The Pizzas are Coming! ... On Sunday

We have some good news and some bad news. Which do you want to hear first? Bad news? Okay then … the launch of our month-long Pies for the People discounted pizza campaign – designed to give you ample motivation to sample Beijing's best pizza – has been delayed three days and will now launch Sunday, September 18. *Collective groan*

Believe us, it wasn’t easy to renege on our original commitment to launch the campaign yesterday (Sep 15). We do so with a heavy heart, and a few cans of Four Loko in our bloodstream.

We decided to postpone for a couple of reasons: first and foremost due to the fact that we're using a new system and there could be kinks, and you good people might have questions (we figured we better be back in the office before the launch to answer any and all customer service calls promptly). Secondly, some of our vendors are short-staffed over the holiday as their hard-working crews take a little well-deserved time off, so they told us we'd be better off starting when they return to full force Sunday.

The good news, you ask? The promotions our vendors have lined up are looking awesome and will be worth the wait when it does launch on Sunday. More good news is that planning for the October 15-16 Pizza Fest at Wangjing SOHO is well underway, and we've already signed up 20 of Beijing's best pizzerias to attend.

That means we're sure to exceed last year's pizza vendor total, which should make for a perfect environment to sample the best the city has to offer.

And our venue – Wangjing SOHO – is absolutely massive ... not to mention gorgeous. The festival will take place on a 17-meter-wide pedestrianized street, with vendors lining the sidewalks for several hundred meters on both sides.

That'll leave plenty of room for you to move about, pitch a picnic blanket, or even push a stroller. We're quite confident it will go down in the annals of Chinese history as the largest gathering of pizzas in its 5,000-year run as a continuous civilization.

Purchasing advance tickets will be strongly recommended for crowd control purposes, which go on sale starting Sunday. So enjoy your holiday and continue watching this space or click "Read more" to visit our 2016 Pizza Cup page for the latest updates and pizza coverage!