Soyer resigned from the Reform Club in May 1850. Knowing that the Great Exhibition was going to be staged he submitted a design for it, which was not accepted. The Reform Club member Joseph Paxton was awarded the job for his Glass House. He had one of his friends, George Warrener, exhibit his Osmazone soup. He was also offered the drink and beverage franchise but turned it down. Instead he opened, in 1851, his "Gastronomic Symposium of All Nations" in Gore House opposite the gates of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, a site now occupied by the Royal Albert Hall. Prior to its grand opening on 17 May 1851, on 15 May a banquet was held to which every European newspaper had been invited. Later that year Soyer was forced to close his great venture after losing £7,000.