EoFF Meet UP! (AKA the International Meet Up Catering Thrad)

[noxious.sunshine]

I know, there's the "If you had a restaurant, what kind would be?" thrad & the one about signature dishes.

But this is slightly different..

Everyone has specific tastes and many of us have strict dietary needs and/or preferences.

I also think that having 50 EoFFers go to a restaurant for dinner is really lame. Sure, people will naturally break off into their own groups, but I think let's not encourage it. Also, IDK how England works, but I had a party of 50 one time and I wanted to kill every single person 'cuz they kept getting up and moving and the checks were pretty well all separate and yeah. Let's not be douchenozzles.

Anywho.

So food & alcohol need to be a thing.

What kind of thing? Does everyone save up individually for their trip, then we all pile in for food & drink once we get there & order catering? Do we go for everyone BYOB (but you have to bring enough for at least you and 2 other people- sharing is caring)? Or do we do it potluck style? People from overseas and out of town crash a local EoFFer's house and cook a really nice whores douerve or whatever and bring it?

And what types of food? Obvy there should be vegan, gluten-free, vegetarian, etc.

And like 6 kegs of beer. And magnum sized jugs of liquor. If someone could hook me up with real absinthe, that'd be great. I'll probably have sexy time with you. JS.

So yeah. We've got 2 years to get this all into place, but still.

[noxious.sunshine]

Right, but it'd be better to have all the food in one place- like where we're partying, no?

[Parker]

What kind of thing? Does everyone save up individually for their trip, then we all pile in for food & drink once we get there & order catering? Do we go for everyone BYOB (but you have to bring enough for at least you and 2 other people- sharing is caring)? Or do we do it potluck style? People from overseas and out of town crash a local EoFFer's house and cook a really nice whores douerve or whatever and bring it?

Or do we do it potluck style? People from overseas and out of town crash a local EoFFer's house and cook a really nice whores douerve or whatever and bring it?

cook a really nice whores douerve or whatever and bring it?

whores douerve

[Shorty]

The way I envision this going is renting out a ballroom for a hotel and purchasing a buffet package. There are usually a couple main entrees, several sides, beverages and desserts. People move through the line to get their food and sit down. Easy peasy.

Going to a restaurant sounds like a smurfing nightmare. BYOWhatever sounds messy and will put unnecessary pressure on people - people traveling, people locally to feed the amount of attendees, etc. I think it a potluck will be an added headache to an already headache-y event, and I would rather just let the venue take care of it. Also keep in mind that many venues will not let you bring in outside food for events. Even if the venue allows outside food, I would much rather just pay a local restaurant to cater. Also consider the fact that few places will let you bring in alcohol, or if you do, they will charge you an outrageous corking fee, so kegs and whatnot are out as well.

If we want to have some informal bbq or something at a park on another day, all of this sounds fine.

Also, as far as paying for these things go - we'll obviously have to heavily rely on donations. For how little a number of people have, I am confident we can get the amount we need in two years with all of the people who said they would be willing to donate. Additionally, since we are all wanting food to be provided, there will be buy-in tickets for attendance at a reasonable price to help cover the costs of food (buy your own drinks )

Note: I coordinate these things as part of my job field and have some good experience with planning events, some for 200+ people.

[Shauna]

I second Shorty's vision of the future.

If we did get a hotel thing, there'd be an overpriced bar to go to! Everyone enjoys that. :3

[noxious.sunshine]

Good looking out, ShortStack. Those are all perfectly made points!

I kind of think that if we all pitch in on food, we should pitch in on having an open bar as well- Not because it's mega cool, but like it just kind of sucks being that person that wants to drink, but can't necessarily afford more than 2 or 3.

And don't get me wrong- I don't want to be buying someone else's drinks all night, as I'm positive no one else does.

Maybe I'm off, but this is what I propose: Everyone chip in on catering service. If people want to opt in for open bar, then they can chip in for that as well- Like X amount of dollars gives you open bar access, but if you choose not to, then you pay by the drink. And yes, I know there's a typical flat rate for pouring and bottle popping and drinks per head and all that, but I should think that it can be figured out easily.

[Shorty]

It's a good idea in theory, but I don't think open bars work like that, unfortunately. Open bars operate on the head count with payment for both for the alcohol as well as paying the bartender's wages and tips. If we wanted an open bar, we would need to pay for everyone, not just people opting in.

I am wary of an open bar because I don't want people to have a free ticket to getting troutfaced and crazy, but if people want to chip in for an open bar for everyone, I will look into it. Even then, it wouldn't be totally open - there would be a cash limit. I was thinking that if we had leftover donations after venue, food, and awards, we could offer drink tickets or something, or give them away in some sort of raffle at the time of the event, idk.

