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Philly’s annual Dîner en Blanc event draws thousands of attendees each year, but this year, severe weather canceled the popular outdoor party just hours before.
The late-summer dinner party has an all-white dress code and requires participants to buy tickets for admission to bring their own chairs, tables and food to a location that is revealed just before the event.
For attendees, it can often be a popular space to connect with others.
“In my opinion, it is the event that brings the city together the most,” said Jennifer Lynn Robinson, a local influencer. “I’m not even gonna say it’s one of the events. I think it’s the event that brings the city together the most.”
While some call the dinner “pretentious, snobby and elitist,” others love the annual tradition for its secretive location element and its consistency.
But this year, guests are still waiting on refunds and reflecting on what could’ve been.
What happened?
The event was set to take place Thursday, Aug. 20. Guests received an email that morning saying organizers were “closely monitoring weather conditions” and would give an update later on.
And before 4 p.m. that day, the organization posted on Instagram that they would be cancelling the event, citing forecasted lightning, flash flooding and tornado threats.
Tammy Lane has been a table lead for the event for the past two years. She said that this role involves a lot of communication with guests – which meant she had a lot of questions to field this year.
“I was getting a lot of phone calls and text messages like, ‘Hey, what’s going on? Are we meeting?’” she said. “So I definitely feel like the communication could have been sooner. It was almost like they waited until the final hour to let everybody know.”
Lane said she had nearly 50 attendees reach out to her wondering if the event would still be on throughout the day. She said she felt like the organization “dropped the ball” with its correspondence.
“I was already showered and dressed and ready to leave, and then I got a text message like, ‘don’t leave now because things may change’ and that really was it,” she said. “So the communication with the cancellation really sucked, especially since they are always so communicative.”
Robinson, who would’ve attended the event, said she agreed that the circumstances were unfortunate, but that she felt the organizers did the best they could.
“There’s so many things that go on in preparation and, unfortunately there was just kind of no way to go back on that,” she said. “But that was nobody’s fault, you can’t predict Mother Nature.”
Lane said she understands that the organizers may have been trying to hold out and still host the event.
This was the first time in its 14-year run that the event was canceled.
Two weeks later, on Friday, Sept. 4, attendees received an email from the organization that said there would be no new date, and that participants would receive refunds received in stages – which would take up to three weeks.
Lane said she wishes the response from the Dîner en Blanc team came sooner, especially for the volunteer team.
“Everybody has our email addresses and phone numbers,” she said. “So even if they would have just sent something out to the volunteers, like, ‘Hey, in case people call, you can tell them this, or here are a couple one-liners you can use on our behalf.’”
Persisting love
Despite this year’s cancellation, Lane and Robinson both say they love the annual event.
“It is a very diverse group that comes, and I just love the ambiance,” Lane said. “Like a family reunion.”
She added that she enjoys the upscale nature and the dancing.
Robinson said she also enjoys the “getting ready” process.
“I had already been that day to get my lashes done and my hair done and I know a lot of other friends who were going to be involved with the event had also done a number of things to get ready for the event and we were all texting and looking forward to it,” she said.
For all of the love for the event, there is also hate and criticism. Critics argue it can be disruptive to nearby businesses and commuters, and that the event’s funding is not philanthropic.
Robinson said people shouldn’t knock the event until they try it.
“I think the bottom line is unless you’ve gone and experienced it, you really don’t know,” she said. “At least go once and see what you think of it because it really is about togetherness and community and kind of everything the City of Brotherly and Sisterly Love is about.”
Lane said the spirit allows people of all backgrounds to come together.
“It’s typically four to five thousand people, and you really don’t know that many people there, but you feel like you know everyone,” she said. “So whatever differences that people have at this event, we all come together and have a really good time.”
Philly’s event has been around since 2012, but the Dîner en Blanc concept was founded in Paris in 1988.
This year’s theme for Philly’s Dîner en Blanc was going to be America250, and would’ve touched on France’s role as an ally to America during the Revolution.
