Food festival

Food festival

Food festivals are growing in numbers these days because of the various varieties available all over the world. Though the agenda is ever-changing the central theme remains because the food.

If you're organizing a food pageant in your neighborhood then you should be familiar with some basic steps

1. Planning

Start by designing concerning nearly everything. From organizing team, event name, venue, date, time, projected sound and budget.

2. Style & Content

Build a layout of however your food pageant ought to look. Have your style prepared on the paper. Style the brand, posters, banners, badges, T-shirts, pamphlets, different promoting collaterals, tickets (Optional), websites and social media content. Brand has to be recognizable and symbolizing food. Have a catchy saying and build prepared the content on your promoting collaterals and support documents (in case you're longing for sponsors). Use a theme and stick with the color scheme for all the styles.

3. Staffing

Hosting a fortunate food pageant needs lots of individuals from volunteers to mangers to security personnels all doing their job right. The quantity of event management individuals and volunteers needed depends on the quantity of the event.Conjointly there are a several event management firms facilitating trained individuals for such events.

4. Organizing

This includes obtaining all things along. Distribution tasks to specific cluster of individuals. You furthermore might need to at-most care of organizing the travel and accommodation of the guest if any. It’s vital to arrange food connected games. There are specific game ideas for college students and completely different one’s for corporate. Therefore reckoning on your audience which of them to host.


5. Promoting & PR

Before moving into the nuances of promoting, recognize your audience. Perceive for whom and why are you hosting the food pageant. This may build it easier to work out wherever and the way to focus on your audience. Currently produce a promoting message and post ads in social networking websites. You’ll be able to choose the intensity and volume of the web and offline ad campaigns reckoning on the dimensions of the pageant. Associating with an eating place or restaurant or eatery can profit for promoting the food pageant. Partner with an epicurean club or eating place association, they will be excellent ambassadors for the event.
Inform about the event and also the details to the native news channel and newspaper which can facilitate in promotions.

6. Supply

The required furniture and gadgets must be booked in advance for the festival.


7. Warm-up

Conducting a tune-up session for such an incident is extremely vital. Have the tune-up one or two of days before the event. Within the tune-up session prepare all the volunteers and also the food stall individuals to own a glance at the venue. This is often to arrange everyone for the event day and avoid any quite issues which will occur on the event day.


8. Event Day (execution)

Your day of the month has arrived. Create a list of the events to take place. Ensure every department is appointed to explicit person or a bunch. Keep in mind at the top of the day you're here to relish and build the event an unforgettable. Therefore ensure you and your team works towards it

So here we go on things a festival organiser may like to think about!

Before the event

1. When sending out invitations and literature for your festival to prospective producers, try and make it friendly.

2. Please try and include the date of the festival on the literature, and a return address.  This may sound silly, but quite often this vital information is missing! You know when the festival is planned and your address, but the producer may not!

3. Include the selection criteria. Are you looking within a certain area for producers? What will you do if you have 15 producers of cup cakes returning their forms?

4. How many people will be allowed to cook fresh products? Experience shows that 10% of your total stall allocation is about right, which means that those producers can make a living. This rough ratio goes for each type of produce too.

5. Include plans on how and where you are going to advertise. From the producers’ point of view, they may have the best products in the world, but if only a few people come to the festival because no one knew it was happening, this can be the end of the producers business. They are there to make money to keep their businesses viable and of course it has cost them money to be there.

6. Set a realistic stall fee. By charging a lot, you will only get the larger end of the producers, missing out on some artisan and unique products.

7. If you have to, ask for a deposit of the stall fee. Asking for the full amount months before the festival, especially in a producers’ quiet period (January to April) puts a huge stress on the producers’ cash flow.

8. Tell the producer when the fee will be cashed. Some festivals cash the cheques when they arrive and some months later, causing cash flow problems and grovelling meetings with bank managers

9. When selecting prospective stall holders, check them out! Do they really produce what they are selling, or are they buying it in at the local “cash and carry” and tarting it up for resale? 

