How to organise a food and drink event

Plan your approach

Your approach is crucial when you’re thinking about how to organise a food and drink event. 

Maybe you have a passion for food and drink from a specific region and want to bring a taste of this to your area. 

Or, maybe you’re running an independent food and drink business and want to collaborate with other like-minded businesses in the area. 

Will food be central to the event? Are you going to prioritise drinks and have food as a side element? The approach you take will determine how you promote and market your event. So, carry out research, consider what’s already out there and begin to plan.

Calculate costs

Next up? Budgeting. Yeah, it’s a painstaking process. We find sitting down after payday and setting our budgets for the month tedious, so planning costs for a whole event must be a nightmare. 

However, it’s an important element when thinking about how to organise a food and drink event. From here, you’ll be able to set ticket prices, combat overspending and get an idea of how to come back bigger next year if your event does well. 

To start with, think about the non-negotiables of your budget. We’re talking venue hire, energy and staff costs; the things that if you don’t have, you’ll get as burnt as a piece of bread that’s been in the toaster for too long. 

Once you have the non-negotiables down, consider variables, plan for the unexpected, look at where you can save money and explore sponsorship opportunities. When you’ve considered everything, you can begin to bring your event to life. 

Secure a venue

One way you can bring your food and drink event to life? By selecting a venue.

The style of your event will influence your decision. For example, a pop-up wine-tasting experience wouldn’t take place in an industrial park, while a craft beer event wouldn’t take place in a luxury function room. 

You also need to stand out from the crowd, which means researching your area for unique venues that you can use to make your food and drink event that little bit different. 

With the right venue, your food and drink event will be a memorable one, leading to fun, new customers and increased brand reach. Choose wisely. 

List your food and drink event

So, you’ve got an idea, calculated your costs and secured a venue. It’s now time to list your event. 

Listing your event with Skiddle is completely free of charge. You’re in control of the process, with the ability to set your venue, create multiple types of tickets, set their price and decide their allocation. This is all done in The Promotion Centre, which will also give you ticket sale data that you can analyse after your food and drink event. 

But how do you get started? 

Click the link below to register. It takes a few minutes and unlike other ticket companies, we don’t make you wait for authorisation to make your events live. You can sign up and list your event within the hour. 

Promote and market your food and drink event

It’s time to spread the word about your food and drink event. 

Hopefully, you’ll have someone on your team who can plan and execute your ideas. But we’re sure you’ll have some ideas, too. So, sit down, brainstorm and devise a plan of action for your social media output. 

Ideally, you want to start promotion around 6-8 weeks before the event. This gives you time to build hype, run ads, modify them if you need to and have a steady stream of content to post. 

If you’re a newcomer to the world of promotion, don’t worry. We’ve got lots of articles on The Promotion Centre blog about social media. Take a look below.