5 min read · Jun 21, 2019
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Fundamental techniques approach in this essay will help you achieve three things.
Growth in your footfall | Improve your positioning in market | Better ROI on Food Festivals
Two most important things to be successful: unwavering faith and extraordinary efforts.
Introduction:
Food festivals are all about celebrating and enjoying food and drinks, with the current rise in ‘foodie culture’ these events are gaining popularity. Additionally, it gives a good reason for people to socialise, enjoy and experience variety of gastronomic extravaganza by attending it. It also gives an excellent opportunity for hotel and restaurant teams to connect with their customers, to showcase their diversity, quality, and uniqueness in their food and beverage offerings. As a result of any successful business, a well-planned and well executed food festival helps in improving customer satisfaction, loyalty, brand value and can act as an additional revenue stream.
Consider this document as a toolkit to guide you and to make you more informed about steps involved in planning, evaluating, marketing and executing food festivals.
Here are the three ways to make your food festival successful.
Planning | Marketing and PR | Execution
1. Planning:
you must adopt a holistic approach by answering these 5W questions before considering your event, Why? What? Who? When? Where?
Why are you conducting a Food Festival?
Your events objective should be crystal clear. Motivation behind this food festival must be shared with the team responsible for organising the event.
What is your concept/theme, your story, your uniqueness, your projected footfall and your budget?
There are numerous factors that will define your concept; culinary experts, time of the year, occupancy of the hotels, etc. On the other hand, you might have a great concept, but equally good story will be required to sell it to customers, with highlights of your uniqueness of the festival. For example, the recent ‘Summer Food Festival’ planned at Courtyard Marriott Agra, it is doing better than expected numbers, given the fact that occupancy is low and most of the affluent family of the city is travelling out of city for their summer holidays, yet the hotel planned this event and its YOY non-residence foot fall has doubled. Some of the highlights of the events are, 50+ food items based on summer fruits and vegetables, accompanied by refreshing beverages, pool access to Non-residence for 2 hrs, tattoo artist, magician, live band and play area for kids. All this at the same price of our regular buffet in the restaurant. These factors made us unique in this blistering hot summer of Agra, where temp is nearing 50 degrees.
Lastly, as always the hotel made the Profit and Loss analysis on forecasted footfall, during the planning stage. While making your budget, be realistic and creative. Find out cost for various elements of the event; Entertainment, décor, branding, marketing, staffing, admin cost.
Who are your target audience?
To decide, on what do you want in the event; live music, only food or beverages, cultural event, kids area or any other factor, firstly, you must be clear on who you will be targeting. Consider demographics, age, income levels, and current trends decide on your target market. Decision on your audience will help you to get better understanding of your theme; ask yourself is your festival locally relevant?
When are you organising it?
Timing of the festival should be well-thought-out to attain success. Consider seasons of the year, summer, winter, public holidays, sporting event, religious festivals/holidays, school holidays.
Where it will be?
Depending on your planned theme, availability and area of the venue, your estimated footfall, entertainment space, ease of services, required bar area and budget will help you to make a right decision on the location. However, let’s say you have one location only and that’s you restaurant then décor it accordingly.
2. Marketing and PR
A good marketing and PR activity with solid, simple and valuable concept will make your event irresistible. Marcom manager must be appointed for the event and planning should be done well in advance. Remember three things, Promote, Promote and Promote. Don’t leave any opportunity to promote, begin with startling looking creative which goes well with the theme. Creative, should be simple with very few words. Advertise on both paid and free medium; social media, radio, outdoors, newspaper ads, videos, event pictures, blogs, whatsapp and press conference. You can also engage your audience online via contests. Appoint a person only for tele-calling marketing. Depending on the size of the event we get sponsored by food and beverage partners. Most importantly, if your budget allows, you must do the outdoor at a high footfall location of the city/locality. On the other hand, you might have lot of budget and you can hire an agency and use the entire medium for marketing and PR to ensure success of the event. Even so, don’t forget to reach the right people at the right time.
3. Execution
Appoint core team with clarity on accountability and responsibility to ensure success of this festival. Take all the required permissions, food safety or any other licenses to avoid likelihood of risk during this festival. Consistency in quality, while pursuing excellence in services will increase your word of mouth marketing. Key in execution, is to deliver on customer expectations and WOW them with Variety, Quality, Efficiency, and Excellence in services.
Conclusion:
There are various themes and variety of food festival that can be planned and executed. However, to make any food festival successful you may have to follow a good strategy, with implementing these proven fundamental techniques you will be able to achieve growth in your business. These methods will not only improve forthcoming event by growing your footfall, improving your positioning in the market and ROI on food festivals, but also boost your future business prospects.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hi, I’m Gagandeep Singh. I’m a hotelier, and I do developments. Currently, I’m working as General Manager at Courtyard by Marriott Agra.
For more than thirteen years, I’ve been trying to help businesses grow, motivate ladies and gentlemen working in the team by developing their business skills and minimising waste to maximise on sustainability. I love to share what I have learned and look forward to learn from others, so that; together we can make a difference in our world.
I have been part of hospitality industry from adolescent age. Professionally, I have been fortunate to work with various international brands, and along the way, I have been able to implement my leanings into countless areas of opportunities to develop and grow business.
