I am going to have a booth at a local festival to help promote my cake business. I plan on making cupcakes to sell, but I have soo many questions. The festival had over 3000 people attend last year. My questions are...1. How many cupcakes should I make? 2. How should I store/display them at the festival? 3. Should I make fancy flavors, or keep it simple? Thanks so much in advance for any ideas anyone has...I'm really excited about this, but it's all sooo new to me.

Wow! Very excited for u! I m sure someone will help u on this one cause I never did this before. If it was me I d make 100 of them. Probably three or four flavors, three simple flavors and one original flavor (25 each). Also I d make them w simple festival related decorations.
2- I'd make them in advance and freeze them and maybe frost them the day before.
3- you can get boxes and cupcakes inserts ( the inserts are sold online and keeps them from touching each other).
4- I d display them following your own creativity.
Just an idea, I m no genius!

A good rule of thumb is to assume 10% of attendees will be buying dessert, so you'll need to know how many other dessert vendors will be there so you can plan accordingly.

If you haven't already done so you should also check the laws in your state, since there may be restrictions on what you can serve depending on where the cupcakes are made.

You'll also want to make sure the attendees represent your target market. For example, if you focus primarily on wedding cakes you will probably get a better ROI spending your time and money elsewhere.

CWR41, as Jason_kraft stated, I wasn t talking about selling the cupcakes for a quarter. That d be crazy. I was talking about quantity. 4 flavors for 25 cupcakes per flavor.

I get it (duh).

I dont use venues like to sell products. I use them more for promotional purposes. Its an expense, but I don't have to worry about pretty packaging, waste, ect. I set up a pretty table, business cards, brochures, laptop with slideshow,and dummy cakes that are related to the customer base in attendance (wedding cakes for bridal shows, kids' b-day cakes at school fairs, ect. Behind the table I have containers filled with 1 inch cubes of white and chocolate cake and piping bags filled with buttercream. I had pretty trays for samples on the table and refilled with fresh as needed.

Www.cupcakeproject.com ive made there ultamate vanilla cupcake recipe 3 times in the past month and got nothing but wows from it.
Good Luck and Happy Baking!

KAT

Good to know jenng.

I did two such events last year and here is what I learned/realized. Granted our attendance was MUCH smaller.

1. Check the health code regulations for such events, you will more than likely need a special event permit to distribute food items.

2. They are going to be more of an impulse buy than anything else. The majority of your customers will be children.

3. Don't fool with change, keep it simple $1-2 per cupcake.

4. Don't expect to turn a huge profit, use it as more of a promotional system. If you are doing specialty cakes, have a few dummy cakes on display.

I don't remember how many cupcakes I sold, It was on the order of 100-150 at the most. Not enough to make my money back on the booth. Unfortunately, my time and hard earned money I spent at the event didn't translate into much business or interest after the event for my cakes. Though now I realize, that since they have passed the cottage food law, there are more than 10 cake makers within a 20 mile radius of me.

Thanks so much to everyone who answered! You have given me some great ideas. I am really looking forward to this event not really for the financial side bit more to get my name out there thanks again and if anyone has more ideas I'm all ears

A couple of other things, make sure that you are visible! If you have a logo, have a banner made up. Have plenty of information packets available, pamphlets, price lists, etc. Also having a full color portfolio is nice so people can see your work. The most difficult part of these events is getting people to your booth. Once you figure that out, you are golden. Everyone loves cupcakes!