Building your event budget around volumes will help you better anticipate the cost and the income needed to balance the event at multiple levels, in this case number of people attending.

Planning a budget for an event is a tedious task, but absolutely essential for a successful event. Trying to execute an event knowing that you've lost your organization a ton of money weighs so heavily on an event planner and can be a huge distraction. On the flip side knowing that all your financial obligations are met and knowing exactly what to expect billing wise allow you to focus on the ministering to your attendees.

There are many factors that all come to bear on what money will be spent for an event in the end. And as the planner you have the responsibility of coordinating an event that is financially sound and fruitful in its ministry. That is not always a simple task.  Here are a few recommendations:

1. Build your event budget based off volumes - anticipate the cost and the income needed to balance the event at multiple volumes, in this case (number of people attending).
For example, I need a counselor for every 8 students. Every 9th student, your cost goes up. I have the fixed cost of a keynote speaker plus their family's retreat packages, & travel expenses. The keynote is going to cost you the same amount if you have one person or 1000 people. What you should notice is that with more attendees your cost will go down. However you do have some expenses that jump up like, every 40 people I need to book another bus for transportation. So you'll see some spikes in the expenses along the way too. Check out this example for a student retreat...

2. Plan an attainable break-even point - planning out the cost side of an event part one. Using the same volumes, plan out your income sources. If you can work off history of the average number of attendees for the event you can use that knowledge to say normally we have about 150 people and set a retreat price of $175/person which would give your event some wiggle room if you come in above or below that goal. We have a tool that can help you plan your budget, click here to download.

3. Monitor your registration - make goals to hit your break even attendance early in your registration period. Adjust your marketing strategies so that you can meet or exceed your goals. Double check your progress a few times throughout your planning process to ensure that you can reach the number of attendees required to pay the bills.

How do you plan your event budget?