Events can range from complex multi-day business conferences to simple one-topic micro-events. When planning an event, overlooking the business aspect of the event can bring a lag in return on investments, positive event branding and employee turnover rates. An event
organizer has to weave in the market costs within his pricing strategy for putting forth a successful event execution. Some other factors that can shape the staging of an event are the organization and event size, market segmentation, audience travel patterns, customer service, event risk & security management and more.
Formalizing and integrating the event planning process with these various components and event budgeting considerations, especially from the ‘what are the economic impacts’ perspective, can provide for easy cents and dollars calculation for event organizers. Finding out what part of the revenue benefit was owing to what event cost spent or strategic execution -becomes a breeze.
Key Factors That Can Affect the Economics of Planning an Event
It makes a massive difference if your event planner is on-staff or hired on contract. The work experience of event planners matters, as it also determines the level of their professional collaborations with the event vendors. Read well-formed vendor relationships equal more discounts and better event planning quality. Also, it is essential to look into the category of events that the planner has organized priorly – whether it is a banking industry product launch or a healthcare networking event.
Business events usually publish a request for proposal (RFP) wherein the event budget is being already set in stone. The fixed event costs would be based on the type of your event audience. For example, if the event is for food and beverage connoisseurs more event budgets would be spent on food - with a detailed study of the range of prices and the type of cuisines that would be most preferred at the event. If your event attendees are C-level executives, again, the event venue transportation needs will alter from maybe the usual bus to chauffeured limos.
The integration of costing subsections like labor pay and volunteer opportunities, studying event attendee travel trajectories, selecting local venues that save on costs, audio visual event experience designing and accounting for contingencies by developing attendee event security and health risk probability models - all play a determining role in an event’s economic success or failure.
The event planning timeline of an event is also important, whether a long-term or short-term planning is warranted. If it is a hub and spoke model hybrid event or a multi-day global B2B industry conference, event organizers need to consider the venue construction time periods, local infrastructure developments and the utilization of local event stakeholders.
Lastly, the
event planning and sourcing periods also matter. Vendors may see ‘opportunity costs’ at sudden, urgent demands; hence for the event organizers, it is vital to have a Plan C and plan B in case Plan A fails. Some strategic solutions that you can use for effective event sourcing are reaching out to multiple vendor sources, booking way in advance and locking on service provider prices during the contract drafting.