How can you keep yourself busy – and sane – when you are confined to your home for weeks on end during a strict lockdown? Thousands of Britons answered this question by (re)discovering the joy of home baking and cooking, evidenced by a national flour shortage as well as countless humble brags on Instagram and Twitter.

The lockdown kitchen craze hasn’t just fuelled grocery sales and bragging rights, though. Examining Eventbrite booking data, we noticed that ticket sales to online courses teaching cooking and bread-, pasta-, or cake making have also exploded in popularity ever since the first lockdown hit.

In March and May – when online courses were the only option available – Eventbrite  issued more tickets to cookery and baking courses than in March and May of last year, when the vast majority of classes were in-person. Since March, when lockdown measures were first introduced in Britain, more than 40,000 attendees have booked an online cooking or baking course in the UK through Eventbrite. Notably, many of those came from outside of the UK, e.g. Australia or the U.S., extending the reach of these classes to other countries around the globe. We previously observed that more than one third (30%) of the audience of UK online events logged in from abroad.  

While attendance figures to online culinary courses dropped off during the summer months – after the most severe restrictions were lifted and people enjoyed themselves outside – they are now steeply rising again in the run up to Christmas. And with cooking and baking courses hosted all over the world, aspiring home chefs can learn how to make candied orange peels, Singapore chilli crab, Albanian jhani,  Malaysian laksa, Sichuanese mapo tofu, or a side of baba ganoush from local chefs.

Online cookery classes were a success story for charity Migrateful 

One event creator for whom the Covid crisis was truly transformational is Migrateful, a London based charity that runs popular cookery classes led by refugees, asylum seekers and migrants from all over the world.

“We’ve always held our in-person cooking classes on Eventbrite and we were doing more than 50 in February alone”, says Jess Thompson, the founder and CEO of Migrateful. “When the lockdown hit we had to cancel everything.” A devastating blow, considering the cooking classes hosted by migrant chefs from e.g. Ghana, Iran or Sri Lanka are Migrateful’s main source of funding. “It was hard. Our income just dried up overnight. 85% of our funds were coming from the cooking classes.” The charity’s future was hanging in the balance.

Thompson encouraged Migrateful’s chefs to host online classes from their home kitchens: “We slowly started to build up our new online classes through April and May, and in June we already hosted more than 500 attendees from private households”, says Thompson. “Our chefs really enjoy cooking and teaching online. And our attendees also say that the learning experience is actually better because everyone’s in their own kitchen. It’s a lot easier operationally and we can reach communities all over the world whereas before we were very limited to London.”

“It’s kind of crazy that essentially, going online has turned this crisis into a success story for us”

November, says Thompson, has been ‘off the scale’ in terms of bookings for classes – the exact opposite of what you’d normally expect during a lockdown, thanks to the pivot to virtual events. “It’s kind of crazy that essentially, going online has turned this crisis into a success story for us” says the Migrateful founder. Asked whether she plans to keep the online classes going after the pandemic, she comments: “It’s hard to make plans at the moment because it all depends on customer demand. If we find that people keep wanting to attend them, then we’re very happy to host more. We are currently selling gift vouchers for Christmas for our online classes with a one year expiry date. That will give us an indication of what kind of demand we can expect for next year.”  

Thompson’s hopes for the future of online events are echoed by Joel Crouch, GM Europe at Eventbrite: “We have heard from many creators that they believe online streams will continue to be part of their events portfolio even after lockdown ends. Online events can attract a large, global audience. And with cooking classes, attendees cook in their own home, using their own equipment and often their own ingredients. That’s a lot easier to organise – and a lot more cost effective – than in-person classes in demo kitchens where the organiser typically needs to rent and insure a venue and provides all tools and ingredients. I see a bright future ahead for online culinary classes.”