I have searched and read a lot on CC about festivals and farmer's market, and I have gained a lot of knowledge and ideas. The festival I am looking at attending is going to be a Earth Day celebration, with the focus on recycling and such. This is the first year for this festival....They have 40 vendors, of all sorts of crafts and recycling stuff. They have kids events and demonstrations. They are heavily advertising and it looks like it might be a well attended event... (but of course no numbers from previous event, since this is the first one.)

I contacted the coordinators to see what other food vendors they have, since the deadline has passed on signing up. She told me they have two food vendors with BBQ and hamburgers, 1 with kettlecorn, 1 ice cream shop, 1 baker who does breads & coffee and then me.

I was thinking about doing cupcakes, cookies, sweet breads (because the other bakery does not do these types, they specialize in typical breads, sandwich and dinner rolls.) I was going to do sticky buns for the morning crowd, but the other bakery does that...so I don't want to sell the same. The last festival I sold out of the sweet bread fast....like zucchini bread and etc.

I have the menu of 4 cupcakes (2 normal flavors and 2 fancy flavors) then 4 types of cookies, and 4 types of sweet bread. I tossed around the idea of doing pie pops or doing small pies, since no one is doing pies....but not sure. I also wanted to do 2 type of muffins for the morning crowd. This will be from 9am till 6pm on the last Saturday in April. Right now I am tossing around the idea of doing about a dozen per item. If I sell out, I sell out. I will have brochures and business cards to hand out, in addition to having a photo album of my other flavors and etc. It is hard to settle on a menu...there are so many things I want to display...but I need to hold back...I know.

My biggest concern is my packaging....I love the plastic containers....but thinking this might be frowned upon for this event...since it is Earth Day and etc....

What are you thoughts? The paper packaging is more costly and time consuming setting up. Plus, I was thinking if for some reason it is a "hot" April day....I could keep the containers in a cooler, but if I use the paper, that would not work, since they would get soggy.

I am also looking at ordering one of those credit card readers for the smart phone, so I can except credit cards...just to make it easier.

Thank you for all your inputs and thoughts...I am learning a lot from these boards.

Lisa

Wow...no clue why the space went away between the paragraphs...hope that isn't too hard to read....