This just in from a fellow hot dog vendor, Randy Newman – regarding his first event.
Ben –
A potential topic for one of your radio blogs based on an experience I had this passed weekend:
I paid $300 for a spot at a local event with 30-40000 expected attendees (my first event after slinging dogs at my daily spot since January). The promoter (EWMedia – Don Schwarzkopf) was very friendly and offered some insight into the event side of vending, especially when he found out I was new). When I asked for where I would be located (two weeks prior to the event), I was told the “Load In” information would be sent by email the day before the event.
The information came on Thursday evening for a Friday night check for out of town vendors (not me) or Sat by 900 AM for locals. When I arrived on site we were finally given our area after an extensive search for the promoter. Initially it seemed to be a great location – about 100 feet from the actual reenactment event and only two other vendors to share a general location (Italian Ice {also a first timer} and drinks {provided by the promoter – hmmmmm}).
The problem was all the other vendors were located at the opposite end of the event where all the buses dropped off/picked-up the attendees from distant (up to 2 miles away) parking lots. We were expecting to do about 3% or 900 dogs. We actually sold $1800+ worth of dogs, Frito Pies and chips, making a profit of $800 after event fees and product costs – all for 8 hours of work. So, I can't complain too much about $100 per hour and Sam's took back all the unused relish, mustard, ketchup, chili and buns. But $4500 would have been better if we had sold out.
The lessons learned: get to know the promoter as best you can if possible; take what the promoter says with a grain of salt; manage your expectations – plan for the best/expect less than that and new guys get the worst locations (location, location, location – especially at events!). The Italian Ice vendor did about 2% and after speaking with the hourly employees at the drink stand, they charged $2 for non-name brand water and $4 for non-name brand sodas. The employees said they did about $5K in sales for the day – no wonder the promoter forbade any drinks!
Regards
You have got to love a vendor who is willing to share the good, bad and ugly. Thanks to Randy Newman! What say you my fellow vendors? Post a comment below. Radio show this week is going to be fantastic – join us.
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