I referenced the “back” of the budget – those supporting documents that give us those all-important budget estimates. Perhaps if we think in terms of the “bottom” of the stack we can better see these documents more correctly as the “foundation” of our budget.
Typically one of the largest percentages of our conference budget is going to be Food and Beverage (F&B). It is also one of the hardest issues to get, and keep, in a firm grasp.
What makes is so difficult to estimate and track? F&B is difficult to estimate and track because there are several meals; each meal is comprised of several parts; each with several variables.
One only needs to plan a multi-day conference to realize how many “organized” eating opportunities there are in a day: breakfast, morning break, lunch, afternoon break, cocktail reception, dinner, and dessert reception. (It can get even more cumbersome if your conference includes pre- and/or post-reception receptions for VIPs or others!)
Each of these eat-fests is comprised of multiple parts. We know at a minimum there are “food” parts and “beverage” parts. And the multiplication continues as you drill down further – lunch alone is no less than five parts on the food side (bread, vegetable, main dish, side and dessert) and no less than three on the beverage side (water, iced tea, coffee).
While the minutia of bread-vegetable-main dish-side dish is typically part of the “lunch” option you order the variables of each meal – the menu options, serving options and estimating the number of attendees adds to the complexity of F&B budgeting.
I know many folks that really enjoy picking the menu. I am not one of them. Perhaps I am just not a Foodie. I am bored by reading menus and can figure out my order pretty quickly in a restaurant. Luckily I work with someone who is very good at selecting the actual menu and enjoys doing it. We also will typically rely on the input of our clients but more on menu selection at another time. The point here is that menu options increase the complexity of our F&B budgeting. As does the methods of serving – plated or buffet (or boxed); by the glass or pitchers/bottles on each table; display or passed? And of course the number of attendees is yet another layer of mystery that makes divining for the F&B budget rather maddening. Not only can the number of attendees be a guessing game but factoring in that each F&B opportunity will yield a different number of mouths can make any head spin.
Thus, one of the largest line items in the conference budget is mired in difficulty due to so many meals, so many parts of each meal and so many variables of each meal.
Is there a way to attack this challenge? Yes. And we will explore those soon.
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