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Vendor at a festival

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Pakula_s_Pizza

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I have been approached by the chairman of a local festival in the next town over. It’s an Italian Festival and they want me to make sausage and pepper sandwiches. AVG crowd per year is about 10,000. I will have exclusivity on sausage and pepper sandwiches, I will also be able to sell, soda & water, Snow cones, Cotton Candy, and hopefully zeppolies.
my costs so far are as follows…

Booth - $400
Grill- $220 including gas
Running water- $100
insurance - I’m not sure, waiting to hear back
Tent- $60
Signage and decorations- $100

I will need tables…I think i have some…
Has anyone done this before?..has it been profitable?
 
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We have never done the annual festival at our first location - which has probably been a mistake because it’s a HUGE event and draws tens of thousands of people. Our store overlooks the park where the festival is at and our business spikes about 50% while it’s going on. We will be doing it next year for sure, and I’m expecting we can make about $2,000 over three days.

Based on how popular that event is, we decided to do the annual festival in our second location’s city this year, despite none of us having ever attended it. We just figured it was a huge event like at our first location. Boy were we wrong! We ended up losing about $500 on it, the festival had a distinctive depressing feel about it, and it was just a miserable experience. And these cities are only about 6 miles apart, but that fest just doesn’t draw like the one near our first store.

So it’s going to come down to the festival itself. I would go talk to last year’s vendors and see how they did. Had we done that at our second store we would have never done it. After we got set up we started to realize that almost nobody was back from the year before - that would have been enough for us to put the brakes on it.

Also, your costs don’t include labor or a health permit. Hopefully your health department isn’t a blood sucker like ours, but our three day permit was $150.00.
 
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ddariel20:
if they approached you why the charge for the booth?
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The chairman of the festival was a previous landlord of my strip mall. He wants me to benefit off of it. so he says.
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Piper:
We just figured it was a huge event like at our first location. Boy were we wrong! We ended up losing about $500 on it, the festival had a distinctive depressing feel about it, and it was just a miserable experience. And these cities are only about 6 miles apart, but that fest just doesn’t draw like the one near our first store.
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This is the only festival of it’s kind in the area, Supposedly very popular…Have never been there though.
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Piper:
Also, your costs don’t include labor or a health permit. Hopefully your health department isn’t a blood sucker like ours, but our three day permit was $150.00.
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$75.00 for the permit. I’m trying to figure out labor…I’m first trying to figure out how much food to bring. As far as labor goes I think a grill guy, helper on the grill, and myself could pump out as much as the grill could.
 
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how many other food vendors are there and where is your space in proximity to the rest of them?
 
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Hi Guys:

We have never done a festival ourselves but we did rent 30 MM conveyor ovens to the fellow who had the pizza concession at the second Woodstock festival.

George Mills
 
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ddariel20:
how many other food vendors are there and where is your space in proximity to the rest of them?
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I’m not sure total food but I will be the only one selling sausage And peppers at an Italian festival. As far as spaced goes, I’m told I’m gonna get a good one
 
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We have done them a few times. Even at a small arts fest, we would do $1500 a day in slices. I know the local guy that does Gyros at local events and he also does a couple of thousand a day easily. At the Telluride Bluegrass festival (10,000 people per day) the busier food vendors do $4000-$6000 day.

Those booth fees look pretty reasonable to me. A lot of festivals charge 25-30% of sales and include water, power, trash service etc.

The secret to volume at a fest is the ability to turn the line really fast. People will not get in a line that has more than about 20 people in it no matter how fast it moves if there are other choices. Have the prep naileed so you can assemble something, good to eat, that is hot, and priced fairly and you will be busy.
 
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You have to keep it simple to move a line fast. I do several events a year. I do french fries,cheese fries, pizza and buffalo chicken. The fries are the only thing cooked on location. We run 4 fries with 100 lb propane tanks. I take 2 10x10 booths and run 2 lines. You have to move the line very fast. I staff 6 people plus a food runner.You also have to have great signs and clean equipment. A couple of the booths next to us look like they wash there equipment with dirt.
On an event with 10,000 plus people with 8-10 other venders (not doing the same food) we can do $4000-$8000 a day.

Soda: Alot of vendors will do cans for $1 but we have found selling 20oz-24oz bottles for $2.00 each is the way to go.Ask your soda company for some plastic soda tubs.

Ice: if the event has alot of food venders, an ice truck may show up to sell you ice. If you can bring your own, it will save you alot of money. I can spend $100-$150 on ice a day.

If you use folding 6 or 8ft tables do your self a favor and go buy 10ft of 2" pvs pipe and cut it into 1 foot pieces. Slip the 1 foot pieces on to the legs of the tables to raise them up. That 1 foot pipe can save alot of back pain.

Make sure you have a fire extinguisher, cause you may get fire inspected. A K type if you have one.

