Pricing a festival menu that actually makes money

Festivals are a paradox. You'll do a month's volume in a weekend, and it's frighteningly easy to come home exhausted, with a full till and almost no profit. The difference between a great festival and a busy one is almost always pricing, and pricing starts with knowing your costs.

Know the cost of every plate

Attach a recipe to each dish (100g of patty, a bun, a slice of cheese) and YesChef knows what every order costs you to make. Your Margin report then shows gross profit and margin per item, sorted by how much each one contributes. Suddenly the truth is obvious: the loaded fries everyone raves about might be carrying a slimmer margin than the quiet hot dog.

Let demand set the limit

Set a daily limit on the dishes that are slow to prep or expensive to waste. When they're gone, they come off the menu automatically, so you sell out cleanly instead of disappointing customers or burning labour on a last-minute scramble.

Read the weekend afterwards

• Orders by hour shows you exactly when to put your strongest team on the pass.
• Top items tells you what to prep more of, and what to drop.
• The VAT report separates standard and zero-rated lines for a clean SARS filing.
• Feedback surfaces what customers loved and what slowed you down.

A festival is too short and too expensive to run on instinct alone. Price from your real costs, cap what you can't afford to waste, and let the reports turn one good weekend into a repeatable playbook.