To kick off the 12th annual Interior Design Show, held Friday through Sunday at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, organizers played up the “Ultimate” theme for this year’s event and hosted a massive opening night kitchen party for 5,000 guests on Thursday. “It’s an Italian home kitchen party on a big scale,” event producer Marion Heintzman of Heintzman Productions said of the party, which was sponsored by Dekla, Scavolini, and House & Home Media.

To create a kitchen feel in the main stage area, Heintzman built an oversize appliance rack—measuring 24 by 16 feet—that hung above the bar where she displayed kitchen items like platters, strainers, oven mitts, graters, measuring cups, and garlic strands.