Should a festival run its own bars or hire an outside operator?

Run your own festival bars when you have the people, cash and evidence to make the extra trading profit worth the work and downside. Hire an outside operator when they can deliver the service you need on terms that leave your festival better protected, even if you receive a smaller share of drink sales.

The tempting calculation starts with the price of a drink and what it costs to buy. You look at the difference, multiply it by a busy field, and wonder why you'd give that money to anyone else. Then someone asks who's hiring the bar manager, paying for refrigeration and counting stock after the last act. Those questions change the calculation.

For a paid festival, the useful comparison is what each arrangement leaves for the event after its costs, what you must pay before opening, and who handles a difficult day. Owning the bar can earn more. It can also leave you financing stock and wages while the team you need to manage it is busy running the rest of the festival.

We'll work through the operating choices, compare them with one fictional festival budget, and build a brief you can send to potential operators. The figures are invented USD planning examples, before sales tax, rather than market rates, recommended percentages or forecasts of what your audience will spend.

First, decide which business you're agreeing to run

With a self-operated bar, your festival business receives the drink sales and pays the bar expenses. You may hire experienced managers, use agency staff and rent every piece of equipment. It's still your trading operation if you own the stock, receive the customer payments, keep the surplus and pay any loss after those bills.

A concession is an arrangement where another business receives the right to trade at your festival. That business might pay you a fixed amount, a share of agreed sales, or another negotiated payment. In the version we're comparing here, the concession operator buys stock, employs the bar team and bears its own trading costs. Your actual proposal needs to confirm each of those points.

Hiring a company for a management fee is different again. They might recruit, supervise and run the bars while you still fund the stock, pay the operating expenses and keep the sales. You've bought management expertise. You haven't necessarily transferred the financial risk of running the bar.

These are real distinctions in how suppliers describe their services. Festival bar operator Peppermint lists revenue share, profit share and management fee arrangements as possible commercial models. That supports asking for alternatives. It doesn't tell you which model is cheapest for your event or establish an appropriate rate.

Profit share also needs careful reading. If you receive a percentage after costs, the amount depends on which costs count and who controls them. If you must cover a loss, that needs to be explicit. A proposal labelled "fully managed" can still put stock purchases, staffing overruns and disappointing sales on your business.

Ask the supplier to describe the movement of money without using its package name. Who pays the wholesaler? Whose business is named on the customer receipt? Who receives the terminal settlements? Who owes staff their wages? Who owns everything left in the store at closing? The answers tell you more than the heading on the proposal.

Keep the decision separate from how guests pay for drinks. A cash bar, a hosted allowance and a drink included with admission describe the customer offer. Self-operation and concession describe the businesses delivering it. You can choose an outside operator and still pay them to serve a defined hospitality allowance. That allowance belongs in the comparison as a cost.

Establish whether you actually control the bar rights

Before asking for quotes, read the site or venue agreement. You may be hiring a field while another business retains the catering rights, alcohol sales or exclusive beverage supply. A festival brand on the gate doesn't automatically mean you can appoint a new bar operator.

Ask the owner to identify the rights included in your booking and any existing commitments. Check the public bars, backstage hospitality, camping areas and premium areas separately. Permission to run a public beer tent doesn't settle who supplies the artist lounge or whether a sponsor can distribute samples.

Next, map the commitments your own team has already made. A sponsor may expect its products at every bar. A premium ticket might promise a particular welcome drink. An artist agreement might require hospitality stock. Each promise can affect the range, purchasing price and work an operator has to accept.

Don't assume the operator can absorb those promises inside its normal offer. If a sponsor requires a product that costs more to serve, ask who funds the difference. If the sponsor supplies it free, confirm the actual quantity, delivery arrangements and any equipment needed. Free product can still create paid work.

Write down who can sell beverage sponsorship. An operator may have valuable brand relationships, but the rights it brings must fit the rights you've retained. Decide whether sponsorship income belongs to you, the operator or an agreed split, and whether the operator's bar payment already reflects that income.

Once those rights are cleared, you can sell the agreed package through Loopyah's event sponsorship tools, with a stated price, benefits, quantity and approval requirement. That makes the offer and purchase process clearer for the sponsor. You still need to agree what the bar operator will deliver before offering the package.

