Clearwater Jazz Festival-Deadline Upcoming

I have not been to this one for a while but you might want to ask if the crowd is allowed to bring their own food and/or drinks in or must buy from vendors.

Also, how many and what kind of other vendors will be there? Plus, how much in gross sales would you need to make the $1500 affordable as an additional expense?

Just some thoughts.

Nothing is allowed in except for lounge chairs, umbrellas, and blankets. NO food or drinks. There are probably a dozen or so of food vendors (not including the drink vendors). Thanks

Alan

I go to this every year, there are always several BBQ venders there along with other types of food. That seems like a bunch of $$$ but they do have tens of thousands there through out the 4 days.

If I am not mistaken the rule of thumb is 15% of the number in attendance if there are more than 6 other vendors, if the number of vendors is less than that number goes to 25%.

Calculate what it takes to make a profit and then decide. Always make what you can handle to sell and the worst thing that can happen is folks walk away without a sale cause you ran out as long as you made your profit margin.

Prepare in advance and make what you need, use a microwave or some other means of reheating (product wrapped in foil on your smoker or steam table). Only heat as you go and need to meet demand.

Also amortize the $1500 over 4 days (I realize thursday and fridays are only at night). That works out to be $375 a day. If you can swing that in addition to meeting your daily profit margin in sales based on the rule of thumb of attendance, then I would go for it.

Preston D

Preston, To follow your rule of thumb, there will be 12 vendors including myself, so that drops the percentage to 7.5. That percent times 40000 people would be about 3000 people. If each person spent 5 bucks, then that would be 15,000 dollars. Minus the food and fees, then I was thinking to net at least 10k. Even it is only half that, 5k is still not bad for four days. But, it will be a strenuous and tiring 4 days. We decided to go for it, so if anyone gets a chance, come out and see us. Thanks to all.
Alan

Well, the Jazz festival is over. My goal was to take in 10k, but we only got 8.5k. After food, vendor rent space, employee pay roll, and a few other small fees, we came out with a little of 2.4k profit. Not bad for our first major event. Good this is we have already received a couple of catering calls, gave out all kinds of business cards, and have been asked to cater to 225 VIP's at the upcoming Florida Ribfest in November. Thins are really starting to pickup for us, and without this site and all the good feedback, we probably would be dead by now. Thanks again everyone!!

Fantastic, especially for your first big event. Tell us a little about the experience when you have the time, i.e., what was good, bad and what would you do different next time.