Elisa Sunga picked up a baking five years ago. Now she hosts a touring cake festival that attracts thousands of bakeries from around the world.
Elisa Sunga, 35, is Google’s senior UX program manager. Five years ago, like many people, Sunga takes up baking during the pandemic and says she will “just fall in love with it,” she tells CNBC.
Then, about a year ago, her sweet teeth became her best: “I really wanted to eat a lot of cakes. To be honest,” she says. “But at the same time, I didn’t want to bake all the cakes, so I thought, ‘What would happen if I just created an event and needed everyone to bring the whole cake?’ ”
Thus, I started out with the idea of a cake picnic where the main rule is “no cake, no entry.”
Sunga initially posted plans for an unofficial cake gathering, thinking that 15 people would appear on Instagram.
After all, more people wanted sweet confusion. “Every time I refresh the RSVP page,” says Sunga. “50, 100, 150, 200 rise.
In April 2024, she held her first cake picnic event in San Francisco with 183 cakes.
The cake picnic is the brainchild of Elisa Sunga, a San Francisco tech worker who picked up baking during the pandemic and wanted to host an event for fellow dessert enthusiasts.
Anadoll | Getty Images
Throughout the year, Sunga held their second stop in San Francisco in the fall after having a cake picnic on tours to Los Angeles and New York. Things really started with the event in March 2025. There, people brought over 1,300 cakes and enjoyed them in San Francisco Honorary Legion.
The Cake Picnic Instagram page has moved from 20,000 followers to over 100,000 within a day, Sunga says.
“It literally changed the cake picnic game,” she says.
Why are people attracted to cake picnics?
What motivates hundreds of people at once to bake an entire cake to share with strangers in the park?
Sunga points to a unique experience. “It’s an opportunity to see hundreds of cakes at once, and to eat three minutes of matcha cakes, raspberry cakes, Ube cakes, chocolate cakes and more,” she says. “When have you ever really got that cake buffet experience?”
The event also brings together a baking community, from beginners to pastry chefs. “No matter what skills you have, we’re really here because we love cakes,” she says.
Hundreds of people attended San Francisco, California, USA on March 29, 2025, and 1,387 cakes were counted for hundreds attending during a massive picnic of honor.
Anadoll | Getty Images
The gathering is a source of inspiration to see how bakers experiment with other experiments with flavors and designs.
Then there is all the joy. “You’re at this event because you love cakes. You’ll probably choose baked, happiness and joy and fun,” says Sunga. “So the people who come to the cake picnic are like friends in your heart.”
I’m catching up with my growing passion project
Sunga works on cake picnics for several hours each week on the evenings and weekends, expanding in the weeks leading up to the event date. The project’s team consists of Sunga partner and co-founder Danny Knight and a network of friends and collaborators across the United States.
Cake Picnic also relies on volunteers from each Tour City to make events happen during the day.
Sunga says managing a vast team has helped him practice communication, leadership and delegation skills. “In the end, I think it’s so much fun to have our project being a cake,” so “I don’t mind working every day from 6pm to 9pm.”
Sunga aims to standardize event tickets to $30 at every tour stop, and aims to pay herself and the Knight for the time she spends on the project (he refused to share how much she and Knight draw from the sale). They have also reached a point that brings some benefit, and she wants to invest in the cake community by asking artists to create work for the event.
At this time, Sunga has no plans to make cake picnics a full-time job, but he hopes to grow his team to manage them globally.
She says that leaning full-time into the project will change her relationship with the joy that brings her.
“In the beginning, I started a cake picnic because I wanted to eat cake and then I wanted to meet Baker’s friend,” Sunga says. “If I did it full time, I think it would change how I feel about the event. Rather than being excited about eating cake or seeing friends, how can it help this grow?”
Additionally, she loves working at Google, where she works on community and learning initiatives.
Cake picnic is a gathering for cake love, bringing together the community and friends for the sole purpose of breaking the cake and enjoying the next butter and sugar high, and celebrating the cake in all its forms.
Anadoll | Getty Images
“That’s a great honor for me.”
So far, Cake Picnic has hosted seven events featuring over 3,500 cakes. In July we held our first international picnic in London, where guests brought over 400 cakes.
Tickets for the next event in LA sold out in seconds, turning into a waiting list of 11,000 people.
Attendees come from countries and countries around the world, including Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Kuwait, Spain and Ireland.
The project will head to Minneapolis, San Francisco and New York in the second half of the fall.
The rapid growth of cake picnics continues to be “such a stir,” Sunga says. “That’s a great honor for me. We have so many options for what we can do over time. There are concerts, dinners, brunches, there are times of corrupted at home. And people say, “We’re going to come to a cake picnic.”
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