I worked at the SU Carrier Dome in my junior & senior year of college in events production.
They would put on dinners inside the dome. One was 2200 people who all got prime rib. For the next week I ate left over prime rib. A heck of a lot better than 5 for $1 generic mac & cheese. Best $5/hr job I ever had.
And SU sponsored events that were catered had GOOD food at that.
I was at a couple when we lived in CNY.
Towards the end of the night, if you did it right, you could manage to escape with some leftovers if you did it right and nobody was looking. all the kids who worked those events had problems with the amount of food tossed as well, so it was easy to get them to look the other way.