Festivals, Food, and Friendship – egCollaborations Events

In my wildest of dreams I never would have dreamt up what I do today. After all, what little girl closes her eyes at night and dreams about running food centric festivals? A job that I made up myself, and soon enough became a trend followed by the masses.

Though I’ve always loved food, I never thought I would be in an industry involving such a close relationship with it. I never thought I’d need to know how much a proper sample serving is, the cost of a pound of chicken wings, how to properly acquire a TABC license, or the proper camera settings when photographing a flight of beer.

(photo by @jonryangarcia)

My first festival was the San Antonio Food Truck Showdown, a baby dreamt up by my business partner and confidant, Cathy Shen, now co-owner of Pinch Boil House & Bia Bar, Sean Wen, and me. We spent long days (and nights) planning how to execute this event in our heads that involved the best food trucks in the city, how to market their small market and get their food into the mouths of thousands. We would need a venue, a platform, a layout, a timeline, food trucks willing to sample out their top dishes, sponsorships, and so much more. And how would this become a business in which we could generate many more events?

Once we locked in a venue, we were able to build a simple platform on Facebook to promo the event, reaching almost 15K attendees who were interested with all organic reach. We couldn’t believe that so many people in the city were supporting and getting behind our event. We received calls and emails flooding our inboxes from food trucks and market vendors interested in participating. From there we were able to create our promos and layouts and sell tickets. We hoped that tickets would sell out but you can never be too certain how well a food festival is going to do. With time, we have learned that most ticket sales come in the week of the event.

On the day of the event we had sold 2,000 tickets and sold out the event. Beautiful lines wrapped around the venue of anxious attendees wanting to get a hold of the samples from the food trucks. Vendors sold out of products, people left full. This is exactly what we had wanted – to help these businesses thrive and bring together the community. Cathy and I beamed with pride and began working on our next event, which fed into the next, and so on.

The beautiful thing about hosting events in San Antonio in particular is that the individuals in the city make it possible. People want to work together and to see each other succeed. Vendors we have had on board since day one are the same that we reach out to now, 3 years down the line. Most have become close friends and ones that we have worked on multiple events with. After the Food Truck Showdown, Sean went on to create Pinch and just this past spring we were able to work alongside him in 3 back-to-back events. The city is known for creating bonds that go beyond business.

In March of this year we hosted our largest event yet – The San Antonio Wings & Beer Fest, hosting over 5k attendees, and dozens of local vendors. 15 vendors sampled their unique wings and competed for best wings in the city. This was one of our 5 events in March alone.

(photo by @hungrytravelingmama)

Though, no event may be perfect and we always plan to fight fires as event coordinators. Each event offers a new opportunity to learn more and make room for improvement on the following event. Since our first event, our team has expanded to 4 people instead of just Cathy and me and we hope to continue growth this year. We already have 6 additional events lined up for the year and are in the full throes of planning! As a business owner, the greatest thing that I have learned is that I can’t do everything on my own – I have to loosen the reigns a bit and let others take on a piece of the pie as well. Which is a much better choice than coordinating a 5,000-attendee event on my own!

If you’re ever in San Antonio & looking to have a deliciously fun time, be sure to check out egCollaborations.com for tickets and upcoming events!

(photo by @jonryangarcia)

2 thoughts on “Festivals, Food, and Friendship – egCollaborations Events”

  • San Antonio Stephanie
    San Antonio Stephanie May 31, 2018 at 6:48 pm

    I am so happy for your success and to see how egCollaborations has grown. The events I've attended have been awesome! I look forward to seeing what's in store! Continued Success!

    Reply
Leave a Reply

Sorry, you must be logged in to post a comment.