In doing some research on prices, I've read that open bars usually range from $17 - $35 a head. Even if we got the best deal at $17 a head, with a 50 person attendance that still puts us as $850 for the cost of an open bar. I have no idea if this includes the bartender's wages and tips or no. Unless we get some incredibly charitable benefactor to donate a ridiculous amount of money, I am thinking that it is probably not an option.

Or, we could tack it onto the cost of the buy-in ticket. Tentatively, without looking at buffet prices for hotels or anything yet, $25 per person seems reasonable. We could tack the open bar onto that, but then people are looking at paying close to $50 just for attendance for this thing. And then what if not everyone opts to help pay for the open bar? Of course, maybe this is something people want to pay for instead of racking up potentially more money for drinks.

But also keep in mind that if people are coming from all over the world to meet, there will likely not just be a once-only meeting during the week; I am sure we would be able to get together somewhere where we could just buy alcohol by the bottle, making it a million times cheaper for everyone to drink and have a good time.

tl;dr - If people want to pay to fund an entire open bar, I will try facilitate it, but don't be disappointed if it doesn't happen because it is a long shot. Let's hear some feedback on it!

Sorry to keep shooting you down, girl xD These are all awesome brainstorming, though, and I hope you won't be discouraged.

[Shorty]

Sorry, in providing consumables for everyone, alcohol comes below food on the priority list! You guys can whip a few bucks out for a drink or two or three. Or there are two years between then and now for us to save up for an open bar.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

As someone who doesn't drink (and if I were to drink, I'd get one thing and be good the rest of the trip probably), it would kind of suck to pay that extra for something I wouldn't participate in. I mean, if enough people want it and that's a part of the buy in price, that's fine. I personally would rather save that money for other stuff as I would essentially just be throwing it away, but I know for some (or maybe a lot) of the people, an open bar where they pay the $17 bucks or whatever would be saving money as drinks can be expensive.

[Jessweeee♪]

I'm on team "let's just get a bunch of takeout and chill out somewhere" mostly because I feel uncomfortable at formal Things. On the other hand this kind of is a formal Thing.

[Parker]

I'm on team say hello politely to everyone and then sneak out the back to go get drunk and then eat dirty kebabs.

Shorty, are you researching open bars in the US or UK? You're gonna find a difference I think. Tipping bartenders here is also pretty rare.

[Loony BoB]

I second Shorty's vision of the future.

If we did get a hotel thing, there'd be an overpriced bar to go to! Everyone enjoys that. :3

I dunno, we went to a swanky hotel bar for New Year's and (standard prices for this place, I understand) the drinks were really cheap by Edinburgh standards. Prices here seem to vary dramatically regardless of the, uh, intended audience. I have no idea how much London fits to this.

One thing I will note is that when you're dealing with a large number of people having an actual meal, it'll often be the case that you have to choose between 2-3 meals for everyone rather than having a really open buffet, although again, this will depend on the venue and how much we collectively are willing to pay.

No way would I suggest an open bar, never in my life would I want to pay into that. Some people drink really cheap, some people drink really expensive. I'm on the cheaper end. I'm also a person who likes to pace himself and there are drinkers out there that are the opposite, and feeling the pressure of having to get my drinks ordered fast if I want to "beat the cash limit" isn't something I'd like. I imagine that with 60 people, many of them young adults, that we wouldn't want to put that kind of pressure on them either. I'm sure there will be some irresponsible drinkers amongst us, somewhere, if we have enough people in one place.

I also agree with the various people about how we shouldn't invest too much into the bar/food overall because we're all just friends hanging around and in the end, people will want to go to less formal environments where they don't feel like they have to act a certain way. Personally I like both environments but we should consider how many of the younger people and/or people with tighter budgets might like to nip out for a cheaper option.

Again, I'm up for pretty much anything when it comes to venues but I have noticed that the number of people mentioning they could duck out is pretty high and I'd be gutted if half the people I wanted to hang out with had left early.

Also, kegs? Please. This is the UK. You should drink your beer out of a pint glass or a bottle (or a can, I guess).

Shortened version in reply to the first post, this is what will probably happen: At the venue meetup, you'll have paid your share to someone before arrival and they'll have in turn paid for the venue and the meals (and any drinks that may come with the meal). Any additional drinks or food would be paid for out of your own pocket or the pocket of someone else if they're feeling generous. There will be a bar at the venue where the drinks will be served for that venue, outside of it the food and drink is wherever you want to buy it from. I'm sure there will be other big/little parties that are less formal that people will organise at some stage but that'll be down to the individuals rather than an EoFF planned thing.

I am glad that I am not organising this, though. It sounds like a real headache. I'll be happy to offer input or advice when requested though... otherwise I'm happy to just go with the flow for the most part (outside of paying for an open bar).

[noxious.sunshine]

I was kidding about the keg, BoB.

[Loony BoB]

Alcohol Discussion is Serious Discussion.

[noxious.sunshine]

rofl.

Indeed it is.

So kegger at your place? We can play beer pong & do keg stands like we're 18 and in college. XD