‘Dinner in the Dark’ with Falmouth University

On Thursday 12 April, a group of Creative Events Management students from Falmouth University hosted a ‘Dinner in the Dark’ experience in aid of iSightCornwall.

Dark dining takes place in a dark restaurant, where the diners are unable to see the food that they are eating. Dark dining aims to give sighted diners the experience of dining as a visually impaired person.

The first dark dining experience, “Le gout du noir” took place in Paris in 1997. This was followed by the opening of a temporary restaurant in the “Montorgeuil” district of Paris during the summer of 1999. The first permanent dark dining restaurant ‘Blindekuh’ (Blind man’s bluff in German) was opened in Zrich, Switzerland by blind clergyman, Jorge Spielmann. Since the opening of Blindekuh, dark restaurants have appeared in Europe, Asia and North America.

As part of their course, the Creative Events Management students were given the task of creating an event that would benefit the local community. After much brainstorming the group came up with the idea of a ‘Dinner in the Dark’ experience inspired by a similar concept ‘Dialogue in the Dark’ which takes place in Singapore. The group approached us with their idea as they wished to collaborate with a local sight loss charity to raise awareness of sight loss in Falmouth and the surrounding areas. We were delighted with the idea and knew that the event had the potential to be a huge success.

After months of planning and hard work, the event took place at the Dracaena Centre in Falmouth to a sold-out crowd. The evening involved a two-course sustainable dinner and live music from local musician ‘Hannigan’ and a small talk from us on sight loss and the services available to visually impaired people in Cornwall.

We would like to say a huge thank you to the Dinner in the Dark team for their support and hard work in planning the event, we are sure that you all have a bright career in the events management industry

If you would like to collaborate with us on a similar please call us on 01872 261110 or email us at info@isightcornwall.org.uk