Feasibility and Post-Event Evaluation of a 3-Day Regional Food Festival in a Hotel Banquet Hall

This project plans, runs and evaluates a three-day Chettinad and Kongunadu regional food festival in the 250-seat banquet hall of a fictional upscale hotel, The Lotus Terrace, Coimbatore. It is designed for a two-member team during industrial training or the project phase of a Master's in Hotel Management, and it covers the full event life cycle rather than only one slice of it.

Before the event, the team runs a feasibility study: a market check (competing festivals, local calendar, target segments such as families, corporate groups and food bloggers), operational feasibility (kitchen capacity, specialist chefs, banquet layout, licences) and financial feasibility — a line-item budget, a price per cover and a break-even point in covers. A risk register scores risks such as chef unavailability, ingredient price spikes, low footfall and food-safety lapses by likelihood and impact.

During the event, a run sheet and daily briefings guide operations, and the team records covers, waiting times at live counters and food wastage.

After the event, a post-event evaluation compares POS covers and revenue against forecast, calculates actual profit against the budget, and analyses an attendee survey on food, ambience, service and value, together with the Net Promoter Score (NPS). The final report tells management, in numbers, whether the festival should become an annual fixture and what to change next time.

Abstract

Food festivals are a popular way for hotels to fill banquet halls on low-demand weekends, build brand image and give chefs a creative platform, but many are approved on enthusiasm rather than evidence and are never formally evaluated. This project conducts a feasibility study for a three-day regional food festival in a hotel banquet hall, executes it with a structured run sheet and risk register, and evaluates it after the event using POS data, cost records and an attendee survey including the Net Promoter Score. The study offers a replicable plan-and-evaluate framework for hotel events.

Introduction

Event management literature describes events as a cycle: research, design, planning, coordination and evaluation. In hotels, the banquet and F&B teams usually handle design and coordination well; research and evaluation are the stages most often skipped. A food festival is a manageable event for a student team because the hotel already has the venue, kitchen and POS systems, while the festival adds decisions on pricing, menu, promotion and staffing that can be tested against data.

Existing practice

• Festivals are proposed by the executive chef or F&B manager and approved on the basis of past experience.
• Budgets exist, but break-even covers are rarely calculated in advance.
• After the event, revenue is known but guest feedback is informal and wastage is not measured.

Proposed approach

• A written feasibility report with market, operational and financial sections and a go/no-go recommendation.
• A risk register and run sheet used during execution.
• A post-event evaluation using POS covers and revenue, actual costs, wastage and an attendee survey with NPS.

Team roles

• Member 1 — Feasibility and Finance: market check, budget, pricing, break-even, post-event financial evaluation.
• Member 2 — Operations and Guest Evaluation: run sheet, risk register, event-day records, attendee survey and NPS analysis.

Feasibility of the project itself

The hotel provides the venue and data; the survey costs nothing through Google Forms; Excel handles all financial analysis; fourteen weeks cover planning, promotion, the event and evaluation.

The Lotus Terrace banquet hall runs at low occupancy on non-wedding weekends, and management is considering a regional food festival to generate revenue and visibility. Past festivals at similar hotels in the city were approved without a structured feasibility study, and their success was judged only by total revenue, without comparing results to forecasts, measuring guest satisfaction or recording wastage. Management therefore cannot tell whether a festival covered its specialist chef, décor and promotion costs, what the break-even footfall should be, or whether guests would recommend it.

This project addresses the problem by assessing the market, operational and financial feasibility of a three-day regional food festival, managing its execution with a risk register and run sheet, and evaluating its outcomes through POS data, cost records and an attendee survey with Net Promoter Score, leading to a clear recommendation on whether and how to repeat it.

In scope

• One three-day dinner festival (Friday–Sunday) in a 250-seat banquet hall with a fixed-price buffet and live counters.
• Feasibility study, budget, break-even, risk register, run sheet, event-day records and post-event evaluation.
• Attendee survey of at least 150 respondents across three days.

Out of scope

• Weddings, conferences and outdoor events.
• Alcohol service and bar revenue (analysed separately by the hotel).
• Long-term brand impact beyond the survey's recommend and revisit intention.
• Any personal guest data beyond anonymous survey responses; contact details are collected only if a guest opts in to the hotel's own mailing list, and never by the students.

Research design

A single-case, mixed-method evaluation: feasibility analysis before the event (secondary data, interviews, costing) and an evaluation after it (POS and cost records plus a cross-sectional attendee survey).

Phase 1 — Feasibility (Weeks 1–5)

Phase 2 — Execution (Weeks 6–9)

Run sheet with timings from set-up to breakdown, daily briefings, risk register updated daily, live-counter wait-time checks, and a wastage log by dish at closing.

Phase 3 — Evaluation (Weeks 10–14)

• POS: covers and revenue per day versus forecast; average spend per head.
• Costs: actual versus budget, variance by line item; actual profit.
• Survey: about 150 attendees (systematic sampling at exit, QR code on table tents); 5-point items on food, ambience, service, value and organisation; NPS question (0–10).
• Analysis: descriptive statistics, NPS = % promoters (9–10) − % detractors (0–6), satisfaction by day and segment (t-test/ANOVA in SPSS or Excel).

Timeline