No Show, Not An Option.

I contracted with a caterer recently to cater dessert and coffee for an evening event. It was a fairly small event, 350-400 people at most, in a venue we were familiar with and had been to before. The menu was simple and could be set up within a few minutes. The whole plan was easy-in and easy-out. Because it was late, we didn’t want it to be a fussy event that took our staff hours to break down. I wanted a caterer to come in, do their thing and leave like thieves in the night without anyone noticing as good caterers can do.

The evening was off to a good start. We had a great turnout. As guests arrived it was fun to watch people engage with each other who clearly hadn’t seen one another in a long time. Even I ran into old friends I have been missing. The dessert was being served after the program as a reception so no need to concern myself with the food at this point. Just welcome guests, direct them to their seats, and clear the atrium for setup.

I was delighted when, true to form, the caterer’s first representative arrived. This particular caterer sends a “front man” to the job site to scope out the situation, observe the setup, confirm the number of stations and tables, where the staging area is, which door the delivery team should enter through, and formulate a plan for the supplies to enter and exit the building as quietly as possible.

At the first inkling I had that the delivery team was not moving according to schedule, I inquired as to their whereabouts. Sadly, the location of this event is one that struggles with GPS accuracy. So much so that we’ve relegated ourselves to including turn-by-turn instructions on vendor’s invoices, altering the delivery address from the mailing address, and drawing attention to this issue with everyone we encounter over, and over, and over, and over.

After waiting another 20 minutes, the front man did eventually ascertain that the delivery team was, in fact, in the wrong location as I suspected. We provided additional instructions and what we thought was a clarified address and driving directions to the event. If the delivery team drove straight here, there would be enough time to salvage this dessert event and get things setup before the program ends and the reception begins.

However, that was not in the cards. The delivery team, for whatever reason, drove past our location in the opposite direction almost as far as they were before. By the time the driver stopped to connect with the front man again, they were so far off course and we were so close to the end of the event, the writing was on the wall. The food and coffee were going to be a no-show to the reception.

Let me say that as the event planner, this night was an absolute nightmare. I hired a qualified caterer who had been to this location before on purpose. We had been in communication just days before this event. I attempted to intervene on the potential whereabouts of the absentee delivery team earlier in the evening. Just because this event was for 350-400 people doesn’t mean it was any less important or critical in the lives of the stakeholders than one for 10,000. The focus of the event was a fundraiser to set an organization up for their future growth.

Caterer, a no-show to an event of any size is unacceptable. There are a few people in our line of work who are allowed to make a mistake. You aren’t one of them. We managed to message it to the attendees in a light-hearted way that didn’t make them feel as if they were disrespected, but what if this was someone’s wedding? Someone’s graduation? An organization’s annual awards dinner? Unacceptable is the least of the words running through my head at this time.

Our team managed to scramble quickly enough to pull together some coffee and pre-packaged snacks we had laying around. The dessert showed up while half of the attendees were still mingling so they were able to take advantage of them. Within the next couple of days, the staff and some internal meetings at this same location gobbled up what was left over. The caterer has obviously apologized and we’ve met to discuss future options. But, I can tell you with certainty, I NEVER want to be in this situation again. A no show is not an option.

Do you have a vendor no show story? Email me, I’m curious how you handled it.

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As a matter of follow up: I contacted the caterer the next day to express my extreme disappointment. The owner scheduled a face-to-face meeting with me where he did not make excuses but apologized profusely and handed me a check to refund the entire cost of the missed event. He also offered to comp our next event if we were willing to take a chance on hiring their company again. That was the best case scenario response I could have expected.