In the 10 months since I started Mondomulia, I have learnt a lot about food, photography, social media, and I have also met many wonderful people. I had no idea that any of this would happen. I didn’t create Mondomulia to become a ‘blogger’. I was bored with my job and depressed about it, so the blog made me feel creative, it gave me a reason to use my camera and improve my skills, and it also offered a space to share my photos.
Many people around the world have a food blog, like me. They all have different motives: maybe a passion for cooking, or the dream to be a writer, or a need to promote a business or a book. Apart from the love for food, we usually have one thing in common: we like to meet up and share our knowledge and experiences in person!
That’s the purpose of Food Blogger Connect, a convention of international food bloggers, which takes place once a year in London. FBC12 took place in the last weekend of September and, as soon as I found out about it, I wanted to be there.
Blogging is a personal activity: even though a part of what we do is going out to restaurants or attending events, the work behind a blog post happens in our homes and in our kitchens. Our writing is personal, as we talk about food while sharing our lives, our fears, hopes, dreams.
Food Blogger Connect gives to food bloggers the opportunity to meet up over three days in one of the greatest cities in the world: London. Many bloggers are willing to travel from other countries just to be here for FBC. It is undeniably a unique opportunity.
This year’s convention took place at Beaconsfield, an art gallery located a few minutes away from the river Thames, close to Westminster and Vauxhall. The location was perfect for me, as I could reach the venue by bus. The weather was also kind to us, as we were blessed with a beautiful sunny sky and not a drop of rain.
Food Blogger Connect lasts for three days, from Friday morning to Sunday afternoon. Several lessons take place in the main hall throughout each day, but there are also many breaks, so that all attendees can socialize, as well as learn.
While the lessons last only 30-60 minutes each, there are longer workshops with famous international speakers, which are the main attraction of Food Blogger Connect. One of this year’s highlights was Ellen Silverman workshop on food photography and styling (sadly I couldn’t attend, but have heard great things about).
Here are some shots I took of the props that were used during the 4-hour course.
Attending FBC12 was an expensive affair, with the minimum entry price set at £299. This gave full access to the convention for three days; there wasn’t an option to buy a ticket for one day only. Entry to the workshops was not included in the ticket and the cost varied from £35 to £99 (workshop tickets could not be purchased without paying the £299 ticket first). If you add travel and accommodation costs, you can imagine how costly it becomes and how it makes it impossible for many bloggers to attend.
Is it worth it? Yes, it is worth spending the money because FBC is a unique chance to learn about varied topics related to food blogging and to meet some really nice and interesting people.
Is the price fair? No, I personally think that the ticket was too expensive for what we received in terms of venue, food, quality of the lessons.
Will I attend FBC next year? I am not sure, I will make a decision when the time comes, based on the price, location and speakers.
I regret not taking part to the workshops, but I know that I simply could not afford spending the extra money.
What I loved the most about FBC was learning bits and pieces of every aspect of food blogging, some things I was clueless about, and yet they may well play a key role in the success of my blog: recipe writing, doing your own PR, e-Publishing, managing relations with PR agencies, self-hosting, blog security, publishing a cookbook, niche blogging and most of all…my everybody’s scariest enemy: SEO techniques! I must thank Judith and May for their incredibly valuable lessons!
I also enjoyed the lessons with Sarka of Cook Your Dream: even though I already knew about Lightroom and natural lighting, I still got some very useful tips from her.
Food played a big part at FBC12, as you can imagine. This year’s theme was “street food” and meals took place in the “Market & Social Playground”. Different street food stalls were set up every day in the courtyard, the smell coming from their grills and reaching our lecture hall every morning and afternoon! As I mentioned before, we were very lucky it didn’t rain, or else queuing for food in the courtyard would not have been much fun. Still, we were dry, but we were also cold.
That would be my negative feedback to the FBC organizers: the hall was too big for the small number of people attending the lessons (15-20 on average) and was not heated. The market and social playground were outdoor, so we were going from being cold inside the hall to being colder outside. Despite layering on clothes, I felt constantly cold and clutched paper cups of hot tea to warm up. It might be just my personal experience, but I know most of the bloggers spent the weekend with their coats on.
