Hi guys!
In a months time I will be having a cupcake booth.
Do you have any tips or such to give me?
The rental of the booth is rather high ($400!) and I am rather worried on how to recover the money back...
Thank you in advance!

Congrats on your new venture! I am sure you have worked out the cost/profit issue so I wont address that part.

When you do a booth make sure your signs are easy to read and simple. Simple, Simple, Simple.

If people have to think about it, they will be less likely to buy the impluse purchase like cupcakes.

Make the flavors easy to understand and read. Keep the pricing simple.

Make sure you have a tablecoth to cover at least one of the table so you can store all your set up/needed stuff underneath, including a water bottle for you.

Keep it clean and professional. Dont eat or drink at the booth.

Wear a name tag, people appreciate it.

Dont allow anyone to work or 'help' in your booth if they dont follow these rules and present a clean and professional look.

People will treat your business with the exact amount of professionalism you project.

Best of luck! I hope you sell out quickly!

Oh my goodness! Finally I have got a reply! Thank you VERY much for all your help and words of advice!

You didn't mention the setting... is it around more food or other products? Either way, go to the site, take a picture of the surrounding booths and make yours BETTER! Consider color to start. Choose a color and style that will cause people to have to take a glance, and then draw them in with your display.

Another thought is to have a flavor of the week or month? maybe a flavor that you offer just during your holidays.

You also have to think about the cost of your time. Let's say you will be staffing the cupcake booth yourself 40 hours per week (~170 hours/month). If you make $1 profit from each cupcake (this would be the price charged - cost of ingredients - cost of packaging - cost of your baking time - expected waste - tax), you would only need to sell 400 cupcakes per month (~13 per day) to break even, however, this would mean you were working for free.

To earn the equivalent of $10/hour, you would need to sell 2100 cupcakes per month (~70/day). And that's not even counting your other overhead such as liability insurance or commercial kitchen rental.

If you pay someone $10/hour to staff the booth for you, selling 2100 cupcakes per month will again mean you are not making any money. In that case, to make the equivalent of $10/hour yourself, you would need to sell 3800 cupcakes per month (127/day).

Don't let this discourage you...if you are in a good location with a lot of foot traffic you may be able to reach these goals, but make sure you have run the numbers before you commit to anything long-term.