Happy new year from us all at Old Skool Bus Events!
As the clock struck midnight on 31st December 2025, it closed the door on what had been an absolutely pivotal year for the team. A year of intense planning, new staff, big festival crew catering contracts, and a lot of incredible weddings and private parties! Considering the newly rebranded ‘Old Skool Bus Events’ was only launched by our director Kate in October 2024, we covered some incredible ground across 2025. We would like to thank all our wonderful clients, and every single one of the team that worked for us on our events. Hospitality and catering events are hard work, but the staff went in with a positive attitude, great big smile, and left all our customers happy and well fed!
5 of the big WINS of 2025
1. Being shortlisted as finalists in the British Street Food Awards – In May we drove ‘Bella’, our vintage American school bus food truck, down to Gunwharf Quays to participate in the incredible southern heat of the finals of this well acclaimed awards programme. We developed a unique ‘Tacos’ menu with a twist. We wanted to serve an exciting mix of tacos with a nod to our British and south coast heritage, and of course the American school bus! The three flavours were, ‘Oxtail & Beef Shin’ with a cashew and horseradish crema, ‘South Coast Crab’ with pickled cucumber and tomatillo salsa, and ‘LA Style Fried Chicken’ with red slaw and gochujang glaze! Watch a reel from the event here.
2. Bella, our original American food truck, went over to Rye to have a refit, brand new kitchen flooring and a shiny new sign! Our guys over in Rye, Alex & Ben, stripped out the entire commercial kitchen in the bus, had each piece of equipment deep cleaned, and ripped up the old kitchen flooring. It was a big job, especially squeezing those big ovens and fridges out of that single back door of the school bus! The food truck had a totally new base for the floor built, and a brand new non-slip kitchen lino fitted. Now this is fairly simple in a square or rectangular kitchen in your home, but in a mobile kitchen this not only has to be fitted to all corners of the bus, but also around the drivers seat and pedals… Well done guys, she looks beautiful! They also drilled holes into the roof for a new sign for ‘Old Skool Bus Events’ and constructed the fittings. The frame for this sign will also be used for future, more specific, ‘Burger’ or ‘Tacos’ signage at food trading events.
3. On the 22nd May we arrived at Worthy Farm, for our new Glastonbury Festival crew catering contract. This deserves a whole post of its own, so we will just give a quick summary, but WOW, what an experience! We were the first crew caterers to open on 26th May, and the last to close on the 20th July. With a 30 strong team of chefs, front of house servers, KP’s and a few volunteers over the festival itself, we served the crew of the festival three meals a day for 56 consecutive days. Not only did we keep the crew well fed and nourished for eight whole weeks, but we received absolutely incredible customer feedback through our online feedback forms, and scored very highly on the questionnaire ratings throughout the whole contract. We are so proud of the team, and cannot wait to get back in the fields again in 2026.
4. In November 2025 we attended the UK Quirky Wedding Awards as finalists in two categories. Last year we won the ‘Most Unique Catering’ award, which was incredible considering that it was Kate’s first year of running the business on her own. However in 2025 we were shortlisted as finalists in the ‘Best Bar Experience’ for the number of quirky and varied bars we had run at private events and weddings, and also the ‘Most Innovative Catering’ award. Our operations manager, Nik, attended the ceremony up in Birmingham as Kate was abroad, and he was absolutely flabbergasted to have to go up on stage not once, but TWICE to collect the awards! The UK Quirky Wedding Awards judges score the nationwide, independent business on a number of criteria, including inclusivity, customer service, quality assurance, sustainability, marketing, and they conduct ‘mystery shopper’ style research! Thanks to all the judges, we are absolutely thrilled with our two shiny new trophies!
5. Well, it’s difficult to stick with just five wins, as we delivered another 11 awesome events over the summer, from weddings and birthday parties, to food trading at the Women’s Rugby World Cup fanzone in Brighton, but we are going to end the wins of 2025 on attending Event Buyers Live in Cheshire. We were thrilled that we had the opportunity to attend the great industry event, organised by event industry Standout Magazine, which brings together a wide selection of event producers from across the UK, and invites quality suppliers to apply to meet up and network with the business community. It is a truly brilliant event which holds interesting ‘round table’ discussions, speakers take to stage to talk about industry topics, and the buyers and suppliers get the chance to hold meetings, mingle, and socialise over meals and drinks. We were thrilled to meet some great new buyers and suppliers alike, and also catch up with a lot of existing and historic event networking contacts!
So, that’s a wrap for 2025!!! Let’s now look forward to everything that 2026 holds!
This time of year the industry springs back into action after the well earned festive break, and it is full steam ahead with planning, quoting, staffing, and waiting for bigger contracts to confirm. We have quoted for five festival crew catering jobs already, which is encouraging that so many were bang on it pre-xmas! However most start looking into sourcing their new suppliers in January, so we are excited to see what enquiries fall into our inbox. However, there are some exciting things already confirmed in the diary which are getting us excited for the year ahead.
Here’s our top 5 for 2026 so far…
1. On January 29th 2026 the Festival Supplier Awards are being held in the Grand Connaught Rooms in London. This is a major industry event, and anyone who is anyone in the industry attends this bash! We are absolutely thrilled to say that we have been shortlisted in not just one, but TWO categories! This is a major step for our independently owned business, and we are honoured to be recognised for our efforts, standards, and contribution to the festival industry. We don’t expect to win either category, we are just over the moon to be in the finals, however we can’t wait to attend and mingle with our festival network! Check out the awards shortlist here!
2. Festival crew catering meetings, we have several lined up and we are waiting to discuss which we might, or might not, be contracted for this year! Fingers crossed we will know the schedule of our summer season by the end of February.
3. Weddings are a great part of our business and summer schedule, and having won two trophies in the UK Quirky Wedding Awards in November for both our bars and catering, we are thoroughly looking forward to delivering the weddings for the couples we have been helping on their planning journey!
4. New recruitment plans are in place for this Spring, with opportunities for more managers, both catering and bar, front and back of house crew, and we have a couple of interesting intern project opportunities for students or graduates who are looking for real life experience in a busy, growing business environment. We are keen to find both really experienced industry managers and new learners who wish to grow with us. Watch this space!
5. Lastly (for now, and only because we have limited to writing five) we have a new project we are embarked on which will elevate our principles, values, operations, procurement, and delivery of events. Kate has been working on this project since the autumn, and we will be focussing on sustainability a lot this year. Again, watch this space, but there’s exciting developments going on, meetings in the pipeline, and hopefully by Spring we will be well underway in working towards our goals!
So, a very big HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all, and good luck throughout 2026. If you are interested in any of the information above please don’t hesitate to contact us through our website or email us at enquiries@oldskoolbusevents.com
