SC - Re: sca-cooks V1 #441

[Decker, Terry D.]

>>Lord Ras said:
>>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.
>>
>>Stefan li Rous
>>RSVE60 at email.sps.mot.com
>
>Wow! You mean that even your most famous cooks have to cook a feast A) not
>knowing how many will eat it, B)Without the group having any money to cover
>the cost of the food at the time of purchase, and C)Not even knowing if
>enough people will come to cover your outlay? Sounds like a rather unsound
>business practice to me. 

Prepaid feast reservations are not unknown in Ansteorra.  I've used them
when A) the event was new and I had no idea of how many feasters I would
have, B) when upfront money was needed and the exchequer was low and C)
when I wanted to intrigue people about the feast.  In every case,
prepaid reservations were discounted from the door price to entice
people to take advantage of the savings.  When I am taking prepaid
reservations, I'm shooting for having my break even before the event and
making my profit on the door.

For no prepaid feasts, I take into account how many people the
kitchen/dining faciliites can handle.  If that number is less than half
the estimated attendance for the event, then the limit of the facilities
is the limit on paid feasts.  Otherwise I work with half the estimated
attendance (rounded to be divisible by eight) as the paid feast limit.
(I then add 20 to 30 unpaid feasts to the total to handle the Crown, the
feast staff, who eat free, and any surprises).  We do take reservations,
which helps with checking the accuracy of the estimates.

The cost of place at the feast is twice the cost of preparing the food
for that feaster.  Thus, break even on the feast requires 25% or less of
the estimated attendance at an event.  This reduces the risk of taking a
bath when an event fails.

I've never lost money, although I have come close. 


>YOu must have enormous treasuries, to be able to
>cover the cost of an event and feast without going bankrupt. Or perhaps the
>events are very small and the sites are free, so the food aspect is not that
>big a risk? 

The size of the purse differs from group to group, however; a year old
Incipient Shire is going to put on a different event from a 20+ year old
Barony.  The Barony of Namron has been frugal over the years and has a
comfortable reserve.  Several years ago, we made what we considered to
be an excessive profit on our events.  We returned this profit to the
people of our Kingdom by not charging a site fee for our Beltane Games
the following spring.

The sites we have available often require a small down to reserve the
site and a per head fee payable after the event.  Depending on the site,
there may be some expense for portable toilets, etc. I usually cook for
120 to 200 people with an outlay of $400 to $700.  Other cooks come in
higher and lower.  The average large event in Ansteorra has about 500
attendees.

My feasts represent about 40% of the total expense of the event and
about 80% of the risk.  They also represent about 75% of the profit from
a successful event.

>I frequently have a budget over $1,000.00 for food (my group is
>noted for low-cost events, too). There is no way I am going to foot the bill
>for that big a budget , hoping enough folks come to eat so I don't loose my
>chemise. I expect 80 percent of that budget to be in the hands of the group
>before the event ( I cook based on the number of paid reservations about 1
>week before the event, plus 20 percent). The other 20 pecent I expect to
>arrive at the door. But, with careful planning, I never use that 20 percent
>of the budget. It's part of the profit of the event. I try to use less than
>my allocation while still sticking within an historical menu. It gets
>tricky, but I've only ever failed once---by $20.00. I kicked myself for
>weeks.

I've fronted $300-400 for a local event, expecting to lose a $100 or so,
and being pleasantly surprised when we actually turned a profit, but
there is no way I could front the expense for a Calendar Event, or even
the feast for a Calendar Event.

Our Barony is taking a risk this January.  We are making the rapier
tourney we have normally held at our annual heavy weapons tourney a
seperate winter event, including feast.  I'm only doing the baking for
this one, so I don't know what the expenses are looking like. 

>A thought just occured to me---we use sites with good indoor facilities, due
>to the weather. Perhaps our budgets are simply higher due to local climate?
>Those in the warmer regions probably do more totally outdoor events, many of
>which sites can be free or very cheap.

The site expense for a two day event in Oklahoma runs about $1400-1500
for 400-500 people.  Such a site may or may not have a decent kitchen.
This is usually a $100 reservation fee upfront and a per head fee after
the event.  If we did this at a state park, double the expense.  In
Oklahoma, taxes can not be raised without a vote of the people, so state
facilities charge what the traffic will bear.  I don't know what the
costs are in Texas, but they are probably comparable.

A cheap site has no water, no facilities, and probably needs to be
brush-hogged a week before we use it, so the chiggers will move out.  At
a few low cost events, we've shared the pasture, ah site, with critters
of the bovine persuasion.

>
>
>Aoife--boggling at the thought of "No Advance Paid Reservations".

Bear
>
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