Festival Catering – Crisis resolved
May Hey Festivals
In February 2025, Monty Crook, organiser of the May Heydays festival at De Montfort School in Evesham, faced a crisis that threatened to cancel the entire event. May Heydays is an annual festival celebrating all aspects of dance, taking place across the first May bank holiday weekend. The event attracts dancers and enthusiasts from around the world.
For years, they had relied on the school’s on-site catering with mixed results. But in 2024, a change of caterer at the school left them without food provision. The new caterer wasn’t interested in supporting the event, and the school had made it clear that access to the kitchen would be prohibited. Without catering, the festival couldn’t go ahead.
Monty made contact to John at Fig Consultancy to see if he could help.
I met with Monty on a very cold day in March to understand the challenge. My initial questions revealed a fundamental issue which was that the festival had no historic data. How many people attend? How many actually eat? Do they pre-book? The answers were vague at best, and in all fairness to Monty, he had never thought that he would ever need this information, after all, he had other things to organise.
I explained the reality, which was that asking any caterer to commit to a weekend event without understanding numbers or timings would make it virtually impossible to secure a reputable provider. No professional caterer wants to take that kind of operational risk.
The Solution
I suggested a simple alternative approach: use mobile festival caterers, it was afterall a festival that was being organised, and instead of one caterer for the entire weekend, bring in different mobile operators for each day.
The benefits for everyone would be:
- Variety for attendees across the weekend
- Reduced risk for caterers who only needed to commit one day of their schedule
- No reliance on school facilities as mobile units are self-contained.
If this worked, then it would give them a model that they could adapt each year, by changing the type of caterer they could adjust then food variety accordingly.
The Result
May Heydays went ahead as planned, with four different mobile caterers operating across the weekend. The festival was saved, attendees were fed, and the problem that seemed insurmountable in February was resolved with a straightforward solution.
The Lesson
Not every problem requires a lengthy project or complex intervention. Sometimes solutions can be resolved just by talking to the right person, someone who understands the industry, knows what’s realistic, and can offer practical alternatives when the obvious route isn’t available.