Ask the site owner, operator and relevant sponsors to resolve conflicting promises before requesting final prices. Otherwise suppliers quote different assumptions, and you spend the comparison meeting discovering that the lower bid excludes a promise you've already sold. Confirm the rights, restrictions and funded commitments in writing so each bidder can price the same work.

Compare the money your festival keeps

Use the same trading scope for every option. Include the same bars, opening hours, customer prices, product range and service expectations. If one operator includes refrigeration, terminals and cleaning after closing while your own budget excludes them, you're comparing different jobs.

For self-operation, start with sales and deduct the full bar costs. Include products consumed or lost, paid labour, management, equipment, payment charges, deliveries, cups, cleaning and the site services allocated to the bars. Include preparation and closing work. A team member doing it after their normal shift still has a cost or loses time for another task.

For a concession, start with what the operator pays your festival. Then deduct the costs you still carry. Those may include power, water, waste, security coordination, site access and a manager on your side. "The operator brings everything" needs checking against the actual site and contract.

Keep whole-festival expenses on the same basis. An artist fee that doesn't change between models shouldn't appear as a new bar expense under only one option. Equally, a generator hired specifically because you run the bars belongs in that choice, even if production orders it. Allocate it once and explain where.

Our event break-even guide explains how other income contributes to covering the show. Enter the bar amount you actually retain into that calculation. The gross till total is never the same thing as money available for the lineup, site hire and your profit.

Here is a fictional one-day festival comparison. Under both options, eligible drink sales exclude sales tax, tips and refundable deposits, with genuine refunds already removed. There is no separate sponsorship income or hospitality allowance. All the costs below use a matching before-tax basis, and wider festival costs stay unchanged.

In the self-operated option, products consumed and lost cost 30% of eligible sales. Payment charges cost another 2%. The fixed bar budget is $18,000, made up of $9,000 labour, $5,500 equipment and site services, $2,500 management and $1,000 other direct expenses. Those categories include all bar costs for this simplified example, including the services and coordination you would still fund under the concession.

At $40,000 in eligible sales, the product cost is $12,000 and payment charges are $800. Subtract those amounts and the $18,000 fixed budget. Your festival retains $9,200 from the bar before wider festival costs and tax on business profit. It doesn't retain the $28,000 difference between drink sales and product cost.

In the concession option, the operator pays your festival 20% of the same eligible sales. It funds its own stock, labour, equipment and payment charges. You still pay $2,000 for the agreed services and coordination on your side. There is no sales guarantee from you, no extra operator deduction and no additional operator fee in this example.

At $40,000 in eligible sales, your concession payment is $8,000. Deduct your $2,000 cost and the festival retains $6,000. Self-operation leaves $3,200 more under these assumptions. That's the amount you're evaluating against the extra cash, responsibilities and uncertainty, rather than comparing $40,000 with a 20% share.

Include the stock you keep and the stock you cannot use

Stock ownership deserves its own line in the comparison because it affects both the result and what happens after closing. Under self-operation, you can finish the festival with valuable sealed products, partly used products and items that cannot be sold again. Those are different outcomes. Ask your bar manager to explain how each will be counted and treated.

Start with what the supplier actually accepts back. Confirm eligible products, condition, collection arrangements, deadlines and any charges. Don't write "sale or return" in the budget unless you have the applicable terms. A supplier may accept unopened cases while refusing loose containers or products ordered specially for your menu. Your festival needs to own that difference before placing the order.

If you plan to use leftovers at another edition, check that the next event really has a suitable menu, date and storage arrangement. The stock isn't cash available for another bill. It may still be a useful asset, but transport, storage and any deterioration can change its eventual value. Give someone responsibility for that work rather than assuming it happens because the drinks haven't sold.

For a concession, ask whether the operator keeps all remaining stock and whether your agreement can charge you for any of it. A minimum purchase commitment, sponsor restriction or cancelled trading period may leave a cost with you even when you never owned the tills. Have the supplier explain one closing-stock example under the proposed terms.

The same check applies to equipment. If your business buys reusable counters or refrigerators, show the cash purchase in the dated funding plan and use an appropriate event cost in the operating comparison. Ask your accountant how to treat the asset. Comparing the whole purchase against one event's concession fee can distort the decision, while ignoring the purchase can hide an immediate cash problem.

