Cooking for 7000.

Not trying to upstage ourJenise here.LOL
Our tiny town is now the home of an annual heavy music event. Held over 3 days this year they sold 7500 tickets. (The punters are locked in, if they leave the venue they cannot get back in)
The organisers are terrific about keeping the local community on side with good communication and offering opportunities for local organisations to participate with appropriate fund raising activities.
So I got roped in to a breakfast shift with the local men's shed catering op. This group is awesome, all volunteer labour they operate a food service marquee for three day, doing all up lunches, breakfasts, dinners and snacks. Starting at 7 am and on Friday and Saturday going nonstop through mto 2am.
In my small contribution i washed a lot of dishes, just doing relief cooking whilst others took a brief break I think I probably cooked 15 kilos of Bacon and 300 eggs. Those egg, bacon and cheese rolls just flew over the counter. I also prepped a heap of spuds for those curly fry thingies for the afternoon.

An extraordinary experience and hugely successful, remarkable effort from older people with huge life skills, enormous enthusiasm but not much background in hospitality.

From the proceeds of the previous two events the Men's Shed has purchased a community bus which is a available to all for a small fee. With no public transport this is an enormous benefit to our local communities.

While it was a long way from haut cuisine, they fed hungry people good honest food.

Sounds like a wonderful experience! It's great to be part of something so big and so positive.

That sounds like a lot of fun, Barb, and a very rewarding experience. I would love to do something like that one of these days.

[Robin Garr]

Great work, Barb! When I saw the subject, I was about to suggest that you try to find a kid with five loaves and two fishes.

[Jenise]

Hey, that trumps anything I've done lately!

When I was a kid, we belonged to a religious sect that held annual assemblies (all day for 2 and a half days) in huge stadiums/arenas--for instance, those belonging to the Dodgers baseball team and the Forum where the Lakers basketball team played. But the stadiums didn't cater--our church owned or rented equipment and set up hot lines in tents in the parking lot where they made and served free meals. I didn't just like going to get food, I was fascinated by the mechanics of how they pulled off this mammoth task and would sneak away to hide in a corner and observe. I'd love to be part of something like that (the feeding part, not the religious part)--and even volunteered to help the Red Cross with feeding emergency/recovery crews at local disasters, though I have yet to be accepted.

It truly was a remarkable experience and I am proud to have played a small part in it.

The logistics are awesome. The festival management allocate a space and provide water and electricity. That's it. Concessions bring everything else they need . And it is just in a field so the ground whilst flat has an uneven surface thus providing extra challenges. Plus our secret entrance thru the trees requires one to dodge wombat holes. All food must be carefully store overnight as those d#%+*possums are cunning critters, I have known them to unzip heavy duty canvas sports bags to get at food.
I will probably be back next year (Wendy has my number and she knows where I live !)

Robin, I shoulda known you would pick up on the feeding '000s. as it happens the commercial concession next to us had two young men hauling in great boxes of fishes and chipses so we stuck with the plan.