One of the first steps in the event planning process is creating an event budget. A detailed event budget helps to monitor costs, understanding how to be organized and keeping things under control. Let’s take a look at some tips and strategies that will help you build a strong budget.
Set the targets of your event
Start with the basics, so you can clearly identify your priorities. Allocate your goals and the main reasons why you are having this event. Setting targets early on will keep you focused and organized during the process of planning.
Classify individual items
All successful budgets start by classifying and categorizing individual budget items. The list that you make, may need to vary or change in accordance with the details considering with the situation.
Estimate expenses and incomes
After you classify the budget item, you have to divide the expenses and estimate the projected costs from each item. When you map all your expenses, you can decide which costs are necessary. Successful budgets have two columns for cost, projected and actual. If you make an extensive research on projected and actual costs, likely these columns will almost match.
Estimating incomes depends on past background and expertise. So, you can use some research on income from previous related events.
Have an accessible reserve fund
Unpredictable costs are something that might surprise you during the event. Having accessible, emergency reserve fund is very important. It is recommended to identify each risk and point out how they can potentially affect your event budget. Depending on the type of event, you will need around 5% to 25% of the overall budget for unpredictable costs.
While planning the budget, it’s very important to be in accordance with the current event trends. If something is trending, make sure you can to invest. Stay up to date and research all the new trends and what is popular, that will guarantee that your event will be successful and trendy.