Change the sales forecast before trusting the result

The expected case is only one possible day. In the same fictional comparison, suppose eligible sales are $25,000. Self-operation loses $1,000 after $7,500 in product cost, $500 in payment charges and the unchanged $18,000 fixed budget. The concession leaves you $3,000 after its $5,000 payment and your $2,000 cost.

At $55,000 in sales, self-operation leaves $19,400 after $16,500 in product cost, $1,100 in payment charges and the fixed budget. The concession leaves $9,000 after the $11,000 payment and your $2,000 cost. The stronger day rewards ownership much more. The quieter day makes the concession more attractive.

These scenarios deliberately hold the service and fixed costs steady to show the financial difference. Real labour, equipment and product costs may change with the plan. If stronger sales require another counter or extra paid hours, price that change before using the stronger result. If poor sales leave unusable stock, include the loss rather than preserving an optimistic percentage.

Find out where the two options are close. At $34,000 in sales under these assumptions, self-operation leaves $5,120 and the concession leaves $4,800. A $320 difference is small enough that a missing delivery charge or a few additional paid shifts could reverse it. That is a reason to improve the cost evidence.

Use your own comparable event records to choose scenarios. Check attendance, trading hours, product prices and the audience's actual purchasing pattern. Our guide to using festival bar sales data for stock planning helps separate recorded demand from waste and stock movement. Don't copy another festival's spend per attendee because its result makes your budget work.

For a first edition, say which assumptions are untested. Ask bidders what evidence supports their sales projection and what they would change if ticket sales finish below plan. A lower attendance case and a lower spend case can have different operational implications. Both deserve a place in the comparison.

Also allow for different sales under the two operators. Holding sales equal makes the cost comparison understandable, but it isn't a promise of equal performance. A better prepared team might serve more demand. An unsuitable range might lose orders. Use a supplier's specific operating plan and relevant references to examine that claim, rather than adding an unexplained sales uplift.

Don't make an alcohol consumption target the solution to a weak budget. The commercial task is to serve legitimate demand responsibly, provide a worthwhile alcohol-free range and keep the service workable. A festival that only survives if people drink more than they intended needs a different budget or deal.

Check how much cash you need before opening

You can prefer the self-operated profit calculation and still be unable to fund the operation. Stock, equipment bookings and staff payments can fall due before drink takings reach your bank. Write the payment dates beside the costs, including the time your payment provider needs to release receipts.

Business Queensland's guidance on budgets, forecasts and cash flow distinguishes expected profit from the movement of money and recommends planning for possible shortfalls. For a festival, use dates close enough together to expose bills that fall before opening. A healthy month-end balance can hide an unaffordable week.

Continue the fictional self-operated example at the expected sales case. Suppose you must pay $15,000 for initial stock, $4,500 towards equipment and site services, $3,500 towards labour and $1,000 towards management before opening. That's $24,000 in payments before any drink sales. These are part payments or purchases already included in the operation, rather than extra charges added to its profit calculation.

If you have $28,000 available before those payments, you have $4,000 left afterwards. Now suppose another $7,000 of unrelated festival bills must be paid before bar receipts arrive. You have a $3,000 shortfall. The forecast $9,200 bar contribution doesn't pay a bill that's due before you've earned and received it.

The initial $15,000 stock purchase also differs from the expected $12,000 product cost. In this simplified case, the remaining $3,000 is usable closing inventory with no losses beyond those already costed. It still tied up cash. If you cannot safely store, return or use it, review its value and add any further loss to the result.

Under the fictional concession, suppose your $2,000 retained cost is all payable before opening, while the operator funds its own operation. The same $28,000 starting balance leaves $26,000 before the unrelated $7,000 bills. That is a different funding requirement, even though the expected bar contribution is smaller. Check when the operator pays your share as a separate question.

Do not spend a proposed operator guarantee before its conditions and payment date are clear. It may be due after the festival or refundable in specified circumstances. Ask what happens if opening hours change, attendance falls or the event is cancelled. A headline guarantee only supports your cash plan to the extent the signed deal and actual payment support it.

