Chaos Erupts at Lagos’ First Cake Picnic as Organisers Accept Blame

What was meant to be Lagos’ first taste of the globally popular Cake Picnic turned into a chaotic free-for-all as participants abandoned decorum, destroying cakes with their bare hands in scenes now trending online.

The Cake Picnic, founded by London-based UX designer Elisa Sunga, is an annual event where attendees bring cakes, lay out blankets in a park and share slices in an orderly manner.

The only rule for the event is ‘no cake, no entry’.

After photos are taken, guests collect slices with the provided utensils.

Once everyone has had a turn, the tables open for seconds, thirds and fourths until the tables are left with crumbs

But the Lagos version was a grim reflection of the event, as the only part faithful to the original event was the arrival and arrangement of cakes on tables.

While versions in cities like London and New York have been calm and festive, Lagos’ debut on Saturday was marred by disorder.

Viral videos show participants shoving, grabbing and crushing cakes to hoard large portions, turning the event into what social media users are calling a “royal rumble.”

Critics have accused the organisers of breaching the no-cake-no-entry rule by accepting payment from those who arrived empty-handed.

“Why did you receive money from those without cake? That’s greed. If it’s a cake picnic let it be that simple,” Instagram user Miz_Shona wrote.

Popular food critic, Opeyemi Famakin, in a video, said that plans for the Nigerian version of the event began after he posted a video of the London event, and some brands reached out to him for partnership.

He said, “All the money that they all put together was close to N20 million.

“So, I told all of them that no, I am not doing the event and they were shocked and I told them money is not my driving force. No matter the amount you offer me, as far as it is in Nigeria, I will always decline.

“So, I told them, you guys organise the event, do all the stress. After doing all the stress I can influence, but for me to organise the event, no matter the amount you offer me to do an event where I must be the one organising it, the answer would always be no.”

He has distanced himself and criticised the Lagos version, saying, “Other countries did theirs smoothly. When it got to Nigeria, you spoilt it. Is it Tinubu’s fault? The average Nigerian is a bad person.”

Some Nigerians linked the chaos to what they called a “scarcity mindset,” arguing that people felt the need to grab as much as possible out of fear there wouldn’t be enough to go round.

“The average Nigerian struggles to process abundance. In our small limited minds, We don’t believe ‘there’s enough to go round.’ We’re suffering from scarcity mindset, so our first instinct is to grab plenty and hoard more than we need,” grilledttt.bymaamah wrote on Instagram.

The organisers have since issued an apology on Instagram, admitting shortcomings in planning.

“We’re deeply grateful to everyone who attended our first Cake Picnic Festival in Lagos. Your presence, support, and energy meant the world to us.

“Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned. We take full responsibility for the shortcomings in planning and organisation, and we sincerely apologise. We promise to learn from this and do better next time. Thank you for believing in us,” they wrote.

Sunga, who recently hosted her seventh Cake Picnic in London’s Greenwich Park with 463 cakes and over 30,000 sign-ups worldwide, had once envisioned the event as a small circle of friends introducing themselves and their cakes.

“In my earliest daydreams of this event, it was a small and intimate picnic of maybe 15 new friends forming a circle at the park. Once we’d formed a circle, we would take turns to introduce ourselves and our cake. I had no idea this would draw such a crowd and that everyone would share my dream so passionately,” she said.

Videos from an earlier Abuja edition of the cake picnic, held with a smaller crowd, showed scenes more faithful to the original idea.

The Lagos debut, however, was far from that dream.

Source: Punch