SC - Estimating Crowds

[Bronwynmgn at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/9/2000 10:29:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
RButler96 at aol.com writes:

<< For those of you who have previously done feasts, how many do you 
 typically prepare for?  Specifically, I refer to being given a budget, for a 
 certain number of people.  Do you stay at that number (100 for a starting 
 point), or do you prepare for 110 just in case? >>


What I usually do is set an upper limit for the number of people I 
want/expect to serve.  That is how many feast reservations will be sold.  It 
may be determined by the size of the hall, by how much I feel like cooking, 
or by how much help I think I can get.  Anybody above that number gets put on 
a waiting list in case somebody cancels or doesn't show up.  After the gate 
closes, any leftover feast reservations are sold to the folks on the waiting 
list in the order they were placed on it.
If I know ahead of time (say on the day I do the major shopping) that there 
are a lot of open spaces left, I probably won't cook the whole amount.  I'll 
cook for the number of reservations plus one or two tables at most.  On the 
other hand, if I knew ahead of time that there were 20 people on the waiting 
list, that the hall could handle it, and that I would have enough help, I 
might decide to up the count.

I would never, as an autocrat, ask a cook to cook for a significant large 
number of add-ons on the day of the event.  One or two people, yeah, we could 
squeeze those in.  One or two tables, no.
As a cook, if an autocrat asked me to do so, I would probably refuse.  I 
might make the argument that, if I stretch things to make that many more 
servings, there is a good likelihood that a) people won't think there is 
enough to eat or b) the quality of the food will suffer because of it having 
to be thinned.

Brangwayna Morgan