If you need finance, include its real cost and availability in the decision. If you use existing festival funds, identify which other obligations those funds must cover. Owning the bars shouldn't quietly consume the cash you need for refunds, production or the next edition. Keep the dated forecast with your wider event cash flow plan.

Put an experienced bar team in charge

Self-operation needs someone who can plan and manage temporary festival bars. Being excellent at booking artists or managing ticket sales doesn't establish that skill. Name the person who owns the bar plan, ask what similar work they've delivered, and give them time and authority to do this job.

Build the staffing cost around the work. Include ordering, delivery checks, setup, preparation, serving, replenishment, supervision, breaks, closing and settlement. Where local employment rules create additional costs or obligations, get them priced. Don't compare a fully staffed concession quote with a self-operated estimate that counts only the people at the counter during the headline set.

Ask how temporary staff will learn your menu, equipment and responsible service procedures. Find out who checks they're ready, who covers an absence and who supports a refusal of service. A list of names can fill a rota without proving the operation has enough experienced supervision.

The same scrutiny applies to an outside operator. Ask who will actually manage your site, which work they subcontract and what other commitments they have on your dates. References should concern a reasonably comparable temporary operation. A company can run a good permanent venue without having demonstrated the delivery, power and replenishment arrangements your field requires.

Your manager also needs time away from a till. They may have to resolve missing stock, coordinate a delivery or speak to event control. If your cost model only works when the supervisor serves continuously, explain who handles those tasks. The answer may change the labour budget before you compare the options.

Consider what your existing festival team gives up. If the operations lead spends the evening sorting bar problems, who handles a late contractor or a programme change? Put a named replacement and its cost in the plan where needed. You don't have to invent a cash charge for every hour, but you must account for essential work that would otherwise go uncovered.

A management fee can be sensible when you have the funds and want to retain trading income but lack an experienced bar lead. Ask for purchasing limits, reporting and authority over additional spending. Then test the same quiet-sales case. Good management helps you run the business; it doesn't make the stock bill or wage commitment disappear.

Assign licensing and safety responsibilities separately

The commercial agreement must fit the permissions for the actual festival. Start with your local licensing authority and qualified advisers. Identify the business selling the alcohol, the permission covering the site and hours, and the people responsible for supervising the activity. Check this before treating either operating model as deliverable.

In England and Wales, GOV.UK's alcohol licensing guidance distinguishes premises permissions and personal licences. Under the premises-licence route, it explains the designated premises supervisor role and the personal-licence requirement for that person, with limited exceptions. Hiring someone who holds a personal licence does not by itself settle the site's permission to trade.

Don't assume a temporary festival qualifies for a Temporary Event Notice. The government's Temporary Event Notice guidance for England and Wales says the event must have fewer than 500 people at all times, including staff, alongside other restrictions. Discuss your actual site and proposed activities with the authority. Scotland, Northern Ireland and other countries have different arrangements.

Have the responsible people confirm the applicable conditions, staff training, age verification, refusal procedures, drinking water arrangements and emergency contacts. Agree who keeps the necessary records and where staff find the current instructions. Don't turn a general blog checklist into an operating permission or copy another festival's conditions without checking them.

Outsourcing also leaves work for the festival organiser. Great Britain's Health and Safety Executive says in its event management guidance that organisers must coordinate activities and maintain overall safety arrangements, while contractors remain responsible for their individual technical work. An operator's appointment needs to connect with your event plan.

Make the connection practical. Your event team needs the bar locations, delivery movements, service requirements and named contacts. The operator needs current site rules, emergency arrangements and information about changes that affect trading. Agree who can stop service, who informs event control and who assesses what must happen before it restarts.

An insurance certificate needs a similar check against the work. Ask your broker which cover applies to the proposed model, including employees, equipment, stock and the relevant liabilities. Get confirmation of what each business carries. Don't assume an operator's cover automatically protects every activity or every claim against your festival.

Price the service your audience will actually receive

The cheaper model has to serve the same event. Define the product range, prices, trading windows, water provision, alcohol-free offer and accessible service arrangements before asking which arrangement costs less. If bidders propose different service plans, have them explain the difference and price the comparable alternative.

