Jelly Good Show
World-renowned event organisers Bompas & Parr, recently responsible for Khun By Yoo’s party, on their idiosyncratic style and enduring association with every child’s favourite dessert
For Sam Bompas and Harry Parr, it all began with making jelly just for fun after school and on weekends. More than a decade later, it’s still about that, except that the duo are now among the world’s most prominent and innovative event organisers. Known collectively as Bompas & Parr, the British duo have been friends since they were 13, with shared interests in art, music and food. Soon after the launch in 2007, the business quickly went on from being mere jelly catering to full-on party organising, combining both design and food innovations.
“Very early on, we realised that food is just one aspect of the total experience, and your impression of the food is massively impacted by the environment around you,” said Bompas. “What we need to do is to really control the total environment to give people the exact food experience we want to curate.”
Over the years, they have continually challenged and blurred the lines between a social event, theatrical performance, art exhibition, architecture and culinary research. Together with a team of creatives, cooks, designers, specialised technicians and architects, Bompas & Parr have come up with a number of out-of-this-world happenings, including Alcoholic Architecture — a bar with an actual cloud of gin and tonic — meal cooking with lava and multi-sensory fireworks which people can smell and taste.
They have exhibited in many notable museums around the world, including San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Serpentine Gallery, Victoria & Albert Museum and have worked with a number of brands like Selfridges, Disney, Louis Vuitton, Unilever, Vodafone, Kraft Foods, Heinz and Mercedes-Benz.
For the launch of Sansiri’s Khun By Yoo last week, the duo changed the event space of EmQuartier into a splash of neon lights and jelly towers — quite like the real condo that will be coming up in Thong Lor. Besides the magnificent fountain of fluorescent water that stood in the middle of the party, the other photo-op that lures you in is the kaleidoscope with its dizzying reflections of the immaculately-perfect jelly sitting on a pedestal. Bompas told us with a wink that thankfully, they managed to concoct a specific (but secret) recipe just in time for Bangkok, so that the jelly won’t melt in our summer heat.
In an interview with Muse, Bompas and Parr talked more about jelly and the beauty of a party’s transitory nature.
What’s so fascinating about jelly and why did you think you could make a business out of it?
Bompas: We decided to start the company quite spontaneously. Harry and I just wanted to do something fun on the weekends and we thought the answer to that was to start a company back in 2007 and it would be a jelly company. English food doesn’t have a great reputation internationally. But one of the things Britain was known for in the past, hundreds of years ago, was amazing jelly. The problem was jelly had gone from being the most expensive, the most wondrous and glorious dessert in the past to just something for kids’ parties, a really low status. We wanted to see if we could restore it back to its pedestal.
Harry was studying to be an architect at the time and we worked out that out by bringing some of the things he had learned in his architecture into the realm of jelly, we could do something new, something extraordinary and really engaging, and I guess that was our first connection between architecture and lifestyle.
Parr: People have a nostalgic reaction to it, everyone is excited by jelly. It is figurative and fun — that got us excited and interested in it. The small number of variables like changing the colour, the flavour and the form is able to create a huge impact on the way people appreciate the experience of the dish. It’s basically indefinite what you can do with it. And we are still doing new things 10 years later.
Was there a particular moment when you felt sure for the first time that you could make a career out of this?
Parr: It was when we did Alcoholic Architecture. One day, I was on the bus going somewhere and I heard people behind me talking about this amazing place where you enter and there was this cloud of gin and tonic. That, for me, was the moment.
Bompas: That was around the same time we had to take our mobile numbers off the website for the first time. I remember my phone was vibrating so much and it was going across the table and dropped and I put it back on the table again. That was an important moment.
What do you mean by ‘experience design’?
Bompas: The important people for us are the audience. We need to remind all of our team that we are focusing all of our effort on giving people extraordinary experiences — making happy memories, getting their phones out and taking loads of pictures and having stories to tell their friends. And when they tell their stories, their friends genuinely listen as opposed to just like waiting for their turn to speak. That’s why we call ourselves experience designers.
They have blurred the lines between a social event, theatrical performance, art exhibition, architecture and culinary research
Parr: Although we might design some things in a certain way, it’s only successful if people enjoy and interact with it, having a great time and making it their own. Otherwise, it’s just us imposing our designs on other people, that’s gonna be a failure.
How does the element of food play into this?
Bompas: It is our source of learning. It taught us about what are the things that really grab people’s attention and create a narrative journey, a sense of inspiration and joy, and ultimately how do you make people smile? One of the great things about food and drink is you are very easily able to connect with people and give them the emotional experience. If you have a wonderful piece of food and drink, your brain just lights up and you are really happy.
Your parties and events are the kind of artwork which only lasts for a little while, what’s the appeal of the transitory nature of it?
Bompas: I think one of the nice things about the temporariness of it is how it all disappears afterwards and it only exists in people’s memories, in photographs. This means that we can go on making new stuff, a chance to make a new start. It presses you to keep on trying to innovate, to try and beat the last thing that you have done.
Parr: Your trace of work in people’s memories is just in the mind, they can’t reference something physical, there’s nothing there. This means that everything you do you have to work extra hard to make it so much better than the last one because people’s expectations are constantly changing and that’s quite interesting. When we organise a party, the moment that the party comes to a climax, when people are having a really good time, for us that’s the best moment. When it couldn’t get any better, that’s when we want to shut it down. And then the memory lives on.