So I'm wanting to go to a craft show in May ( legal home business) and I'm trying to prepare as best I can for it. The vendor fee alone is about $350 for wed,thurs,fri,sat,sun event, so 5 days total. The event is in a very famous mall in my city. I called the mall's managing office and they said they receive an average of 135,000 people each week, peaking evening hours and weekends. That seems like a RIDICULOUS amount of people. Not sure how to proceed at this point. Should I estimate about half of those to show up for the event? If so it would be around 67,000 people. I read in the forums about 10-20% of people going to shows buy cupcakes. At 10% I'm looking at almost 7,000 cupcakes. I will be selling cupcakes only, with 3 different tiered cake dummies for display. I have ordered only 1500 business cards at this point. Seems like it wont be near enough....

Id love some advice from someone who's done a big event like this before. Or really any event lol I'm so overwhelmed... I can only fit 48 cupcakes at a time in my oven! 

thoughts?

Thoughts.......

WOW, just WOW.  Not sure when the show is, but if you want to do 7000 cupcakes by the end of May, the maths is eye watering!  That's 145 batches at 48 cupcakes per batch.  Say each batch takes 90minutes including making, cooking, clearing, icing, packing, ( conservative). That's 220 odd hours.  Let's say show on 15 May, that's only 30 days away.  That's 7 hours a day, EVERY SINGLE DAY, just making cupcakes.  

Forget life, family, storage or anything else!!  That's if you start today and have a zillion tons of ingredients on hand.

now you get to the show, you say you have cakes to display as well?  Who is going to serve the cupcakes to the people while you spend time talking to the cake customers - each one of them could take up to 30mins? (More or less).  I personally would forget the cakes or the cupcakes.  One or the other for an event this size.

honestly?  Even making and selling 200 cupcakes per day, that is 1000(20 batches of 48)  to get your head around.  People wandering around a show of that magnitude will have multiple choices of food.  ..mmm...me.... I'd forget it... For a home baker, start with something a bit smaller...the local school fete would be less stressful!  Good luck on whatever you decide!

Thoughts.......

WOW, just WOW.  Not sure when the show is, but if you want to do 7000 cupcakes by the end of May, the maths is eye watering!  That's 145 batches at 48 cupcakes per batch.  Say each batch takes 90minutes including making, cooking, clearing, icing, packing, ( conservative). That's 220 odd hours.  Let's say show on 15 May, that's only 30 days away.  That's 7 hours a day, EVERY SINGLE DAY, just making cupcakes.  

Forget life, family, storage or anything else!!  That's if you start today and have a zillion tons of ingredients on hand.

now you get to the show, you say you have cakes to display as well?  Who is going to serve the cupcakes to the people while you spend time talking to the cake customers - each one of them could take up to 30mins? (More or less).  I personally would forget the cakes or the cupcakes.  One or the other for an event this size.

honestly?  Even making and selling 200 cupcakes per day, that is 1000(20 batches of 48)  to get your head around.  People wandering around a show of that magnitude will have multiple choices of food.  ..mmm...me.... I'd forget it... For a home baker, start with something a bit smaller...the local school fete would be less stressful!  Good luck on whatever you decide!

Thoughts.......

WOW, just WOW.  Not sure when the show is, but if you want to do 7000 cupcakes by the end of May, the maths is eye watering!  That's 145 batches at 48 cupcakes per batch.  Say each batch takes 90minutes including making, cooking, clearing, icing, packing, ( conservative). That's 220 odd hours.  Let's say show on 15 May, that's only 30 days away.  That's 7 hours a day, EVERY SINGLE DAY, just making cupcakes.  

Forget life, family, storage or anything else!!  That's if you start today and have a zillion tons of ingredients on hand.

now you get to the show, you say you have cakes to display as well?  Who is going to serve the cupcakes to the people while you spend time talking to the cake customers - each one of them could take up to 30mins? (More or less).  I personally would forget the cakes or the cupcakes.  One or the other for an event this size.

honestly?  Even making and selling 200 cupcakes per day, that is 1000(20 batches of 48)  to get your head around.  People wandering around a show of that magnitude will have multiple choices of food.  ..mmm...me.... I'd forget it... For a home baker, start with something a bit smaller...the local school fete would be less stressful!  Good luck on whatever you decide!

Thanks for the reply!

It does seem like a very overwhelming amount. My worry is that the numbers aren't accurate but I'm not sure. I did speak to the manager of the mall so I'm guessing they know what they're talking about. My other option is wait until the next show in June which only runs 3 days (fri,sat,sun). Probably still a big crowd but definitely more manageable than 5 days. Also, I do have a 11 month old so it's a bit harder to bake all day without interruptions. However, I will have the help of my sister, her boyfriend, my mother, and my baby's dad so I'll have plenty of personnel at the event to cater to the clients. Still not sure how to proceed for the June event. How many people from 135,000 a week would show up on fri,sat,sun for a craft show?

Thanks for the reply!

It does seem like a very overwhelming amount. My worry is that the numbers aren't accurate but I'm not sure. I did speak to the manager of the mall so I'm guessing they know what they're talking about. My other option is wait until the next show in June which only runs 3 days (fri,sat,sun). Probably still a big crowd but definitely more manageable than 5 days. Also, I do have a 11 month old so it's a bit harder to bake all day without interruptions. However, I will have the help of my sister, her boyfriend, my mother, and my baby's dad so I'll have plenty of personnel at the event to cater to the clients. Still not sure how to proceed for the June event. How many people from 135,000 a week would show up on fri,sat,sun for a craft show?

Any way that mall manager could refer you to previous vendors to get their experience? Someone who has been a vendor at that show might give you  morei info