embassy of Iceland in Ottawa backed us up in every way possible.
Our organizing team included Ambassador Hlynur Guðjónsson and Anna Margrét from the Embassy of Iceland, Gwen Morgan, Lindy Vopnfjörð and me. We met online and briefly at the Icelandic National League Convention in Banff in May to sketch out the form of the event. The energy of the group was wonderful as we progressed to design and assemble all the components for a culturally fun and meaningful celebration. All was coming together well, except for some tension around not really knowing how many people would show up. I felt the solution was to create a workable flexible system to manage a crowd of up to 200 people as quickly and effectively as possible. Fortunately, it didn’t take long to search the web for a potential solution.
Serendipity ruled and I was able to find Glaze.is, test it and ask for support for the app in Canada. CEO Arnþór Ingi who has a chat box on the home page responded quickly to my request and made it possible for me to proceed within 24 hours, and further worked with me online and by zoom from initial contact to the final site (click on this story and see the link to our app there) to add the features and further test to make sure we were ready to go with what we needed for Order, Payment, and Order Management of orders and donations for June 17.
The Icelandic Canadian Club of Toronto annually hosts no more than 50 people for their summer picnic event celebrating Iceland’s Independence Day. However, as we were co-hosting with the Embassy of Iceland in Ottawa which was sponsoring Icelandic Canadian Musician Lindy Vopnfjörð and Icelandic Musician Salóme Katrín to perform at the event in addition to providing the famous Icelandic Vinurpylsur Hot Dogs we suspected that the numbers would far exceed usual expectations. And they did!
We initially planned for 50-70 people, however by the week of the event we had 160 guests pre-registered. Game on! I was very happy that we had anticipated the popularity of this event and found Glaze. Our team couldn’t have managed without the Glaze app and order management and payment system. Link here to the story.
Guests captured a Glaze QR code onsite or by the web to access the app, see the schedule and agenda for the day, make donations, purchase food and drinks, and even get the lyrics for the Icelandic and Canadian National Anthems.
Due to Glaze’s easy-to-use interface customers placed orders on their smartphones or with cash in person, and then our two team leads captured the orders on iPads and directed the other members of the team to complete the orders. As a result, we were able to successfully provide rapid service for an order approximately every 1.5 minutes for over 3 hours.
The feedback from attendees was very positive as they enjoyed a traditional family and community picnic with music, food, games and more. From the team involved the feedback was even more positive. They were blown away by what we were able to accomplish in the intense service of a large continuous group of guests in just three hours.
Thanks to Glaze.is, we served up humungous amounts of Vínarterta and other treats, hundreds of Icelandic hot dogs with all the essential condiments, soft fresh buns baked that morning, Icelandic Glacial Water and more with the background celebratory sounds of a welcome address from Ambassador Hlynur Gudjónsson, the awesome sound of our public music concert, with Lindy Vopnfjörð and Salóme Katrín, and cheers, laughter and all ages game-playing filling the park.
It was an honour to Sponsor and help Organize this event. Many thanks to my family and staff team who perform at an exceptionally high level, ICCT members and volunteers and our Sponsors: The Embassy of Iceland in Ottawa, Icelandair, Icelandic Glacial, and Glaze.
It was a wonderful day. The Norse Gods were with us as the wildfire smoke that covered the city with toxic haze the previous week was gratefully blown north, and perhaps helped me to find this app, too. We amazed our guests at our Toronto picnic event, and technology met outdoor fun resulting in another new and exciting Vínarterta adventure!
All the best!
CVO Chief Vinarterta Officer
P.S. Photo by Arden Jackson: Adam Kalbfleisch, (Consul General of Iceland in Toronto), Karen Wallington, (Past President Icelandic Canadian Club of Toronto), Ambassador Hlynur Guðjónsson, (Embassy of Iceland in Ottawa) and Vínarterta.
“I’m still buzzing with energy and blown away three days later by how successful it was.” – Richard Eriksson, Secretary, Icelandic Canadian Club of Toronto.
