Social Espresso were asked to pull an all-nighter, with our event barista coffee service providing much needed coffees at the 2017 General Election night coverage at ITV Studios in London. We were representing Google on their Google Trends stand, and after almost accidentally walking in on Channel 4 News, we had our mobile coffee bar set up in the ITV atrium ready for the next 10 hours, from 7pm – 5am.
This was the night when Conservative prime minister Teresa May, who had called a snap general election hoping to increase her parliamentary majority and solidify her leadership, in fact ended up losing ground to the opposition Labour party. The opinion polls had consistently shown the Conservatives with a strong lead over Labour, as high as 21 percentage points at one time. But their lead slipped away in the final weeks of the campaign, and they ended up losing 13 seats overall, with the Labour Party making a net gain of 30 seats.
The election result was described by the press as a return to two party politics, as the Liberal Democrats only gained 4 seats, but the Scottish National Party suffered a significant loss of 21 seats. Further, UKIP (the third largest party in the previous general election by the total number of votes received), saw its share of the vote tumble and the loss of its only seat.
From our point of view, with our event barista coffee service, we are used to some very early mornings starts, but not finishing and packing away at 5 in the morning! All in all we served over 500 coffees through the night to the staff and other people waiting for the election results. It was great fun and we look forward to providing event coffee at election night events again!
Find out more about Social Espresso’s event coffee service, or contact us about your event requirements by calling 020 3808 9126 or send us an email at events@socialespresso.co.uk.