A new dining experience is set for its Vancouver debut this summer, but you’ll be craning your neck to find it.
In July, Dinner in the Sky Canada (DITSC) plans to launch its first sky-dining experience in British Columbia.
Suspended from a crane, attendees will be served dinner and drinks while harnessed into a platform that hangs nearly 200 feet above the ground overlooking downtown Vancouver.
The idea was conceived in Belgium approximately 10 years ago, and since then 10,000 of the events have been hosted in nearly 50 countries around the world.
The company, an offshoot of Skydine Events Ltd., recently announced it would be making regional franchise rights available in Ontario and Alberta.
Vancouver-based entrepreneur Jhordan Stevenson owns the rights to DITSC.
“We are looking to sell out licences for those markets,” said Stevenson. “This business is very time consuming. There is a lot of planning that goes into it, and we just don’t have the bandwidth to do all the provinces.”
Stevenson said the event is close to selling out. Nearly 70% of the tickets for July have already been purchased.
The Vancouver sky-dine event is scheduled to run July 1–31.
Each trip or “ride” will be roughly an hour and 15 minutes long, with an intermission bathroom break. It takes about 30 seconds for the platform to reach its resting position in the sky.
Tickets for DITSC are $249 for brunch and $349 for dinner. The platform seats 22 diners, plus four or five staff. Stevenson and his team plan to run four to five trips per day. Stevenson has partnered with chef Marcus Von Albrecht to create the menu, which will be made public closer to the event.
The crane will be supplied by Eagle West Cranes, a B.C.-based mobile hydraulic crane company that was involved in the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Contrary to the original plan, the crane will be located in North Vancouver near Mosquito Creek Marina instead of downtown.
As to the cost of the crane rental, Stevenson would say only that it was “very expensive.”
When the company is not hosting its own events, it plans to rent the platform to other companies.
“We’ve had tons of requests to rent it for weddings and so forth,” said Stevenson. “We’ve even had a request for a Texas hold ’em in the sky.”
Stevenson said he also plans to use the platform in other parts of B.C. during the winter.
“We are interested in bringing the platform up to Whistler and do an event similar to one they do in Belgium called Santa in the Sky where the platform is dressed as a Santa sleigh and reindeers.”
“We’ve also partnered with Thomas Haas, who is a local celebrity pastry maker from Switzerland, so we will be adding another experience called Dessert in the Sky, which will be shorter in duration.”
Tickets to the event can be bought on the company website (skydine.ca). •