Think through demand around your programme. Guests arriving after work, an interval between acts and a camping audience staying all weekend create different patterns. The operator needs your running order and audience information. You need its plan for the peaks, including stock movement and break cover, rather than an unexplained promise of enough staff.

Use the festival bar layout guide for the detailed service-point planning. Here, your decision is whether the proposed operating business can fund and deliver that plan. Ask each bidder what equipment and site services it assumes, which areas it will serve, and what has to be ready before its team arrives.

Don't let the fixed concession payment become the only service measure. An operator might offer an attractive fee while planning a limited range or fewer opening hours than your audience expects. Agree the baseline service and an approval process for changes. Your festival still receives the complaint when guests can't find the advertised drink or service point.

Equally, don't give self-operation a free pass because you control it. Your team can underbudget refrigeration or rely on a restock route that closes during performances. Ask your bar manager to demonstrate how the plan works, including setup and replenishment. Apply the same scrutiny you'd use with a bidder asking for access to your audience.

Treat free water and responsible service as operating requirements to establish locally, not obstacles to a revenue target. Include a credible alcohol-free choice in the commercial brief. You are choosing a bar service for everyone attending, including people who buy no alcohol. A high sales projection doesn't justify making their visit worse.

Ask suppliers to quote the same brief

Send a written brief once you've established your rights and required service. You can invite a concession offer and a management-fee alternative without pretending they transfer the same responsibilities. Tell suppliers which choices you want them to price and which facts are still uncertain.

Include actual ticket sales to date, the attendance range you're planning around and the evidence behind it. Separate capacity from forecast attendance. State whether camping, staff, artists or hospitality guests are included in the figures. Suppliers need to know who can buy at each bar and when, rather than receiving one unexplained crowd number.

The following brief is a starting point to complete with your own details. It asks for the information needed to compare models, rather than trying to replace the operating plan or a locally reviewed agreement.

• Event and scope: name the dates, public trading hours, build and removal access, site, bars and any separately operated hospitality areas.

• Audience and evidence: supply current ticket sales, planned attendance range, comparable event information where available, and the uncertainties the proposal should allow for.

• Rights and commitments: identify permitted beverage sales, existing supplier restrictions, sponsor promises, included drinks and who may sell future beverage sponsorship.

• Required service: state the range, price approval process, alcohol-free choice, accessible service, water arrangements and the programme information used to plan peaks.

• Site provision: list what the festival supplies and what the operator must supply, including power, water, waste, refrigeration, counters, storage, security coordination and payment equipment.

• Commercial alternatives: request the concession payment and its sales definition, any fixed or conditional guarantee, your retained costs, and an optional management-fee proposal showing the costs and risks you keep.

• Delivery and responsibility: ask for the named manager, staffing and cover approach, relevant experience, subcontractors, licensing arrangements, insurance evidence and the interface with event control.

• Records and changes: ask for sample sales reports, settlement dates, stock ownership, cancellation charges, service-change authority, additional-cost approval and the response if the operator cannot deliver.

Ask bidders to list exclusions explicitly and attach one worked settlement. A proposal that states an appealing percentage but leaves power, management or payment charges undefined isn't ready to compare. Send factual clarifications to every bidder so no one prices an outdated version of the event.

Give your own bar manager the same brief if you're considering self-operation. Ask them to prepare the staffing, purchases and service cost against it. That creates a fair comparison and often exposes work that the original in-house estimate forgot. You may still choose a different service level, but make that a deliberate choice with its effect on cost explained.

Test the proposal with an ordinary operating problem

Once you have a preferred proposal, talk through a problem that could happen on your site. Suppose a refrigerated delivery arrives after its approved vehicle window. Ask who receives the call, where the vehicle waits, who can agree a safe revised delivery and how the bar manager checks whether the stock can be used. You're looking for a workable chain of decisions, rather than a confident promise that deliveries are normally on time.

Then ask what the change costs and who approves it. A runner, extra equipment hire or extended staffing may be needed. Identify who has authority to spend your festival's money and how they record that approval. An experienced operator should be able to explain what it controls and when it needs a decision from you.

Try a commercial problem too. Imagine ticket sales finish below the attendance range in the brief. Does the supplier propose a different stock order, revised staffing or a change to the payment it offered? Ask which changes need your agreement and which are allowed under its proposed terms. You need to know that before relying on the original contribution in your festival budget.

