October 21, 2026

Functions market gearing up for festive season

October 21, 2026/ The Armory

Delaware North's Markus Werner and William Inglis Hotel's Amanda Fuller reveal the festive function trends shaping this year's Christmas events, from interactive food stations and non-alcoholic cocktails to locally sourced provenance-driven menus.

More on festive function and event catering

Festive Function and Event Catering

Functions market gearing up for festive season

Functions market ramping up as festive season approaches

With the approach of this year’s festive season, the functions market is once again ramping up – with demand quite healthy, despite some scaling back of function sizes likely driven by rising costs. To get a snapshot of the state of play, Foodservice Rep looks at two venues for whom functions is a thriving component of their business.

Smaller scale offerings set the scene for this year’s festive season functions

As the festive season will soon be upon us, now’s the time to be planning your menu for the functions and celebrations to come – from end of year office parties to Christmas dinner, New Year’s Eve and beyond. Weddings are also extremely popular at this time of year, which means receptions as well as anniversary celebrations are also high on the catering list.

Venue catering: meeting customer expectations in the post-Covid environment

The venue catering market was one of those sectors of hospitality which came to a standstill during Covid, then took some time to get back on its metaphorical feet in the pandemic’s aftermath. Now that lockdowns are thankfully just a bad memory, we caught up with three chefs working in the venue catering space to find out what changes Covid has wrought and how customer expectations are being met in the current operational environment of staff and skills shortages.

Functions and celebrations – what’s on offer as we head into the festive season

While the market experienced a boom post-Covid, with consumers keen to return to face to face contact and experience the events prohibited during lockdown, the recent rises in interest rates have since impacted spend. That’s the word from

Nick Kalogeropoulos, director of catering and events company Calibre Feasts

which regularly stages corporate events as well as

catering for weddings

, functions and elite sporting teams.

Foodservice REP is an Australian foodservice industry publication covering the latest news, trends, people, products and insights across the hospitality, restaurant and foodservice sectors.