This is such a great question. We’re always pushing ourselves to deliver a better event, but we’ve found that sometimes we don’t need or want glitzy production values. But the audience can be demanding: people will complain about the food not being great even if it’s free! And so, to avoid complaints, one easily ratchets up the requirements for food and refreshments.

It’s a tough one, but at some point, one has to say this is more than enough.

Could it be that people who attend and produce events — folks like you and me—notice this kind of stuff because we see the front stage and back stage sides of it?

In my experience—from Oslo at least—attendees do expect to have more than enough food, coffee/tea and refreshments, even at a free event. Also, the list of dietary requirements / preferences grows longer each year. Ethics-wise the latter is fine, but the logistics can be vexing, especially if someone orders vegan prepared without latex gloves and a random person grabs their special order by accident.

To simplify logistics, some events are switching to having vegetarian as a default, which makes things simpler for the catering flks, makes some attendees happy and makes other attendees absolutely furious. There’s a lot of feelings around food, to be sure. And coffee! People working on digital products and services have very specific opinions on coffee, it seems.

So, I think it comes down to sustainability (not in the ecological sense, but in the can-we-keep-doing-this sense) for the team that is producing the event. Will the extra effort be noticed by attendees? Is it worth it if the team is completely worn out by going the extra mile?

At some point one has to say this is more than enough.

(Quick post, apologies for the loose editing)