Welcome to part 2 of my Event Planning Checklist.  Today we are going to cover aspects that can make or break your event – budgeting, expenditure and legal aspects of planning your event.

Budgeting

Even if you have what seems to be a large budget for an event, costs can soon run away if you do not manage them properly.  Each event will have some variations in what their budget will need to cover, so here are some things to think about:

Expenditure:

• Venue costs
• Labour costs (either in house or outsourced)
• Speaker fees and expenses
• Audio visual equipment, filming, photographer etc
• Marketing costs – design, print (if applicable) and distribution or circulation
• Entertainment, additional catering/drinks etc
• Event Insurance
• Event Staff (their time plus catering costs and travel)
• Items on the day: delegate name badges, conference bags, conference brochure, give aways etc

There are also many ways of raising income for your event:

• Ticket sales, consider:
  • Early bird discounting; this is a great way to attract delegates early and get paid in advance for your event.  It also is a great indicator of how successful your event will be and how hard you will need to work to fill the remainder of your seats
  • If you have members, will you offer them a discounted price for attending your event
  • Bulk purchasing discounts; this is a great way to generate more income and get more people to your events.  Three for two offers or buy one get one free can be a great way to sell out your event
• Selling Exhibition Space
• Attracting Sponsors – Sponsors do not necessarily have to give you money towards your event.  If you can attract sponsors ‘in kind’ they may help you to reduce your costs and thus help improve your bottom line
• Finding event partners.  There may be other organisations who wish to speak to the same audience as you or deliver a similar message.  If appropriate, teaming up with another organisation could halve your costs.

Legal:

You must ensure that your event planning checklists covers all of your legal responsibilities.  Each event will be different, so this list is by no means exhaustive:

• Risk Assessments – there is plenty of free advice on the internet about carrying out risk assessments and good venues will also be able to help you
• You must make sure that you are working within health and safety laws – there can be lots of lifting, carrying and climbing stepladders etc during the run up to an event; make sure your team is safe at all times
• Certain events will require specific Event Insurance, at a minimum you should make sure you public liability insurance covers you for internal events.  If you are holding an exhibition it is also vital that your exhibitors have event insurance.
• Employment law: if you are using agency staff, volunteers or temporary staff, take the time to ensure that you are operating within current employment legislation

Come back next week to read Part 3 of my Event Planning Checklist where we will be looking at organising your event in more detail.