You won the pitch. Now you have nine days to find forty people.
Catering is the only bit of hospitality where you sign the contract before the team exists.
By the time the client has paid the deposit, you have a floor plan, a run sheet, a menu that has been rewritten twice, and the small matter of finding forty staff who will actually turn up for a Saturday load-in in a marquee two hours out of London.
The usual answer is to ring six agencies, take whoever bothers to come back, and cover the gaps with your own people who should be watching the pass. That is a rescue every single event.
We built Albion for the second half of that sentence.
How we build an event team
Three things, all in the same order, every time.
We match the team to the brief, not the postcode. Silver service is not the same as canapes and drinks, banqueting is not the same as buffet, and cocktail-hour bar staff is not the same as bar staff at a wedding reception. We pick people who have worked the service style you are running.
We brief them before they travel. Your client, the venue, the timings, the dress code, where to park the van, who to report to on arrival. When they walk in they know the layout of the day.
We cover drop-outs. No event goes off without at least one person cancelling on the morning. We hold standbys for larger teams so when the call comes in at ten past nine, the replacement is already on the way.
The roles we cover
Floor and bar. Silver service and plate waiters, canape and drinks staff, cocktail and event bar staff, bar backs.
Kitchen and back of house. Chefs at every level, kitchen porters, prep, wash-up.
Supervisors and captains. Section leaders and event captains who can run their own patch on the night.
Whole crew. Full event teams from load-in through pack-down. Tell us the head count and we build round it.
How fast is four hours, honestly
For a same-day rescue on a small event, four hours is realistic in central London if you ring us before midday. For a full event team, notice matters. A week gives us a real match. Two weeks gives us the crew you will want to book again.
For a marquee, a museum or anything out of zone one, add travel into the run sheet. We will tell you honestly on the phone what is doable and what is not.