SC - paid reservations?

[Dottie Elliott]

>>Here in central Ansteorra, reservations have been practically unheard of 
>>until recently. When I have tried to bring up the advantages of paid
>>reservations, I have been shouted down real quick even for feasts as
>>good and as period as Baroness Clarissa's. As it is, since no money is
>>required, I think the current reservations are not much better than
>>none at all, although they do give you a very rough estimate of the
>>number who will be attending.


It was astonishing to me when I first moved to Ansteorra that they did 
not have paid reservations but then I had always lived in Kingdoms that 
did.  Mostly we get phone and email reservations and they are worth very 
little in planning. At each of the 3 feasts I have cooked in the 3 years 
I have been here there have been between 25 - 50% turnover in who 
reserved and who ate the feast.  For Bryn Gwlad with a reasonable 
treasury we can handle paying up front for everything and we have enough 
years of data to determine a reasonable number of folks to cook for and 
the number who will attend.  Our sites range from $400-$1500 in costs and 
feasts are typically for 100-200 folks and cost $500-$1000.  Some events 
are outdoors and some indoors. 

I do not know why Ansteorra chooses to not take paid reservations. It was 
difficult for me to adjust to not really knowing how many to cook for. I 
think that feast prices here are elevated because of this uncertainty as 
well. I typically spend no more than 60-75% of my budget based on the 
data-specified number of folks because of this uncertainty. Based on my 
years of cooking feasts and knowledge of food costs, I would say others 
do so as well. I would hate to be the small shire I was part of in NY 
here in Ansteorra. Our treasury was very limited and we depended on paid 
reservations to help pay the bills.  I doubt we could have afforded to 
put on an event without paid reservations.

Clarissa
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