The weekend of Thrive Festival was a huge eye-opener for me and my company. For months beforehand, I would get really bogged down if I had bad weeks sales-wise. Who wouldn't as a start-up company? But Thrive Festival made me realise I was pushing the product in the wrong way to the wrong target audience. The Festival allowed us to focus a lot more on who would buy my pizzas and how to target these people via social media.
Thrive Festival is a healthy living, wellbeing type festival in the Convention Centre at the end of February. On the first floor, there were various food companies such as fellow start-ups, eatfiit, KIND, SynerChi, present showcasing their products while health talks were going on in other areas. More established food companies were also present such as Fulfil Nutrition, Activia and Kellogg's. The ground floor was for the gym scene with multiple live workouts, protein bars, protein meals, protein drinks. A lot of protein! I was blown away by the whole set up. It was my first ever event outside a tasting in SuperValu so I did not know what to expect in the slightest.
Busy crowds gathering around my station to sample our delicious pizzas.
I was just doing tastings the whole weekend (rookie mistake Nr. 1). I most definitely could have made €€€ with the high volumes of people coming towards my stand. Over the course of the 2 days, I went through close to 400 business cards and 100 pizzas. That equates to 1600 slices - which equates to a lot of people trying/tasting the product. I brought my small oven (rookie mistake Nr.2) which meant pizzas were taking forever to cook. Twenty minutes per pizza to be exact. I did the majority of the weekend by myself (Rookie mistake Nr.3). The days started at 9 am and finished at 6 pm. Luckily enough, my good friends Gav and Karissa gave a massive hand on Sunday afternoon which was the busiest time.
In summary, planning for next year, I would get a bigger space, a bigger oven, I would sell the product and ensure I have more staff on hand to help out. That would make for a much more enjoyable weekend :).
It took me a long time to digest all the reactions, feedback & traction to our social media pages. It was insane! The Sweet Potato Pizza was the talk of the event, with numerous Thrive staff members coming back for extra pizza tastings throughout the weekend. Waste.ie captured my weekend in one sentence... 'He couldn't keep these pieces of deliciousness cooked quickly enough on Saturday for the punters lining up to try them'
We are already counting down the days to Thrive Festival 2021.
See you there. Craig
