Secret Pop Up Picnic Picks Up Steam After 'Diner En Blanc' Registration Frustrations
By Hadas Kuznits
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) --- The popularity of the "Diner En Blanc," a pop-up picnic in Philadelphia in which participants dress all in white, caused their servers to crash during registration this week.
When thousands failed to register, one man decided to start his own event.
Chris Nowaczyk was one of 10,000 people trying to register for 4,000 open registration slots of the 3rd annual pop-up picnic known as Diner En Blanc.
"There's been a frustration about logging into Diner En Blanc," he said. "We just simply could not get in. There were server issues."
When he failed to register, he decided to start a Facebook page titled "Diner en Noir."
"Once that Facebook page was made, there was a bunch of administrators; people who wanted to have a part in it."
And so, he decided to create his own pop-up picnic. For this one, folks are being asked to dress all in black. He says it'll be different from Diner En Blanc, in which participants bring their own table, chairs, place settings and food.
"We're going to provide those table and chairs," he said. "We're also going to have the option of have it be a little bit pop-up picnic, but a little bit night market; so we're planning on having food truck vendors available as well."
The event takes place at a secret location on August 21st -- the same night as Diner En Blanc.
