It was set to be Mount Druitt’s biggest food festival. Then Westfield cancelled

It was supposed to be a win for Mount Druitt. This weekend, the western Sydney suburb was set to host the largest food festival it had seen, with a curated selection of about 30 stalls selling an exclusive range of one-off doughnuts, tacos and sandwiches over three nights, and promoted via social media. Then, a week out from the event, Westfield hit pause.

The shopping centre conglomerate, which agreed to host the event on the rooftop of its Mount Druitt location from Friday, August 29 to Sunday, August 31, needed more money, more security and more time, said organiser of the Viral Food Festival Kaisser Khater.

A spokesperson from Westfield Mount Druitt said the decision was disappointing, but the welfare of attendees was their main concern. “The safety of our customers and community is our highest priority, including when we are planning large-scale events,” they said.

“Unfortunately, the evolving requirements for this multi-day event led to risk and safety concerns, and we were unable to host it this weekend. These concerns were shared with the relevant local authorities.”

Hearing the news, Khater began to panic. He knew small business owners who’d taken out loans, booked flights and spent days preparing for the event. He knew groups such as For The Area, a volunteer organisation that hosts community experiences, were excited to bring the community together at a safe, night-time event. And he’d seen the positive effect the festival could have: an average of 30,000 people attended previous events held in Richmond, Liverpool and Stanhope, giving a much-needed boost of up to $10,000 towards each vendor, and reaching a social media audience of 3 million people.

“It was crap,” Khater said. “People had been asking me to bring the festival to Mount Druitt for ages. They’d always say the same thing to me: nothing ever happens here, it’s not fair.”

Khater and sisters Samantha and Rose Khater launched Bossman Experiences last year, following the sale of their e-commerce business Dessert Boxes, with the aim of reinvigorating Sydney’s nightlife by bringing Australia’s most popular social media food brands to under-served suburbs in the west.

“We do this because we’re first-generation Australians,” Khater said. “Our parents came here from Lebanon with nothing … and we’ve been able to make something of [ourselves by building a strong social media following], so now we want to give other people that platform.”

For vendors such as Marrickville cafe Tita, the event would have provided the profit needed to cover their bills after an exceptionally difficult winter for the hospitality sector.

“[We all] really needed this boost, to be honest, because it’s been really, really tough,” said Tita owner Kenneth Rodrigueza. “We’re behind on payments, and with the wet weather recently, we’re not even breaking even.”

Plans for the Mount Druitt event began to unravel on Wednesday, August 20, when Westfield emailed event organisers to request an additional $9000, taking the figure from $7000 to “closer to $15,000”, to cover revised quotes for security, cleaning, water barriers and waste management.

“The centre is not looking to profit from the event,” a Westfield manager wrote in the email to Khater. “The fee is simply to recover the operational expenses needed to run it properly.”

Khater said: “That was really the trigger in all this,” noting that the initial quote was said to include those expenses. “I told them it was going to be hard to get my hands on $9000, and then on Friday [August 22] I got an email saying the event [wasn’t going ahead].”

The email, which this masthead has seen, said: “After further review of operational, risk and logistical considerations uncovered over the past few days, the Centre and Leadership Team have decided we need more time to address these matters before moving forward. As a result, a decision has been made this morning to pause next weekend’s event.

“Everyone is still very keen to see this happen, however it’s important we take the necessary steps to ensure the safety and experience of our retailers, customers and staff with an event of this scale.”

In the interim, For The Area came forward with the additional hire fee, and Khater spent an additional $2000 on an event producer to provide Westfield with the documentation it required, but it was too late.

In a web call on Wednesday, August 27, the Westfield team officially pulled the plug: “[They said] we don’t feel like everything’s in place from a safety perspective and from an operational perspective … but I believe none of this would have happened if I just gave them the extra money [straight away],” Khater said.

“They had all the work risk assessments. I’d notified police. I had notified the council. Everything [else] was great.”

For vendors such as Smoking Gringos owners Richard and Jade Borg, the news was “devastating”. The husband-and-wife team behind the Blacktown taco shop had bought 100 loaves of bread to make beef birria toasties specifically for the event, and stood to lose close to $10,000 in product and sales losses.

“At the last event we sold over 1000 birria croissants and close to 10,000 tacos … so it was huge for us, it was everything,” said Richard Borg. “[Hospitality] is so up and down between the weather and the cost-of-living crisis, and the money we make just seems to be getting smaller and smaller.”

After a frantic social media appeal, Khater secured an alternative location for the festival, at the Richmond Greyhound Race Track, 22 kilometres away. The track had been used for a previous festival organised by Khater. All but three stalls have agreed to attend the new location, and Justice Crew performer Samson Smith has donated $1000 towards fuel vouchers for Mount Druitt residents to cover their travel.

Khater said he’s heartened by the support the event has received on Instagram, where more than 1000 followers have left comments on the single announcement post.

“I’m confident. The community has rallied. There are influencers coming and donating their time. And the Greyhound Race Track has been our saviour,” he said. There are also plans for another food festival in the Blacktown area later this year.

But for the businesses that can’t transport their staff and products as far as Richmond, loss looms large. Rodrigueza, who invested in an additional 20 kilograms of flour for the event, plans to open Tita at night from Friday to Sunday this week, with live music, a pop-up dessert bar and a revival of his doughnut brand Donut Papi.

“Richmond is an hour-and-a-half away from us, and I have to think of our staff and the uncertainty of it all … I hope people turn up this weekend.”

The Viral Food Festival is at the Richmond Greyhound Race Track, 312 Londonderry Road, Richmond from 5pm on Friday, August 29 and Saturday, August 30, and from noon on Sunday, August 31.