Catering

Food

Caterers have to be registered with their local county council health and safety executive. They are also required to have third party and employee liability insurance, which you should probably check.

Anyone who comes to the BJC to make money would normally be expected to pay you for their pitch (usually a percentage of their takings). Monte has historically provided a fixed number of free crew meals.

A caterer may give you a better deal for being exclusive, or if you can show that other caterers won't be in competition. BJC 2010 had Monte selling good food at relatively high prices, as well as a school canteen selling extremely cheap and cheerful stuff, and this was apparently a commercial success.

If you do give a caterer exclusivity make sure you are confident they can supply the variety and volume of food necessary. Some jugglers also expect food to be available any time of day and night, whilst this isn't feasible the caterer may have to be open long hours.

BJCs have lots of vegetarians, who will be pleased if they can get some decent varied veggie food, although having ONLY veggie food will put other people off.

Running a crew tab with the caterer will make things much easier, since you really won't be wanting to fiddle with cash while in a rush. The BJC 2008 organising team had 15 plastic swipe cards that worked at the Doncaster Dome eateries. In 2009/2010 Montegriffo's Frying Circus catered (in 2009 he brought a friend with a BBQ to serve meat) and he provided a stock of tokens every day that could be exchanged for meals.

Bar

There are plenty of companies who will provide a bar. The staff may well be used to more upmarket events where they have more of a captive audience, and less used to competing with a 24 hour supermarket.

In 2009, the bar tried selling lager at £3 per pint, and as a result sold almost none at all.

In 2010 the team made an extra effort to explain BJC to the bar staff. As a result, the bar brought in 10 barrels of locally brewed beer, and sold it at £2.50 a pint. They sold out.

The 2010 bar staff put a lot of effort into creating an "atmosphere" that would attract more customers. For them this meant low lighting and very loud music: while at times there was a lively party going on, at other times everyone in the bar disappeared to the adjacent marquee purely because it was quiet and they could see to play board games.

In retrospect it worked very well that there were two adjacent marquees so there could be a party space and a boardgame / chat space.

The 2009 bar staff, who were all employees of the bar company, just turned up for their assigned hours to put beer over the bar. They were not interested in whether the bar space worked well or made a profit. There was a marked difference between this and the 2010 crew, where the owner of the company was actively involved and keen to make sure his bar was providing what the jugglers wanted.

In 2011 the organisers got a license and ran their own bar, allowing them to cater more closely to jugglers' requirements.