Pop-Ups Aren’t Just One-Night-Only
For the Pop-Up Curious
In a recent Q&A Video, Chef Justin Khanna shared some insights on pop-ups that we felt warranted some expansion.
What Makes for a Successful Pop Up?
For those that might not know, pop-ups typically are temporary showcases of concepts, menu items, or collaborations that have an element of scarcity and urgency to them.
Considering it’s not a permanent operation, they typically suffer from a lot of downsides that brick-and-mortar concepts avoid through operationalization. However, because they’re pitched as “one-night-only”, they can seem incredibly intriguing & “sexy” to do.
The creative freedom, the novelty, the “push to pull it off”, and the back-of-napkin math for revenue can be incredibly motivating.
$100/pp x 40 guests = $4,000 in a day?!
I don’t know about you, but that’s more than I used to make in a month!
But subtract your expenses. The staffing. The venue. The food costs. The transportation expenses.
Now think about marketing. Ticket infrastructure. Administrative costs.
Pop-Up Expectations vs Reality
What we find is that folks typically fall into the mindset of, “Everybody's just gonna buy and it's gonna be amazing. I'm gonna make a bunch of money in one day, the same amount of money that I used to make in a week/month I'm gonna make in a day.”
Chef Justin Khanna doing a collaboration pop up in Minneapolis
What they don't often factor in, are all of the other headaches - because it’s not just the day of the pop-up that requires your attention.
There might be two days of:
Planning
Logistics
Phone calls
Emails
Staffing
Sourcing
Writing
Ticket pages
…that lead up to that day.
And then there's obviously the day of the pop-up itself, sometimes followed by a “day after” that requires additional work. Tasks like:
Returning rentals
Cleaning equipment
Doing a walkthrough of the venue to ensure that everything is returned safely/cleanly
Content editing
Social media posting
Additional customer service (saying thank you, sending menus, etc)
Remember that $4,000 in revenue? If, after expenses, becomes just $1,500, divided by the 3 days you spent on this event, makes $500/day a little more realistic. Is that still as motivating for you?
Our Pop Up Advice
Is the point of this post to discourage you from doing a pop-up? Absolutely not.
They’re incredibly effective at bringing an idea to life, getting feedback from real customers, achieving economies of scale, generating buzz, and putting your name out there. We just want you to be realistic and know what to expect.
It’s also incredibly tiring to bring something to life from nothing. You forget the benefits that come from having the infrastructure of a brick-and-mortar.
It’s the reason why we think they're temporary.
It’s also why people over-romanticize them - it sounds so cool, right? “One night only I'm at this place, I'm getting to do whatever I want.”
In reality there's so much other complexity that underlies a pop-up. We write this to make you aware of those complexities, so you can acknowledge them, plan for them, and ultimately charge for that extra work so that you can remain profitable and sustainable in your business.
Have questions about running a successful pop up? Get organizational tips as well as coaching to bring that idea to life inside of Total Station Domination.
Want to expand your creative potential and operationalize your ideas for your team? That’s why we created The DTO Framework for Dish Creation.
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