10. When you have made your selection, try and send a message to the producer welcoming them to the festival, and informing them that further information will be sent before the festival date.

11. A map of the stall location is vital, at least a week before the festival if possible. We all know the best places and the worst places and it helps if we can stock our stalls to reflect our site. This not only helps negate any loss, it also means fewer products will be thrown away. Bear in mind a meat producer has probably taken an animal or two to the abattoir a couple of weeks before the festival in order for the meat to be prepared at the right time. Bakers and the like also need to get an idea of how much fresh food to prepare.

12. If the site of a producers stall is not level, tell the producer, so they can bring blocks to level their table and not constantly be catching goods slipping off the end of the table.

13. Now advertise, advertise, advertise. Social media is cheap. Ask the local paper for an ‘advertorial’. Use the local free newspapers and journals. Advertise on the tourism web sites. Issue a press release, or maybe two, to get momentum going. Tweet, Facebook, anything to get your message out there!

14.  Have a web site, with location, list of producers, even a competition! Link this to Twitter, Facebook etc. Research has shown most people use the web to find information before other media.

15. Get the local community involved, maybe a theme for the shop windows, with a prize.  Visitors to the festival will then have a better overall experience.

16. Signs as you drive in should be bold, and visible from any direction. Why not ask the local primary school to paint signs?

On the Day

17. On the day of the festival, and I know you will be running round sorting out problems, but try and have someone to greet the producer, preferably with a smile, and make sure that they know where their stall is. Have the pitches clearly marked. Very often, the stalls have ‘crept’ and the end stall ends up with 2 foot instead of 3 metres.

18. If generators are allowed, please check that they are quiet, as requested. Standing two feet from a next door traders’ noisy smelly generator does not enhance a producer experience, or appeal to their customers.

19. Make sure the main festival generator is up to the job. So many festivals are slightly marred by the sound of gnashing of teeth when the ice cream is melting because the generator has failed for the 3rd time. Yes, I know you ask for the power needs and some do not tell the truth. But do allow for the odd untruth!

20. If at all possible, do not face meat and chocolate stalls directly into the sun; it’s commonsense really, but often ignored or forgotten.

21. Make sure there is a loo within short dashing distance! Some stalls are manned by just one person, who has to have a very strong bladder at some festivals!

22. If you are providing stalls, please could the canvas be clean? Usually products are beautifully presented, then marred by being surrounded by something that looks like it has been playing rugby!

23. It would be lovely if occasionally the Chefs found the produce to cook actually at the festival! Why not email the list of producers attending to them so that give some thought to waht they might cook? It would also be pleasant if the Chefs and the VIP who opens the festival actually walked round and met some of the producers, but this very rarely happens.

24. Music really enhances a festival. But if you are having live music, make sure it is not too loud, so that customers do not have to shout their orders and producers do not have to lip read. It should be background music until trading has ended, not the main event! For those who do not have live music, hire a PA system and play gentle music over this. It is surprising how this pulls the whole festival together and creates a great atmosphere. But if you are playing a tape, please have more than 3 tunes recorded, unless you want producers to be zombies by the end of the day!

25. Most festivals have a ‘best stall’ prize, which is a good idea. Yet I have yet to attend a festival where there is a ‘best customer service’ prize, but a quick walk round, and looking at customer faces, seeing where customers are smiling or laughing, would be a good idea.

26. Have somewhere for customers to sit and eat, chat and watch the festival, not too near the live music!

27. Have plenty of litter bins and it helps if someone just walks round picking up the odd bits. Utilise local scouts and guides maybe.

28. A feedback form is commonly asked to be filled for the grant aid, but how about making your own feedback form asking for constructive ideas for the future festivals. Producers are festival experts, attending a range of sizes and types of festivals – tap into this expertise, you may come up with a winning idea.