Planning for large fair type events

[Wicked Smoke BBQ]

So if you are planning for a large event, say a state fair where there will be alot of vendors and a lot of people do you still plan for 20% of total folks to visit your trailer?

[Wicked Smoke BBQ]

Bump.

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[ronbrad62]

I have never done a vendor event, but it has been in the back of my mind of something that I would like to pursue one day. In looking at some of the events requirements, you must open and be serving from the first minute the gates open until the fair closes. Keeping that in mind, if you were to run out of food and have to close early, the organizer may not want you back in the future. As a safeguard, I would have plenty of product on hand, but keep a portion safely stored, frozen or refrigerated, and at the ready. You can always use it at a future event, at home, or donate to a food shelter around the holidays when their need is greater.

[Wicked Smoke BBQ]

That's why Im trying to figure out if the 20% still rings true. One event Im looking at has attendance at 427,000 people. 20% of that would be around 88k people that could visit your trailer.

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[poorolddan]

What I've seen while strolling around big events like a fair is that people gravitate to the vendors with the biggest wall of claims to fame. Your sales will be based on this and your location. If you are close to a big name vendor or next to the hog barn you will suffer. I'd expect more like 3-5% of attendance but cook for 6-8% to start with you have several days to unload any leftovers. 5% of 427,000 is over 21,000 servings. 21,000 6oz pork sandwiches will take 15,750 ponds of pork butt. Do you have that capacity and staff?

[Wicked Smoke BBQ]

Originally Posted by poorolddan

What I've seen while strolling around big events like a fair is that people gravitate to the vendors with the biggest wall of claims to fame. Your sales will be based on this and your location. If you are close to a big name vendor or next to the hog barn you will suffer. I'd expect more like 3-5% of attendance but cook for 6-8% to start with you have several days to unload any leftovers. 5% of 427,000 is over 21,000 servings. 21,000 6oz pork sandwiches will take 15,750 ponds of pork butt. Do you have that capacity and staff?

I figured the location would play a big part of it. If you take that 21,700 and divide it by 7 days then that's 3100 people a day. I will have a Ole Hickory EL-ED/X smoker so the capacity shouldn't be a issue.

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[HBMTN]

No, not hardly. It's said that 25% will eat so you divide the number of food vendors into the equation. 10,000 people 2,500 will eat. If there are 6 food vendors 2,500 divided by 6 = plan to serve 416 people.

I'll add that I never did state fair size crowds when I vended more than I do now. Most of the crowds would be 8,00 or less and those numbers always worked well for me.

[Wicked Smoke BBQ]

Originally Posted by HBMTN

No, not hardly. It's said that 25% will eat so you divide the number of food vendors into the equation. 10,000 people 2,500 will eat. If there are 6 food vendors 2,500 divided by 6 = plan to serve 416 people.

I'll add that I never did state fair size crowds when I vended more than I do now. Most of the crowds would be 8,00 or less and those numbers always worked well for me.

Thanks. I'm using the numbers from fairs to put into a business plan so I wanted to make sure I was close to what one might see. I haven't even looked at smaller events and all the catering we do also. From a 5 state perspective there would be close to 1.5 million total people out of those 5 states. Even if only 5% visited your trailer out of that total number that is singing a lot of good food.

[HBMTN]

Originally Posted by Wicked Smoke BBQ

Thanks. I'm using the numbers from fairs to put into a business plan so I wanted to make sure I was close to what one might see. I haven't even looked at smaller events and all the catering we do also. From a 5 state perspective there would be close to 1.5 million total people out of those 5 states. Even if only 5% visited your trailer out of that total number that is singing a lot of good food.

Not sure I understand what you are saying. Are you thinking that 5% of 1.5 mil people from 5 states will visit your trailer?

[Wicked Smoke BBQ]

Originally Posted by HBMTN

Not sure I understand what you are saying. Are you thinking that 5% of 1.5 mil people from 5 states will visit your trailer?

Yes. I took the total number of people that visited the 5 state fairs around me and figured at most 5% would hit the trailer for all combined events. That’s roughly 75,000 people total over say two months total time. Some fairs are 7 days others are 10 days. Now 75,000 / 60 is 1250 people per day to hit the trailer total.


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[BigThicket]

Not to be a jerk, but assuming that 5% of the population will visit your trailer seems super optimistic.

[midwest_kc]

I *THINK* he's saying that of those fairs, they will have a total of 1.5MM visitors to those fairs, and he's planning on 5% of that hitting his trailer.

I could be wrong. I am thinking about getting into some vending, so I'm just following this for knowledge.

[medic92]

We just finished up our local county fair. We were on the infield with one other vendor. Counting the attendees, the participants in the tractor pull and the people who just showed up for the beer tent and the band afterward, the total attendance was guesstimated at around 4,000 people. We personally took 285 orders, not counting people just wanting a bottle of water.


That number is skewed a bit because the other food wagon was providing food to some of the people on the infield that had VIP tickets that included a free meal from that wagon. The fair board also served free burgers and hot dogs to the tractor pull participants. Still, I think it was a fairly decent indicator of the percentage of people you can expect from a crowd of that size.

[Wicked Smoke BBQ]

Originally Posted by midwest_kc

I *THINK* he's saying that of those fairs, they will have a total of 1.5MM visitors to those fairs, and he's planning on 5% of that hitting his trailer.

I could be wrong. I am thinking about getting into some vending, so I'm just following this for knowledge.

You are correct. I’m planning for around 5% total to hit the trailer.


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[ynotfehc]

A total of 1.5mil ppl for 5 state fairs?? That's like a week for Mn state Fair