Use references to check those answers. With the supplier's permission, speak to a previous organiser about the work actually delivered, additional charges, reports and final payment. Ask whether the named manager was present and how the business handled a change. A reference about a friendly team is less useful than a clear account of what happened when the plan needed adjusting.

Finally, involve the people who will work with the supplier. Have your site lead check the services and access assumptions, your finance person check the payment calculation, and your responsible licensing contact check the proposed arrangements. Resolve conflicting answers before signing. This is where a lower concession payment with a complete, credible plan may be preferable to a higher offer built on missing services.

Read the downside before accepting a guarantee

An operator offering to pay a fixed sum can reduce your exposure to disappointing sales. Read what triggers that payment and what can reduce it. Attendance conditions, missing site services or shorter trading hours may change the offer. Ask for a calculation using a specific disappointing day.

Be precise about the direction of any minimum. A guaranteed payment from the operator to you is different from a minimum spend you promise to fund. If your festival must make up a sales shortfall, some trading risk has returned to your business. Price it in the same downside scenario as self-operation.

For detailed percentage definitions and settlement clauses, use our guide to negotiating an event bar revenue share. For this decision, identify the largest payment you could owe under each proposal, the conditions that create it and whether you can fund it when due. Don't let the label "concession" answer those questions for you.

Check cancellation before you pay or receive a deposit. Establish which committed costs remain payable, what can be cancelled, whether stock can be returned and who owns purchased items. Ask about postponement separately. A team available on the original weekend may have no capacity on your replacement date.

Also plan for delivery failure. If the operator loses key staff or cannot open an agreed bar, who must notify you and when? What replacement can realistically be approved, licensed, staffed and supplied? A contractual remedy after the event won't get drinks served during it. The backup needs to fit the actual notice and permissions available.

Keep your response proportionate to what you can verify. Don't assume you can take over an operator's tills, staff or stock because you're the festival organiser. Agree any emergency arrangements in advance with the relevant businesses and responsible people. Where service cannot continue safely and lawfully, the operating plan must allow it to stop.

Choose a model you can deliver and review it after settlement

Self-operation is a credible choice when the quieter case is affordable, the upfront cash is available and an experienced team has a complete costed plan. It becomes more attractive when your own records show dependable demand and the additional amount retained is large enough to matter after all the work is priced.

A concession is a credible choice when a capable operator can meet your service brief and the payment, exclusions and responsibilities are clear. Accepting a smaller expected bar contribution can be sensible if the arrangement reduces a funding problem or leaves your team able to deliver the festival well. Verify those benefits in the proposal rather than assuming them.

A management-fee arrangement suits a different gap. You may want to retain the trading result and have the money to fund it while buying expertise you don't have internally. Judge the management service against its defined work, and keep the sales downside and purchasing commitments in your own budget.

If you're considering splitting the bars between models, price the shared work first. Separate tills don't automatically mean separate refrigeration, stock access or sponsor rights. Define the boundary and who coordinates it. A limited self-operated area can provide useful experience only if it is genuinely separable and its extra complexity doesn't overwhelm the team.

Before signing, record why you chose the model and which assumptions made it preferable. After the festival, compare the settled result with that decision. Review actual receipts, costs, stock left, your team's workload and whether the agreed service arrived. Use the completed accounts, rather than a busy-looking counter, to decide what you want next time.

Separate an inaccurate forecast from a poor delivery decision. If attendance met the plan but a bar couldn't open, investigate the missing service before concluding that demand was weak. If every bar delivered the agreed service and the audience bought less than expected, revise the purchasing and financial assumptions. Those findings lead to different changes for the next edition.

Keep the evidence you would need to change models later. Ask for the agreed event sales reports, service issues and settlement records while the supplier relationship is active. Record any limits on how you can use or share its commercial information. You don't need customer payment details to understand the result. You need an accurate account of what was sold, what your festival received and which responsibilities remained with your team.

For your next operator conversation, take the same service brief and the quiet-sales calculation to both the bar lead and the person responsible for festival cash. Have them confirm the work, the payment dates and the responsibilities they can accept. If either identifies an unfunded job or an unaffordable bill, resolve it before committing to the model.