Keeping your event on time and on budget is crucial to delivering great ROI for your client. Below are some guidelines the Event Services Team uses during the event planning process to keep costs reasonable and avoid budgetary surprises.
- Understand what your budget includes and doesn’t. Avoid surprises by understanding what that specific amount of money should cover. Does the budget include labor, team travel expenses or just event direct costs? Discuss the budget with all stakeholders to ensure transparency and continue that conversation throughout the planning process to avoid n surprises at bill time.
- Choose location wisely. Most events are held in high-profile cities – which cost much more than other markets. Take the time to research locations with similar demographics or characteristics; it may be possible to keep costs low.
- Designate one person to own budgetary oversight. With too many cooks in the kitchen, it is easy to lose track of what is being spent, on what and where. Designate a single point person to keep track of all costs with the understanding that everyone working on the event need to share any expenses with them.
- Identify the must haves and the nice to haves. As a group, identify what is crucial to create the right attendee experience and what is nice to have, but not necessary. In our experience, most of the unnecessary expenses take place during the couple of days before an event as organizers start panicking. Having a clear understanding of your priorities will help reduce anxiety and costs.
- Keep client expectations in check. Be clear about what the budget can or cannot absorb as clients ask for one-off additions to your event. Small asks can turn into huge expenses – as you have kept track of all costs associated, you will be in a good position to flag when asks will take you beyond your budget.
Sometimes keeping an event under budget can be very difficult if not impossible (weather related issues for example!), but being fiscally responsible from the start will help minimize general budget inflation. Your event will be fantastic and on budget.
