World's Longest Dinner.
400 guests, one retail avenue, one sitting - how we turned Chadstone into an elegant dining room for Melbourne Food & Wine Festival's World's Longest Dinner.
The Brief
Melbourne Food & Wine Festival reimagined its flagship gathering for 2026. Where the legendary World's Longest Lunch has drawn thousands together across Victoria since 1994, the World's Longest Dinner is a more curated event - 400 guests, four courses from three of Australia's most exciting young chefs, set against one of Chadstone's most glamorous avenues as the cornerstone of the venue's new Light to Night festival of art, food and music.
An event of this ambition needed production to match: sound that carried across a long, open dining precinct without intruding on conversation; lighting that turned a retail avenue into an intimate, elegant dining room; and staging that gave chefs, performers and speakers their moment - all delivered discreetly alongside major art installations, including new immersive work from celebrated Victorian artist Rone.
What We Delivered
Light: Warm, controllable lighting ran the full length of the guest tables, from long runs along the head tables down to intimate settings for smaller groups, with further lighting woven through the bar, florals and performance areas. Every setup ran wirelessly, powered on battery, so not a single cable crossed a guest's eyeline.
Sound: Rather than one system fighting a large, hard surfaced avenue, we designed discrete audio zones - pre-drinks, the two named dinner areas, and a dedicated DJ stage, each tuned to its purpose. A compact mixing setup, wireless microphones and in-ear monitoring kept speeches, live performance and DJ sets crisp and balanced from the first canapé to the last pour.
Staging: Three custom stages, a DJ platform and multiple performer decks were built in matte black with matching carpet, so every riser read as part of the room's design rather than equipment dropped into it. A clear acrylic lectern handled formalities without breaking the sightline.
Crew: A dedicated team handled bump in, a mid afternoon reset, live operation through rehearsals and the event, and an overnight bump out. This quiet choreography lets 400 guests experience only the result.
The team behind it.
- Client
- @melbfoodandwine
- Venue
- @chadstone.au
- Furniture
- @harrythehirer
- Stylist
- @enpointe_events
- Entertainment
- @beckentertainment
- Signage
- @_qsigns
- Catering
- @curtisstoneevents_au
- Photographer
- @dancastano