Every day started with breakfast in the Ragged Canteen, served by Urvashi Roe of Botanical Baker as part of Better Breakfast Week. The Wheat Bran, Baobab & Banana Muffins were delicious and I will attempt to make them at home soon!
There were hot and cold drinks available for the attendees: coffee by Nespresso, tea by Joe’s Tea Company, smoothies by Good Heavens and AMAZING apple juices by Cawston Press – my favourite discovery from the weekend! For those interested in booze, bubbly, cocktails and Wines of Lebanon were also available.
I must mention the Vitamix team, blending away amazing smoothies, soups and ice-creams in a few minutes, mesmerizing every single one of us with their amazing blender! Three lucky FBC attendees even won the Vitamix in a raffle!
Every afternoon we had the traditional English afternoon tea with scones, with clotted cream and jam…
…but also the special “High Chai” prepared by Pistachio Rose, a baker who creates wonderful Indian-inspired desserts. I loved her Chocolate Chai Tart and the Pistachio Naan dipped in hot chocolate, a re-inventation of the classic churros con chocolate.
I discovered a few London-based street food businesses that had escaped my radar until now. I only have a few photos from Sunday, but here’s a list of all the food I tasted at FBC12: salt beef bagels by Bel Brisket; pastel de nata and chocolate salame by Silmar Taste; homemade ravioli by Pasta e Basta; canapes by La Tentation; tongue on a roll by Tongue ‘N Cheek; mini-burgers by Mother Flipper; tasty potato salad by Russian Revels; Mexican flautas by Toma Mexicano.
And finally some delicious and spicy curry by Vinn Goute.
Italian focaccia sandwiches by Gurmetti.
Venezuelan food by Guasacaca
The thing that really makes Food Blogger Connect valuable is the people. Having the chance to meet face to face bloggers that we love and read about every day, people who may live in different countries and speak different languages. They come together in one place for three days and exchange ideas, get to know each other, learn from each other. At the end of the day, this is what makes it worth it.
And so it is sad to know that MANY MORE bloggers would have loved to come. The venue had capacity for a larger number of attendees and I personally know some of London’s best food bloggers, who weren’t at FBC12 because they were put off by the price.
If the best part of Food Blogger Connect is meeting bloggers, then it is a real shame that many of them cannot afford to attend it…it leaves a pinch of bitterness to an otherwise great experience.
[…] month Chobani UK launched a competition (called #CHOBrunch) to win a full weekend pass to Food Blogger Connect. I went to the bloggers’ conference last summer and shared my overview on this blog. I would […]
Really interesting to hear and see more about FBC. I didn’t go because I live in Cornwall and it’s just not practical for me in terms of cost and time too. I’d love to have been able to attend, there is so much to learn both on workshops and from other bloggers. Sounds as though you had a good time though, despite the price and cold.
che meraviglia queste foto, mi pare di essere di nuovo lì!!!!!
Felice di averti conosciuta ;)
A wonderful and honest review. I think there are some really valuable points in here which I hope the organisers take away. It was so lovely to have met you (albeit briefly). If anyone fancies a regular meet up in London for food and photography, I’m up for it! Urvashi xx
Late to the party I see – lots to digest in the comments thread above.
Firstly to Mulia: I really enjoyed your post – the pictures are just glorious and capture the spirit and people beautifully. At the risk of entering into the fray, I thought your post was pretty well balanced – I am oh so tired of reading reviews of events where people rave about it on their blogs, but then tell you privately that the event sucked. To me, your blog seemed mostly positive, other than mentioning concerns about the temperature and the price – both of which were well-reasoned and lucidly explained – it was certainly not some rant, nor a personal jibe at the organisers as some commenters have grossly unfairly tried to imply. This is a personal blog and if you can’t express your personal opinions here, then were can you?? As the organiser of an event you have to be able to take positive and negative comments with equal equanimity. Freedom of speech – anybody heard of it?!
