I've been invited to sell cupcakes at a 50th birthday event for a city landmark and am unsure of how many to bring down with me. The event is far enough away from my kitchen that I would not be able to send someone back to the shop if we ran out. There will be 6 bakers set up in the area, selling cupcakes for four hours and the organizers tell me they expect 30,000 people to attend the event. I'm sure that 30,000 is definitely at the high-end of expectations and I know that certainly not everyone will purchase a cupcake. All bakers must agree to sell them at the same price: $3.

I want to be able to take advantage of this opportunity and sell as many cupcakes as possible... but I also don't want to get caught out with the expense/wastage of producing many extras. Does anyone have experience with this sort of thing? How many would you go prepared with?

I want to be able to take advantage of this opportunity and sell as many cupcakes as possible... but I also don't want to get caught out with the expense/wastage of producing many extras. Does anyone have experience with this sort of thing? How many would you go prepared with?[/quote]

Hey,

If it were me, I'd make about 500 and have my business cards handy to hand out to people. I'll be honest- I've not had experience with it but it sounds about right. In 4 hours you should be able to sell that many and if you run out, there are other bakers there, too. Just a suggestion, though. Good luck!

Hi there,

I have done 3 events in the past year, where I had a booth selling cupcakes:

One was a classic car show with an attendance of about 2000,
one was a roller derby/concert event with an attendance of about 4000, and
one was a food festival with an attendance of about 20,000.

At each event, there were other foods and desserts sold. (Only the food festival had other cupcake vendors.)
Across the board, I found that the quantity of cupcakes I sold was equivalent to approximately 5% of the attendance. So I sold about 100, 165, and 950, respectively.

I would agree that 500 cupcakes should bring you a nice little profit without overextending yourself. (For each event, I brought almost twice as many cupcakes as I needed! Ugh! I will now stick with my 5% estimate rule...live and learn!)
I hope my experience is helpful to you!

Thanks for the help ladies. I was thinking about 1000- 1500 which with a 30,000 attendance seems to been in line with your 5% rule. The other factor that may determine the amount will be the weather. I will either slide the numbers up or down. Any other lessons learned?

Which four hours? What is the weather forecast for that day? What other food will be served at the event? Are there other restaurants or bakeries nearby, and if so how do the quality and price of their competing desserts compare? What is the population of the surrounding city?

Are you required to serve cupcakes, or can you serve something different to make your products stand out?

With the Dessert Truck, I've found that about 10% of people at an event will buy dessert. That drops your potential down to 3,000. Divide that by the 6 bakers and 500 looks like the right number.

The event is being held from 11-4 on a Saturday and the day is currently looking to be in the mid 70's with no rain. Another factor that may influence things is this is part of a cupcake competion (taste and design) and I have won the design part already.

Thanks for all your replies.