Tips on planning an Event
Some events will take more planning and preparation than others. It is not reasonable to expect one person to do everything with these more involved events.
It is generally wise to set up a committee to organise these larger or more complex events.
- You must know all the costs involved for the proposed event. Until you know your costs you won't know what the ticket price should be nor how many tickets will need to be sold.
- Decide how many people you want to invite. Justify your choice, make sure that it is reasonable to reach your target.
- Remember that the venue may dictate how many people may be allowed and these may be legal limits which should be followed.
- If you want alcoholic drinks to be available then you must make sure that you have a drinks licence sorted out properly.
- Establish the date of the event. Check that it does not clash with some other local event being held at the same time. It might be wise to avoid holding your event at the same time as major events such as football matches involving the national teams, or even some TV programs!
- Establish the amount of money you want ro raise. This is all profit from the event!
- Establish all the costs involved in holding the event. This amount plus the the required profit has to be raised by the ticket sales, the raffle ticket sales and any donations you have been given.
- If you have a limit on ticket numbers then it is simple to establish the basic ticket price.
- The most important decision that needs to be made is 'how many tickets can we sell?'. Everything hinges on this so make a sensible estimate. Ask other people for their view on potential ticket sales at the price being proposed.
- When you know how many tickets you plan to sell then you just divide the number of tickets into the total costs + profit amount.
Is the ticket price reasonable? If not then change your costs, your target profit, the number of ticket sales or your ticket price until you happy that you can achieve the targets that you have set.
tip Try to get enough advanced ticket sales to cover your costs. This may prevent a lot of embarrasement and will also provide some money for paying some of the initial costs.
The calculations are complicated by any profit on food or drink sales. Make sure that you arrange the drink supplies on a sale or return basis!
It is generally worth holding a raffle. Try to get the prizes donated from local businesses and individual people. Don't rely on the raffle to make your profits for the event. You should be presenting a proper financial case for the costings of the event. The money from the raffle should be seen as extra profit!