All events are different, however, there are a number of consistent components such as venues, dates, speaker numbers etc that you know will impact your costs. The more you know about your prospective costs the more likely you are to save. Why? Quite simply you know what to expect, what costs you can bundle, how to search for the better deal and most importantly, you have enough time to shop around.
Knowledge is power and in this case money. If you have previous event budgets then the best place to start would be by reading through them and adding or removing costs as appropriate. However, if you do not have that kind of information at hand start by brainstorming.
List everything you think you might need for your event whether you think you have the budget for it or not. Some line items to get you started include:
Venue
Catering
AV (every wire/cable generally has a cost)
Speakers
Marketing (inc registration costs)
Stationery and other running costs
Travel
Entertainment
Once you have a list of all the potential purchases, pull out the key or crucial ones and start investigating the potential costs.
If you are stuck and need some extra help, our Event Management eBook will take you through the whole budget planning process including further costs estimation, budget formulation and monitoring.
