Coping with the End of Food Truck Fever
Chris Ford, founder of StitchesandDishes.com 
It's called a lot of things in a lot of places - the food truck phenomenon, street food revolution, food truck fever, or the food truck craze. Whatever it's called in any city, it's likely not a phase. With an average annual growth rate of 8.4%, the street food industry has grown into a thriving $1.5 Billion industry in the United States in less than a decade, and is expected to swell to a staggering $2.7 Billion by 2017. Despite the impressive statistics, however nearly as many food trucks and food carts will close their serving windows for good this year as will open.
While the rest of the food service industry has seen less than impressive growth, and has actually suffered due to lower consumer spending, street food continues to build a momentum, propelling itself by leaps and bounds as new and exciting food options hit the streets at an alarming rate. Weakness in the economy and high unemployment rates have encouraged people with otherwise slim job prospects to embark on food service careers where they have more control over their lives and incomes. And, it's seemingly easy, especially at the peak of a local food truck frenzy where no company owns a dominant market share in the industry. Everyone is on a level playing field, and customers line up for blocks.
When you promote yourself via e-mail or with the words you use on your web site, you have a choice. You can be straight-forward and matter-of-fact (also known as bland and boring). Or you can communicate with pizzazz.
When promoting a concert or special event, the effectiveness of one's street team can be the difference in losing money, breaking even, or making a profit. Wikipedia defines a street team as "a term used in marketing to describe a group of people who 'hit the streets' promoting an event or a product." Their duties include: distributing promotional items and flyers, putting up posters and stickers, and a lot of word-of-mouth promotion throughout community. These foot soldiers, who are mainly volunteers, can be the single most important element to a successful promotion when adequately deployed. Here are a few tips to help you develop and manage your own street team.
Collage of artwork by Kelly Dombrowski. Alcohol ink on Yupo paper.
When Terry Speer was a struggling art student in the 60s, he put himself through college by selling his prints and paintings at local art shows. In 1979, after eight years as an art professor, Speer left academia to do the show circuit full time with his wife, Deborah Banyas, a fellow artist and quilt maker.
When you're submitting an application, an unlabeled CD may become useless without the artist's name. It may not be shown, it may not be returned. It might be thrown away.
Are you marketing and branding your art through social media and getting the results that you desire? Have your efforts in social media so far been worthwhile? Do you feel comfortable in establishing your presence in this new medium? Are you up-to-date on the effectiveness of this media? If you said “no” to any of the above questions then it may be time for you to brush-up on your social media "netiquette" as your effectiveness may be improved by adhering to the unofficial rules social networking.
When you contact local venues and organizations about applying to be one of the food concession vendors, there are many questions to bear in mind. Below is a list of helpful questions that you will want to be sure and ask the event coordinator before you decide whether or not an event is right for your business.
Refund policies. The very words are enough to instigate eye-rolling, heavy sighing and, occasionally, verbal boxing matches. In one corner stands the artist. He's over-applied to shows, and has laid out a huge amount of "due-on-application" money. Once he gets his acceptances back, he's going to lose hundreds of dollars in non-refundable booth fees for some of the shows he won't be able to do. But, without over-applying, he won't have enough shows. He wants his money back when he has to turn down acceptances in some of the fairs.
Not long ago food trucks were called "roach coaches" and served quick snacks to industrial site workers. Now, food trucks and food carts seem to be on every street corner and discussed on every form of media. In fact, just today I was listening to 