12 steps to plan a basic event budget

Keeping an event budget will always help you stay organized and prepared for any client inquiry, and help you avoid going over budget.

For a basic event - let's take the example of a business seminar here - I really recommend using Excel (or any spreadsheet software will do), and list four categories along the top:

• Item
• Projected Expense
• Actual Expense
• Details

Then, you need to categorize and track the expense items as follows:

1. Track site rental costs. As you plan the event itself and as you meet with your venue sales manager, track all projected rental fees for the event and function space, housekeeping, baggage handling, and related expenses.
2. Estimate catering costs. This includes all food and beverage charges, including tips and gratuities -- which can account for up to 25%.
3. Document transportation charges. This includes shuttles, coaches, event transfers, and any related expenses.
4. Add decor expenses. Most events include expenses for decor, such as centerpieces, florals, tent rentals, etc. This is where you list those costs.
5. Document entertainment & equipment fees. Common expenses in this category include the A/V equipment, but it's also a good spot to list honorariums to speakers or if you are hiring entertainers.
6. Summarize printing charges. Several small item charges actually combine to make a larger expense line item. These include invitations, flyers, name badges, program booklets, event signage and banners.
7. Line item for gifts. One of my event rules is to never allow a guest to leave empty handed. So, whatever gift or gifts you provide, track the cost for them separately; you'd be amazed at how much these items can cost.
8. Identify activities expenses. If your event includes activities such as golfing, tennis, spa, rafting, biking, or other activities, you will want to note the cost of these fees separately. I suggest summarizing the total cost in your spreadsheet and attaching a breakdown.
9. Post other expenses. If an expense doesn't fall into any of the above categories, I tend to list them as a miscellaneous expense item here.
10. Give yourself a contingency fund category. Depending on the size or complexity of an event, you may want to give yourself as much as up to 20% of the event budget here. Despite the best planning, charges are going to exceed projected plans with expenses that you never consider. This will keep you from going over budget every time.
11. Summarize projected expenses. As you build your event program, you will have a good projection of the total expenses. This is the information that I will share with my event client to make sure they are aware of the event budget so that there aren't any surprises later on.
12. Summarize actual expenses. This happens after the event has concluded. I will subtotal the invoices into the above 10 categories and document the actual budget. If extremely favorable, I will identify savings in actual budget vs. the projected budget, demonstrating the value-add of my role.
    
    
    Good luck for all the budgeting. It is pretty long, but is the most important part of the financial planning. It is also a tricky part of the planning, so you might want the help of a professional for more precise previsions and lower costs.
    
    

10 ways to promote your event on social media

Social media is a key component in event promotion, even more in a student background. Let's see a few ways to use them to increase awareness and attendance to your events.

1. Facebook event

Facebook is the first social network worldwide. Creating a public events and inviting your friends/followers will increase awareness for your event. Do not forget to upload every useful information (Time, place, price etc.), and to often update new info.

2. Promote your hashtag

Hashtags are used on several social networks (Twitter, Instagram etc.), and increase curiosity and attachement. Promoting your hashtag on all of your social networks accounts, videos, photos and printed advertising will push people to use the hashtag and spread it around social media.

3. Link your accounts

Every follower probably will not use all the social mediums you use. Sharing Instagram pictures on facebook, tweeting your blog updates or integrating social network plugins & buttons on your website will increase social coherence and efficiency, giving access to informations to people that would not have it on an other social network. It will also increase your number of relations on each social profile.

4. Twitter widget

Integrating a twitter widget to your website & blog will regroup all the relevant information talking about your brand, company, organization and your event(s) using your handle and your hashtags. It will also give access to non-twitter users.

5. Promotional video

Having a video presenting your event is always a trump card in a promotion & advertising campaign. You want to tease and tempt people to come. You also want to show details of the location, venue, band, presenters etc, because people like to have a idea of what they are going to attend to.

6. Interviews

Following the same idea of giving a small preview, you can run a text or video interview of your band, presenters, DJ or any person who will attend the event. Participants have a better idea of what they are going to and the band/DJ/presenter will also share this video on his social media accounts. If the video is well made, people will share it to their friends increasing awareness and promotion.

7. Use Facebook ads targeting

The key component of Facebook ads is the targeting. You can target your audience by gender, age, likes, region, state, hobbys etc. So if you are planning a HarryPotter conference you can target your ads only for HarryPotter fans, who liked the page, said they read the book or saw the movies.

8.  Giveaway free tickets or prizes

You can organize promotional competitions, as easy as a share/like/comment contest, awarding free tickets, promotional prizes or sponsored prizes by drawing lots among people that shared a status update for example. The best way is posting a status update: "Share this status to compete for winning one of the 10 free tickets for our event [link to the event]" because people that share the status will also share the instructions and the link, encouraging their own friends to do the same thing.

9. D-Day hashtag

Having a hashtag for the event itself, and not the one used for the promotion will push attendees to interact on social networks, revealing their presence and attachement to the event.

10. Post-event communication

Contrary to popular belief, the event is not over when everyone leaves. Communicating with your attendees and followers at the end of the event is the best promotion for the next one. Posting photos and videos is also a good way for the attendees to increase their emotional attachement, sharing your content to their friends. 


Good communication is central to the success of any event. Even if it is just a one-time event, keeping in contact with everyone who attended could result in invaluable contacts and followers. Promote social media and good communication whenever you are planning and executing an event, and your extravaganza could quickly turn out more engaging and popular than you may have ever realized possible

Different projects, a same audience. Things you want to keep in mind

What do we always need to keep in mind ?

Your organization might want to plan an event to raise money, to become known or simply to entertain students from your university. But the first question coming to your mind is: What are we going to do? What kind of event do we want to plan?

The event you are planning to organize does not necessarily have to refer to your organization and it's goals directly. For example, a basketball fans club can plan Live TV game projections, but can also plan a cupcake sale to raise funds for a basketball road trip.

During the whole event planning process, you need to always keep in mind that your audience (and thus people attending to your event) will be (most of the time) over 95% students. This means they will be mostly around 18 to 25 years old, will have low means and probably a busy schedule. 

You also need to know if you are willing to earn money on that project. This can sound weird, but sometimes you have already a budget for a project, that you will not need fo any other ones. You can then use that budget as a resource rather than making attending people pay for your event. You might also aim a $0 margin, to lower the price of your ticket. Organizing a ski trip for 10 persons that will cost  $5,000 and make each participant pay $500.

Before starting any planning, you want to be clear with your team on what type of event and what financial benefits you are expecting.