Catering will likely be cut down. We’ll likely have to stop providing all three of breakfast, lunch, and dinner on each day for our conferences — we still expect to have some food or snacks available, but it’s currently unclear exactly what we’ll be able to provide.
This seems like it might be a bit of a false economy. People need to eat, and there are probably economies of scale in food purchasing that make it easier to buy in bulk (both financially and in time spent). Additionally, if food is funded by CEA (rather than from ticket sales) then the conferences are buying it with pre-tax dollars. Also, proper catering helps the conference have proper vibes.
Against this we have to consider the fact that not everyone likes the same food, for example if the conference only serves vegan food but some attendees want to eat meat. But on the whole my impression is the median attendee has found the food satisfactory.
My guess is that if you (hypothetically) offered people the choice between tickets with and without food, with the price difference set as the average per-capita cost of catering, then most people would choose to pay the higher price.
I’ve seen this discussed on some other comments, though I’ll just respond to this one point here: catered food as provided by most large venues and caterers (at least in the US) is generally much more expensive per person than people just buying meals on their own at normal restaurants, it’s not a simple case of economies of scale unfortunately — there’s a big mark up.
Most things get cheaper if you want to buy a lot of them at a predictable time known well in advance than if you just show up and ask for a small amount, so this is really pretty weird. I wonder how much of this is that CEA is generally looking for vegan caterers, and has a very different crowd (lots of non-vegans, much less health focused, more men, people who want more protein, etc) than most events that want vegan catering? I just did about five minutes of looking around at cheap catering (ex: Spinelli’s) and if you give up that constraint it looks much cheaper than “everyone goes to a restaurant”.
We generally have to use the caterer the venue provides or recommends (or pay a fee) — and if that’s not the case we’re generally pretty limited in our options anyway. These caterers (e.g. the ones based out of a hotel) are usually not vegan only and we just get them to build out a vegan-specific menu. I’ve often seen the pricing for their standard non-vegan stuff (for hypothetical events a year in advance) and it doesn’t differ that much.
My guess of what’s going on here is that these venues often make a substantial amount of money through their catering, and they don’t have back to back meals (like a restaurant does), and so they charge a substantial mark up.
Super interesting, thanks for sharing! This has completely changed my mind from “CEA Events seem to be screwing up” to “huh, this seems entirely reasonable, and is just some weird market failure”
Not hugely surprising, given the people at CEA have certainly thought about this more than random forum users. Still, it’s good to do diligence. Thank you Eli for responding; this is a model example of somebody graciously explaining non-obvious considerations in a decision.
I’m not entirely sure, most of our contracts have a food and beverage minimum, meaning that you need to spend a certain amount of money on catering with the venue. My guess is that we could get contracts without this minimum but they’d be much higher (and you’d get no food, so you’d be wasting money kinda).
re my previous comment (and I noticed Nathan brought it up in another comment, but haven’t seen it addressed), i’m curious what portion of spend comes from drinks / alcohol?
Generally, we get our contracts to have alcohol “by consumption” so we only pay for what we use. My experience with EA events is that people usually don’t drink that much so the portion of spend on alcohol is typically not significant.
This seems like it might be a bit of a false economy. People need to eat, and there are probably economies of scale in food purchasing that make it easier to buy in bulk (both financially and in time spent). Additionally, if food is funded by CEA (rather than from ticket sales) then the conferences are buying it with pre-tax dollars. Also, proper catering helps the conference have proper vibes.
Against this we have to consider the fact that not everyone likes the same food, for example if the conference only serves vegan food but some attendees want to eat meat. But on the whole my impression is the median attendee has found the food satisfactory.
My guess is that if you (hypothetically) offered people the choice between tickets with and without food, with the price difference set as the average per-capita cost of catering, then most people would choose to pay the higher price.
I’ve seen this discussed on some other comments, though I’ll just respond to this one point here: catered food as provided by most large venues and caterers (at least in the US) is generally much more expensive per person than people just buying meals on their own at normal restaurants, it’s not a simple case of economies of scale unfortunately — there’s a big mark up.
Most things get cheaper if you want to buy a lot of them at a predictable time known well in advance than if you just show up and ask for a small amount, so this is really pretty weird. I wonder how much of this is that CEA is generally looking for vegan caterers, and has a very different crowd (lots of non-vegans, much less health focused, more men, people who want more protein, etc) than most events that want vegan catering? I just did about five minutes of looking around at cheap catering (ex: Spinelli’s) and if you give up that constraint it looks much cheaper than “everyone goes to a restaurant”.
We generally have to use the caterer the venue provides or recommends (or pay a fee) — and if that’s not the case we’re generally pretty limited in our options anyway. These caterers (e.g. the ones based out of a hotel) are usually not vegan only and we just get them to build out a vegan-specific menu. I’ve often seen the pricing for their standard non-vegan stuff (for hypothetical events a year in advance) and it doesn’t differ that much.
My guess of what’s going on here is that these venues often make a substantial amount of money through their catering, and they don’t have back to back meals (like a restaurant does), and so they charge a substantial mark up.
Super interesting, thanks for sharing! This has completely changed my mind from “CEA Events seem to be screwing up” to “huh, this seems entirely reasonable, and is just some weird market failure”
Not hugely surprising, given the people at CEA have certainly thought about this more than random forum users. Still, it’s good to do diligence. Thank you Eli for responding; this is a model example of somebody graciously explaining non-obvious considerations in a decision.
I just want to say, I found this to be a super interesting comment. Thanks!
If you don’t offer meals do you still have to pay the fee?
I’m not entirely sure, most of our contracts have a food and beverage minimum, meaning that you need to spend a certain amount of money on catering with the venue. My guess is that we could get contracts without this minimum but they’d be much higher (and you’d get no food, so you’d be wasting money kinda).
Roughly how many meals per conference is the minimum?
Probably around three, though we get snacks and drinks (coffee, tea, etc.) too which eats into the minimum spend.
Thanks this is helpful.
re my previous comment (and I noticed Nathan brought it up in another comment, but haven’t seen it addressed), i’m curious what portion of spend comes from drinks / alcohol?
Generally, we get our contracts to have alcohol “by consumption” so we only pay for what we use. My experience with EA events is that people usually don’t drink that much so the portion of spend on alcohol is typically not significant.