Gastronomy allows us to enjoy and share special moments with people similar to you and your lifestyle. Gastronomic events are a great opportunity for companies to showcase their culinary skills, while event promoters provide a unique experience to attendees.
However, organizing successful gastronomic events presents certain challenges, especially if proper management is not carried out. Fortunately, we have the advances in technology applied to events. Specialized software is now available to help organizers simplify and digitize event processes, regardless of the size or type of event. In this article we will review the steps on how to organize a successful gastronomic event, as well as the benefits of using digital tools to achieve a more efficient management. Shall we start?
Tips for organizing a gastronomic event
The key to a successful gastronomic event lies in good planning before, during and after the event. Let’s take a look at the tips to organize a market where food and beverages are the main stars.
Define clear and achievable objectives
Before starting to organize any gastronomic event, it is essential to be clear about the objective to be achieved. Who are we going to address the event to, what kind of event are we going to organize, what size is it going to be, and how big is it going to be? These are just some of the questions we should ask ourselves to define the focus and target audience of our event.
We recommend being as concise as possible in order to carry out the following steps.
Prepare the briefing of the event
Our second tip on how to organize a gastronomic event is to prepare a document that gathers all the relevant information about the organization, planning and coordination of the event. In the marketing world, this document is known as a briefing and it works as a communication tool where all the steps and data of the event plan are summarized. But what information do we include? Let us tell you!
- Budget. Establish the budget taking into account all factors: space, staff, food trucks, activities, unforeseen events, catering… At this point, the more realistic you are, the better!
- Place of the event. Once the objective of the event is clear, it is time to select the right place. This step is crucial, since the space must be suitable for the type of gastronomic event you want to organize. Another conditioning factor here is the budget we have available;
- Event date. It is time to verify with the venue and the guests if the day you want to hold the event is a good option for most of them.
- Staff. Depending on the size of the gastronomic event, more or less staff will be required. It is important to take this into account in advance in order to have the right team during the event.
- Schedule. We recommend including a graphic representation of the deadlines for each activity required before and during the event such as deliveries with suppliers, appointments with clients, meetings with sponsors, etc.
Whatever the size of the gastronomic event, you will need at least three months to organize it. Our best advice is to create a brief with all the internal and external details. The success of an event lies in good planning and organization. And this document will help you to follow all the steps and visualize the priorities.
Publicize your gastronomic event
All of the above points are strategically designed to reach your target audience. In order for your gastronomic event to be a success in terms of revenue and ticket sales, we recommend that you consider all the communication channels to reach them. But where do we start? By creating a website about the event, through social networks or email marketing, among others. Event marketing is essential to ensure good promotion and dissemination strategies.
Technology, your ally in the organization of gastronomic events
The organization of your gastronomic event must take into account all phases: pre-production, production and post-production. Today, there are several tools and technologies that can help simplify and digitize all processes to save time and increase revenue during the management of the event. We recommend being aware of all the innovations in the industry and implement them in your event.
How can technology simplify the management of a gastronomic event?
For your event to be a guaranteed success, we recommend you to include cutting-edge technology for the management part. There are many fields where we can find a great help from technological tools. For example, there is software specialized in the control of capacity, so you could have information in real time throughout the event in relation to the hours of greatest influx in the entrance and exit.
Thanks to business intelligence, all the data collected during the event about the processes occurring in it and about the respective attendees and staff can be converted into insights to know the behavior and consumption habits of users. Thanks to the Big Data collected during the event you will be able to make future decisions based on objective data to improve the event experience.
Another technology option that you can include in the planning of your event are the cashless payment systems with which you will provide great agility to your workers and again, you will improve the experience of your attendees to the gastronomic event. It is a fantastic way to avoid queues, reduce fraud, increase security and have an exhaustive control in real time over orders, payments and product stock inside the venue.
Among all the benefits that technology brings to event management, we find the centralization of sales between different points of sale. In other words, if our event has different food trucks, an intelligent POS software will allow to unite all the information of the collections made at different points of sale in the same device.
In short, if you had doubts about how to organize a gastronomic event, these tips will allow you to become a true professional. The important thing is to set very clear objectives from the beginning and a good planning for all phases of the event: pre-production, production and post-production. Technology will be your greatest ally throughout this process and the reason why you will organize another one in the future. Would you like to digitize the processes of your event? Contact us! We are happy to tell you all about our technological solution.
