According to 7 News, Fair Trading Minister Matt Kean has asked the agency to look into the execution of the A Moveable Feast event on Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Saturday night.
“If they have breached consumer law, then I’ve asked Fair Trading to come down on them hard,” Kean said.
Hosted on Bondi Beach, the 3,000-odd guests paid $165 each for “chilled wine and a gourmet eight course shared feast that is inspired by (Luke) Mangan’s 19 restaurants found across five countries,” A Moveable Feast’s website reads.
The night didn’t go to plan however, with guests venting their frustrations on social media, claiming that the food had run out and there was a lengthy wait for alcohol.
In response to Saturday’s event and the public’s criticism of it, A Moveable Feast shared the statement below with Hospitality.
"The A Moveable Feast team take their responsibility seriously. We are a good corporate citizen, where we deal with the public often and have a good track record. We are experienced in large scale events. On the evening of the event a number of operational issues occurred that we could not reasonably foresee. These issues happened not because of one event, but a number of concurrent events, including individuals taking more hampers than required and bar lines and sales exceeding our expectations, all of which needed to be managed in accordance with RSA regulations, including as to the responsible service of alcohol and our liquor license conditions.
When our event staff saw this occur on the night, we took steps to immediately manage the guests affected by taking their details and concerns. They were then contacted via email or phone in the following 48 hours with appropriate agreed compensation. From this point we then assessed any further concerns of guests from midday Sunday and immediately took steps to implement a process for appropriate agreed compensation. For example refunds were made in circumstances which included, no hamper being provided on the night and alcohol requests which were pre purchased and not available. Notwithstanding the unforseen problems encountered on the evening, we had an overwhelming response of guests who had a good time. Out of the 3,500 guests who attended on the night only a very small percentage of the guests experienced problems like the experiences described above.
We recognise there may still be guests that will come forward with possible issues and we will consider those requests on an individual basis.
We are working through this process as quickly as possible.
We value the reputation of the event and the positive outcomes from last year’s event, which lead to our promoting of the 2017 event."