Hey!

    So this is my FIRST street fair which I am beyond excited for but a little nervous . I live in NYC and the fair will be going on for about 8 hours. Since I live in NYC, and there's a lot of traffic at events, I am not too sure on how many cupcakes I should bake. At first, I was thinking 1,000... that's a little extreme. Then 500, not bad but I feel it may be too much, and now 300. I think 300 will be good, but then again, I am not too sure. What will be the perfect amount? I'll be baking everything on my own, so I do not know the perfect time to start baking all these cupcakes. Since it's on a Saturday, I was thinking about starting on Wednesday and having everything done by Friday night. And my last problem will be, figuring out a way to transport my cupcakes safely. Sheet cake boxes are a good size for about 48 cupcakes, but how can I keep them from toppling over? Cupcake inserts aren't always 100%. HELP PLEASE!!! 

Try the business section, there are a couple of threads, one recent, that talk about this same thing. As far as packaging, I would package them in advance for how you will sell them (4pack, 6 pack, etc).

I've also read that some people stick some icing on the bottom of the cupcake to get it to stick (royal icing I think or maybe it was candy melts? not sure).

Here are some threads to get you started!

http://www.cakecentral.com/forum/t/826204/doing-events-as-a-vendor-at-shows-etc

http://www.cakecentral.com/forum/t/783277/doing-a-big-event-for-the-first-time-seeking-advice

You can freeze in advance too.

Thank you so much for the advice!! :)

Before stressing about how many cupcakes to make, you need to think about what you WANT to make.  Add up your expenses for the booth, and then add labor, and come up with a dollar amount you'd like to get paid to make your weeks worth of labor worth it.  Then figure out how many cupcakes you need to sell to get to that amount.  That's your MINIMUM amount to bake.  Then, figure out your dream number (if I make $xx, I can get that new oven!).  Now, how many cupcakes you need to make will fall somewhere between the two extremes.  No sense in stressing over numbers if you don't even know what it'll take to make money (I'm not talking break even.  You want to make money, right?)

Now you'll have a realistic idea of what you need to sell to meet your goals.  

So, for instance:

if the booth costs $100, and maybe you need to spend another $100 on signage, food for the day, business cards, gas, etc.  so you're at $200 just for the booth.

now, you'll be working for 4 days (wtfs), and let's say you want $100 each day.  That's after expenses.  Assuming you already know how much profit you make off of each cupcake, after all expenses including packaging, electricity, licensing, etc (you do already have that math done, right?), let's just say you make an even dollar after expenses per cupcake, selling for $2.50 ea.  So you need to make $600 profit. 

so if each cupcake sells for $2.50, and you make a buck each, you need to sell/make 600 cupcakes, in this example. 

If her expenses are $600 then she needs to make a lot more than $600 in order to be able to call it profit. Making $600 is breaking even.

The $600 includes booth rent/expenses and paying herself, but not cupcake expenses as I mentioned. So $600 would be more than breaking even because she's paying herself at that point, and the example was based on PROFIT from each cupcake, not expenses. 

If I had based the example on the $2.50 per cupcake, then she'd have to take expenses into account as well, but since I took out the expenses off the top, and just figured out how many cupcakes to make based on the profit, she not breaking even, she's making profit  

Thank you for your help! I actually did calculate everything in total. The booth was actually $65. Equipment, ingredients and necessities all round up to about $300. I'm selling my basic cupcakes for $2.00/$2.50 with fillings/toppings. I believe 600 cupcakes will be great, but I'm a afraid they all will not sell out. (Even though my goal is to sell out.)

Better to make too many! Let us know how it turns out!

That was just a sample that I gave, so make sure that you have your own numbers as far as profit per cupcake.  I love the price of the booth, sounds like a great deal!
Be sure to have fun through it all!
Oh, i see, you included the cost of ingredients in the $300 :)

Don't forget to take into account foot traffic (ask for estimates of how many at the last one). The estimate seems to be 10% on here for how many people will buy cupcakes at an event. You also have to take into account what kind of booths are going to be there (will you be the only cupcake vendor or not, other similar food booths, etc). Advertise like crazy on your social media things (if you have them like Facebook, instagram, etc). You may want to sells 600 cupcakes, but if only 300 normally come and only 10% buy, you're down to 30 cupcakes sold.

Take pictures of your setup for future reference. And post them on here so we can see too! :)

Good luck!

Yes! Thank you so much for the help!! I will take pics!! :)