Dave Donde mentioned the London Coffee Festival at one of the meetings early last year. I thought it was a great idea and after dropping Dave an email last week to ask if it was okay for me to examine the complications of organizing the event in Cape Town, here is some feedback.
The idea is to do something like a country market at Buitenverwachting (where we can get the venue very cheap, if they serve wine). The event would run over a weekend in either May/June or early October. Each roaster can offer a sampling of a few coffees to be served in the tot size glass that the attendees will get with their entrance ticket.
It is planned to have 4 different educational events that run at particular times of the day say 10:00 11:30, 13:00 and 14:30. Then have about 30 roasters there, about 10 light food stalls, half a dozen retail offerings, perhaps some craft beer stalls and of course the Buitenverwachting wine. The ambiance will be boosted with acoustic music, a barista corner and any other items which you can suggest.
Each market stall will have a small space (approximately 1.8mx1.8m) and will need to pay R1000 for the event (R500/day) – to cover basic costs.
The people I have spoken to, organize many events. They believe 1000 people a day is very possible. They have given me a full cost breakdown, and to keep the costs as low as possible they believe the can secure a sponsor to pay for the some of the costs like furniture hire, webticket offering, extra power (generators), toilets, cleaning and security staff etc. The basic costs of the running the event will be a little short of R200k.
Are you interested in participating in this event? If so what do feel about the cost.
Are you interested in running an education event? Reply to this email or email: admin@saroasters.co.za
P.S The next roasters event are to be made official next week, so look forward to a new email.
Leave a Reply