All the organizers of Chicago’s Dîner en Blanc wanted to do was hold a flash event where a thousand people showed up all dressed in white for a picnic. We first learned about this on Chicagoist, and it sounded mildly interesting. Apparently, we do not know our audience, as so many people tried to score spots to the event that the website crashed. On Facebook the organizers pointed out that issues were caused by nearly “2000+ refreshes per minute prior to Noon.”
Everything seems to be sorted out now, but all the spaces are gone. You can still get on the waitlist and hope that a spot opens up eventually. Still, this begs a really good question: why do Chicagoans love to crash restaurant servers? A few weeks ago, some 16,000 people overloaded Next’s new website. Do we really want to eat at all these places, or is it just the thrill of destruction that we’re after?
Dîner en Blanc/Facebook
Diner En Blanc Comes to Chicago! [UPDATED!] [Chicagoist]
