Percentage that the Festival takes?

I think it will be different from event to event. Some wont take anything and only charge for booth space. Some will charge for booth space and take a percentage.

For example. My local fair is $400 for booth space for 5 days. You keep 100%. Then there is a local little Rib Fest that I will be doing and their booth space is $150 for the day and they take 15% of the money made from tickets that buy your food.

For me, this is more of a numbers game than anything else. If I know my profit margin against gross, then I can determine how much I can give. Most food industry numbers suggest a profit margin of single to low double digit percentages. If I am making a profit of 8% of gross, than I am not going to give up more than 5% of gross and probably no more than 2%. Captive audience means nothing to me, nor does being the only BBQ vendor. If I am the only food or beverage vendor, than we can talk higher percentages of gross, as my profit will be higher.

When I shot professional video for horse events, we were regularly promised exclusive site rights. Yet folks brought their own equipment, or worse, their own shooters. Often we would be working for a loss, and the event organizers never ever sided with us. Percentage of gross always have to come down to how much profit you can make.

As for your question, I think I am willing to give up 25% of profits, which means, if I make 8% of gross as profit, then I pay 2% of gross for sales. Personally, I don't like being taxed by event organizers.

I have never had to pay a percentage to the event. I would think that anything over 10% and I wouldn't even consider vending there.
All of my events have charged a flat booth space rate between $80 -$800 for a standard 12x16 booth space. Only events that I turned down were ones that had a high booth space rent (over $400) with not much chance of making the profit I wanted. This could easily be figured by taking the number of expected people at the event and dividing by half. Take that number and divide by the number of food booths selling meals ( don't include popcorn, ice cream, etc.. booths). And that will give you a rough estimate of how many people will eat at your booth, ie: 5000 people / 1/2= 2500 / 6 (say there are 6 other food booths) = 416 possible customers. If your average meal sold is $7 that would mean you will take in about $2912.00 Even though this is a rough estimate this formula has been incredible acurate for me on any events that are new to me. Subtract out your costs and fees and see if that leaves you enough profit to make it worth your while.

On a side note, don't forget to figure in sales taxes. Some of the events that I do are considered a tourist event and I have to pay the state an extra 1% tourisim tax, so taxes run as high as 8% for me.

Not Q - but I've paid up to 20% and it was well worth it. Other places I've paid $1500 for 10feet, for a long weekend and basically worked until noon on Sunday before I made a dime. Depends on the event, and the real numbers - not the ones they tell you.

Does any else use Midnights calcs? Sounds good, just want to hear anyone elses experiences.

Does anyone else think 8% of gross is standard or would work for 8%?

landarc said:

For me, this is more of a numbers game than anything else. If I know my profit margin against gross, then I can determine how much I can give. Most food industry numbers suggest a profit margin of single to low double digit percentages. If I am making a profit of 8% of gross, than I am not going to give up more than 5% of gross and probably no more than 2%. Captive audience means nothing to me, nor does being the only BBQ vendor. If I am the only food or beverage vendor, than we can talk higher percentages of gross, as my profit will be higher.

When I shot professional video for horse events, we were regularly promised exclusive site rights. Yet folks brought their own equipment, or worse, their own shooters. Often we would be working for a loss, and the event organizers never ever sided with us. Percentage of gross always have to come down to how much profit you can make.

As for your question, I think I am willing to give up 25% of profits, which means, if I make 8% of gross as profit, then I pay 2% of gross for sales. Personally, I don't like being taxed by event organizers.

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