Just try to keep it as simple as you can. I see guys trying to sell 20 items and not make any money.
What
 
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Between bodega and whAt, that must be the cliff notes right there. Thank you so much this is valuable information. I’m going to precook sausage. Also precook the peppers and onions, and have my breads cut. Since I posted I have figured out a couple of things. My health permit is $45.
And Insurance is at no extra cost.
I have talked to coke and primio(sausage company) they are both giving me signage and tools to work with. If you think of anything else please help. Thanks again cyaa
 
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bodegahwy and what,

What’s your average profit (as % of sales) at these types of events you work.

What you mentioned pizza, i’m assuming slices, is that the case?

Bryan
 
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Yes, we sold slices when we did it.

Profit is pretty hard to pin down since a bunch of the prep was done on the regular kitchen schedule and not “charged” to the event.

Here are some basic numbers:

$2000 in sales

80 16" pizzas cut in 6 $3.50 per slice ave
300 cans of soda
100 bags of chips, cookies, candy bars etc

COGS around 20-22% (inlcudes plates, napkins, trash bags, condiments, ice etc)

four workers in the tent per day:
2 for 8 hours each
1 for 6 hours
1 for 4 hours

Total labor: 26 hours per day not counting setting up and tearing down tent and moving and setting up ovens etc. Music fests are longer. Set up time makes single day events less attractive than multi-day.

$2000 sales
$500 booth fees
$445 COGS
$350 labor
$100 labor set-up, running around
$50 prep labor before event
$155 sales taxes due

$400 profit
 
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We do a local fest every year about 3 blocks from the store. So we just have the drivers continuously bring pizzas over. In 2 days we did about $4800 so we did ok . The best part is the meet and greet with the delivery customers that you rarely see, and handing out menus to all the new people who have not tried you. I think while we did good at the fest the residual business that you get going forward is what its all about.
 
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We are doing a tailgate party fundraiser Friday at the high school that is abou 1/4 mile from our shop. since it is so close we plan to do like Tony said and just keep the both stocked from the store.
There will be us, a sandwich shop doing burgers, dogs, subs and fries, Zaxby’s with chicken sandwiches and wings and a guy selling boiled peanuts. I plan on selling slices and whole pies and drinks in either cans or bottles (whatever I can get better deal on from Sams).
This is a first time event so nobody knows what to expect. There is no charge for booth but they are asking 10% of the sales to go to school improvement fund to make improvements to the football stadium since there is no money in the budget. They promoted the event at the high school, the middle schools that feed the high school, and at their scheduled opponents school so they hope to get some of the visiting teams fans as well. The visiting teams school is only about 15 miles away.
The event is scheduled for 4:00PM to 7:30 when the game starts. They normally draw 4000-5000 people depending on who they are playing and the weather.
I have the booth being staffed by 3 former employees who all just happened to move back into the area recently and have nothing to do, so the fact that it is at the peak of business on a Friday won’t impact us as long as we can keep the pizzas flowing through the oven. Since we do not know what to expect, I plan to have about 50 pizzas prepped for the school and enough extra dough for 30 or 40 more.
We are still waiting to find out if we will have power or water available.

It should be interesting.
 
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bodegahwy:
Yes, we sold slices when we did it.

Profit is pretty hard to pin down since a bunch of the prep was done on the regular kitchen schedule and not “charged” to the event.

Here are some basic numbers:

$2000 in sales

80 16" pizzas cut in 6 $3.50 per slice ave
300 cans of soda
100 bags of chips, cookies, candy bars etc

COGS around 20-22% (inlcudes plates, napkins, trash bags, condiments, ice etc)

four workers in the tent per day:
2 for 8 hours each
1 for 6 hours
1 for 4 hours

Total labor: 26 hours per day not counting setting up and tearing down tent and moving and setting up ovens etc. Music fests are longer. Set up time makes single day events less attractive than multi-day.

$2000 sales
$500 booth fees
$445 COGS
$350 labor
$100 labor set-up, running around
$50 prep labor before event
$155 sales taxes due

$400 profit
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thanks for the break down that gives me some good information to steer my research.
 
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Of course, if you are the worked that does the run around and set up and take one of those 8 hour shifts, you can improve that “profit” by a couple of hundred. If you are there, you will also find that food cost is lower and sales are higher.
 
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Sorry I didn’t answer sooner, busy weekend!

COG around 20%.
Alot of prep.
I do 2 day events, so the first day has alot more labor cause of equipment set-up.

I would look at the events first to see what the market looks like.
At some events I can get $5.00 for cheese fries, at other events $4.00.
Don’t be afaid to charge more then you would at your pizza shop.

Anything fried sells great and has a great mark up.
But to do it right you have to invest in some propane fryers, hoses, and tanks.
Not 1 but 4 or 5 of them to keep the line moving. It’s all about moving the line.

What
 
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Newbe here!

Great information as I’ve also been looking into doing a few local festivals as well as providing pizza to local sports consessions.

Question for those of you shuttling product from your store (s) to events; What are you using to hold pizza’s and/or slices at the events? Delivery bags, Heated display/cases, or ?

Ken
 
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