Working at festivals isn’t just about selling street food from our food truck or providing tasty meals for the crew at the catering canteen, it’s about working together ‘with’ the festival organisers to help meet the objectives of the event.

Being a great festival supplier means that not only as a business do you operate in a respectable, quality focussed, honest and sustainable manner in business, but that you adhere to, and help develop great, sustainable, ongoing solutions!

What core goals do we share when delivering crew catering contracts?

• Ensuring general well-being of both the festival crew and our own team to support productivity and happiness
• Establishing sustainable targets to promote eco-friendly solutions and sustainability
• Managing costs effectively within budgets
• Enhancing the overall festival experience, happy crew equals happy festival!
• Supporting inclusivity and diversity

Old Skool Bus Events provides customised solutions for festival operations

We don’t just feed people, we source produce and quality suppliers, we recruit experienced and good natured staff, and we work alongside the event organisers to follow initiatives and procedures on site! Here’s some key solutions we provide:

• Primarily provide healthy & nutritious menu options catering for diverse dietary needs, including vegans, gluten free/ coeliacs, and allergy friendly dish choices. This year we took special care to help crew who were diabetic, and even one man who was on a keto diet. If we have the knowledge and the know-how, we like to be able to help wherever possible! Culturally flexible and diverse menus really helps make people feel included and cared for, plus it gives huge variety for all crew.
• Sustainability – this is much more than just environmental solutions, although recycling, minimising food waste, composting, and reducing plastic are top priorities. Ensuring clever procurement is established in advance to meet financial goals is key, plus developing menus which are sustainable for the kitchen to provide within reasonable working hours and are quick and easy to serve!
• Flexibility of service is crucial to work in line with the build schedule of the festival if crew catering, plus if we are trading with our food truck we must have opening hours which not only achieve better sales for us, but also provides options for the customers.
• Reducing queue times for both crew catering and food truck trading is vital to the running of an event! Quick efficient systems for service, preparation and staff management is so important.
• Takeaways and pre-orders are often essential for certain crews on site. Security may require hot meals for some meal times and cold meals for night shifts where they may not be able to eat them for several hours. Being flexible to provide these is very important to the running of the event. Safe food solutions are vital always, and this must be taken into account with chilled and high risk foods.
• Environmental initiatives – more and more so the carbon footprint of events are being measured, so helping festival organisers meet their objectives and targets is part of the service we offer. Give us some goals and systems and we will try our best to not only achieve them, but also come up with additional ideas and solutions specific to our catering!

Building relationships and regular communication is key to success

• Regular check ins with the organisers to measure the solutions and service is a great way to keep on track, and improve when needed.
• We always have a key point of contact for liaison, often a manager or Kate our director.
• Listening is essential, hear any feedback and complaints, embrace complements and what works well, work together to improve all aspects of the service.

Strategic business solutions and innovation

• Collating data & insights is a great way to measure our service and feedback, and we implemented a fantastic system at Glastonbury Festival this summer over the 8 week catering contract. We set up a customer feedback form online for staff to offer their ratings, reviews, and feedback. Not only did this encourage crew to offer their thoughts, but it makes people feel included and valued. From this data we learned that 86% of the crew rated our customer service as top level ‘very satisfied’ and a whopping 92% rated our food menus as the highest ‘excellent’ rating!
• Ensuring that accurate financial details and data is kept helps analyse the project, as well as keeping on track of budgets.
• Logging detailed information on crew food redemptions also helps monitor how costs can be saved in future, and forecast budgets. We always pride ourselves on keeping accurate records and set targets to improve them every time.

The future of festivals falls on objectives being met, systems being improved, and relationships being built, so providing solutions in our service is something that we take very seriously. Looking outwards, not inwards, is the way to develop growth and a sustainable long future!

To enquire about our services Contact – Old Skool Bus Events or email enquiries@oldskoolbusevents.com