• THERESA MAE DULMAN
The MassKara Festival 2026 organizers will not enforce strict price monitoring on items sold at food kiosks, giving vendors full autonomy to set their own menu prices.
Food park manager Christopher Malo explained during a press conference Sept. 15 at Snackees Lacson that because vendors pay significant rental fees for their spaces, there will be no suggested retail price.
“We gave them the freedom to set their own prices because, of course, they are paying for the rent,” Malo said, “Unless (the rent is) free, there would be an SRP. But since they are paying a substantial amount for the space, we give them the freedom on how to price their food. Some sell cheaper while others price higher so that competition remains healthy.”
It all depends on how they strategize to get their return on investment, Malo said. “We cannot enforce pricing because we are not businessmen—they know their business and how to estimate prices to recover their costs.”
Malo said there are two types of payments for the kiosks, depending on the location. “The prime lots underwent a bidding because there are concessionaires who love the space and actually want to secure it. So, what they did was pay more to get the space. We gave them the freedom to do that, so the prime lots are P30,000 for a 10×10 space while the standard is P25,000.”
Across the broader festival areas, organizers are managing high occupancy rates.
The Lacson management site head, Pancho Panoncillo, said that 187 of the 250 available food and corporate slots along the 2.3-kilometer Lacson Tourism Strip are already taken.
The strip is split into two operational sectors: the red zone, or from 6th to 17th Street, where corporate tents cost P50,000 and food stalls cost P25,000; and the blue zone, from 3rd to 5th Street, and 18th to 22nd Street, priced at P30,000 for corporate tents and P15,000 for food stalls.
Each 10-by-10-foot setup includes basic utilities during the core festival dates of Oct. 16 to 18, with partial road closures beginning on Oct. 12 to start the setting up of stalls.
Ambulant vendors coordinator Aicah Saavedra added that secondary vending zones at Araneta, Gatuslao, Panasiatic, and the BCGC Annex are fully booked.
Remaining spaces are down to 40 slots along the Rizal ambulant lane, 24 spaces at the BCGC Fountain Area, and a few food park slots, including 12, at the public plaza and 15 at BCGC.
Vendor fees range between P1,500 and P5,000, depending on location, with final registration closing on Sept. 30 ahead of the vendor ingress from Sept. 28 to 30.
She said that these ambulant vendors will be provided with an identification card. | TMD