Secondly, the pricing of an event is always a thorny issue. Everybody wants a beautiful venue, excellent speakers, some pampering, and lots of amazing food. But I understand that all of this comes at a price. Together with Jamie who commented above, I am one of the organisers of Plate to Page workshops and pricing is something we struggle with each and every time. More than once, attendees have told us that if we had not done as much as we did to keep the price down, they would not have been able to attend – and to me, this makes it worthwhile keeping our prices at a minimum. There is no greater reward than hearing an attendee saying “your workshop changed my life”. No, I will never get rich thinking this way, but that’s my choice. I have no idea what the FBC overheads were, and of course neither do the attendees, so it is always hard for people to judge whether the price represents good or bad value – it’s also dependent on the means of the individual attendee and what they feel they get out of the event. I think it is true, though, that for almost all bloggers, this is a hobby and unlike other professional conferences where your employer pays for you to attend, the FBC (or P2P) fees have to come out of an individual’s pocket, and in the current economic climate household budgets are getting ever tighter – so complaints about the price should not be taken lightly by the organisers. £299 (plus workshops) might well represent good value for money, but if you do not have the disposable cash, that becomes a pointless debate.
And as a fellow-organiser, I feel I should also respond to Steve’s rather accusatory comments earlier in this thread – P2P and FBC are not “in competition”. A 12-person residential focused writing and photography workshop consisting of back-to-back practical exercises is not the same as a large conference like this with lots of formal presentations, dozens of speakers, and the chance to network with large numbers of bloggers from all over the world. They are, at most, complementary and not offering the same experience at all. Secondly, I am not going to get into a debate with you about pricing, but as Jamie said, the P2P fee of £650 is inclusive of three nights’ accommodation as well as all meals and beverages (including alcoholic) during those three days, as well as 2.5 days of hands-on workshops where the ratio of trainers to attendees is one to three – a very different pricing structure indeed to FBC where some meals and all accommodation still have to be added over and above the conference fees. Pointing fingers at the P2P pricing structure in no useful way addresses attendees’ well-documented concerns about the price of FBC and merely serves to create the impression of conflict between the two events where none exists.
Dear Jamie & Jeanne,
For someone who didn’t want to ‘get into a debate about pricing’ you’ve certainly done a good job of getting in to one…
Anyway, there’s no point getting stuck into a war of words…all I was saying it there seems to be a conflict of interests here – namely, stirring up a debate about a conference that you didn’t attend, clearly have no intention of attending in the future and, furthermore, that you used to run – something that you failed to mention when you first joined in the discussion.
This is regardless of whether or not the two are in direct competition with each other – and I struggle to see how they are not, at least to some extent. I mean, both offer workshops about food blogging. Whatever format these takes, there’s clearly a crossover. Hence, why I felt compelled to question your motives.
While it may be nice to believe that it was your noble spirit and thirst for good, ‘out of some sense of trying to defend Giula,’ in the face of these ‘ungracious comments,’ I’m not sure I buy it. As a ‘conference organiser’ yourself (and thanks for pointing that out eight times just in case we missed it), surely your role should be to do the opposite, no? As a ‘conference organiser yourself’ I would have thought you would understand the financial constraints that your ‘fellow conference organisers’ are under.
I mean, when you are charging £650 – whatever this might include – as I said, it seems ridiculous that you can even question the price of FBC. I don’t want to get into a debate about pricing either (and you’ll like what I’ve done here Jeanne, because I’ve pretended I don’t want to but I’m going to do it anyway). I live in London so I don’t need a hotel. I’ve also become quite accustomed to eating on a daily basis and, I generally pay for this food – except when I’m feeling really stingy. Then I just hang out behind my local Tesco and root through the bins when they’ve closed – so that doesn’t seem to come into the equation either. Not only that, but judging from the fantastic photos above and from people I know who attended the event, it doesn’t look as though anyone went home hungry.
Perhaps I have, indeed, ‘served to create an impression of conflict between the two events,’ but surely not half as you both seem to have done with your comments. As I said, I’ve done a fair amount of research on the idea of attending a food blogging conference – and have read glowing reports about FBC from others. I don’t see your comments anywhere on there…
Thanks for contributing…
Steven
Steven,
It’s hard to respond when I can’t even tell which points are directed at me and at Jamie, and this is all very wearing. No matter how many hours we spend trading comments, we’re not really ever going to agree on anything, are we? All the best and have a nice day :)