Event Budget Template and Guide

How an event budget works

An event budget has two sides, expenses and income, and three columns that matter: the estimate, the actual figure and the difference between them, called the variance.

It helps to sort every line into one of four kinds:

• Fixed costs

  Costs that stay the same however many people come: venue hire, AV and staging, speaker fees, the event platform and design work.

• Variable costs

  Costs that rise with every attendee: catering, badges and lanyards, materials, per-person venue charges and payment processing.

• Income

  Ticket sales, sponsorship, exhibitor booths, donations, add-ons and merchandise, after fees and refunds.

• Contingency

  Money held back for the unexpected, sized to how firm your quotes are, and spent only with sign-off.

Event budget categories

Use these expense categories as the rows of your budget. Not every event needs every line: delete the ones you don't need rather than leaving them at zero, so a blank never hides a forgotten cost.

Event budget template

Copy this sheet into a spreadsheet, one line per row. Fill in the Estimate column while planning and the Actual column as invoices arrive; Variance (actual minus estimate) shows where the plan moved.

EVENT BUDGET
Event:                          Date:
Budget owner:                   Version / date:
Attendance:   low ____    expected ____    high ____

EXPENSES                              | ESTIMATE | ACTUAL | VARIANCE | SUPPLIER / NOTES
Venue: room hire                      |          |        |          |
Venue: exhibit space                  |          |        |          |
Venue: power, Wi-Fi, security, clean  |          |        |          |
Food and drink: meals and breaks      |          |        |          |
Food and drink: reception             |          |        |          |
Food and drink: service and taxes     |          |        |          |
AV and production                     |          |        |          |
Livestream and recording              |          |        |          |
Technology: registration and app      |          |        |          |
Technology: check-in, badges, printers|          |        |          |
Speakers: fees                        |          |        |          |
Speakers: travel and accommodation    |          |        |          |
Marketing and advertising             |          |        |          |
Design and printing                   |          |        |          |
Staff and volunteers                  |          |        |          |
Badges, lanyards, signage             |          |        |          |
Attendee gifts                        |          |        |          |
Insurance and permits                 |          |        |          |
Payment processing fees               |          |        |          |
Contingency                           |          |        |          |
TOTAL EXPENSES                        |          |        |          |

INCOME                                | ESTIMATE | ACTUAL | VARIANCE | NOTES
Tickets: early bird                   |          |        |          |
Tickets: standard                     |          |        |          |
Tickets: group / add-ons              |          |        |          |
Sponsorship                           |          |        |          |
Exhibitor booths                      |          |        |          |
Donations                             |          |        |          |
Other income                          |          |        |          |
Less: discounts and refunds           |          |        |          |
TOTAL INCOME                          |          |        |          |

NET RESULT (total income - total expenses):
BREAK-EVEN ATTENDANCE = (fixed costs - sponsorship and other non-ticket income) / (average ticket price - variable cost per attendee)

How to build an event budget

Work through these steps in order. The early ones decide what the later numbers have to achieve.

1. 1

   Start from the goal

   A fundraiser is budgeted to raise as much as possible; a customer event to a cost per attendee; a conference often to break even or make a set margin. Agree which before estimating anything.

2. 2

   Gather past actuals

   Last year's invoices are better than any estimate. For a first event, ask the venue and suppliers for quotes early and note what each includes.

3. 3

   Estimate fixed costs from quotes

   Venue, production, platform and speaker costs. Note what is included, the deposit and cancellation terms, and when final payment is due.

4. 4

   Work out the cost of one more attendee

   Catering, materials, badges and payment fees per person. Multiply by low, expected and high attendance.

5. 5

   Forecast income as scenarios

   Tickets at low, expected and high attendance; sponsorship signed versus hoped for. Plan spending on the low case.

6. 6

   Find the break-even point

   Break-even attendance = (fixed costs - sponsorship and other non-ticket income) / (average ticket price - variable cost per attendee). For example, with $20,000 of fixed costs, no sponsorship, a $150 ticket and $50 of variable cost per attendee, you need 200 paying attendees.

7. 7

   Add contingency and get sign-off

   Hold back a contingency line, and have the person who owns the money approve the budget before contracts are signed.

8. 8

   Track actuals every week

   Record costs when you commit to them, not when you pay, so the budget shows what you have already promised to spend.

Where to save without hurting the event

Cuts are easiest where attendees won't notice them:

• Be flexible on dates

  Venues often price quieter days and seasons differently. Ask for options before fixing the date.

• Negotiate packages

  Venues and caterers may include AV, Wi-Fi or room hire in return for a catering spend. Ask what can be bundled.

• Print less

  Put the agenda, maps and documents in an event app instead of printed programs that go out of date.

  Event mobile app

• Print badges on demand

  Badges printed at check-in mean none are wasted on people who don't come.

  On-demand badge printing

• Reuse what you can

  Undated signage, banners and stage sets can serve several events.

• More ideas

  Further ways to bring event costs down.

  Top 5 tips to reduce event costs

Tracking the income side in Eventdex

Keep the expense side in your budget sheet. Eventdex records the income side as it happens, so the Actual column for income can come from its reports rather than from guesswork:

• Ticket revenue by ticket and payment type

  The ticket sales summary shows tickets sold and revenue for each ticket and payment type, with tax, fees and discounts.

  Event ticketing software

• Revenue by payment gateway

  The orders report shows the number of transactions, revenue through each payment gateway, and payment and order status.

  Event ticketing software

• What discounts cost

  The promo code report shows sales by promo code and by ticket, so you can see what each discount gave away.

  Event ticketing software

• No commission on ticket sales

  Eventdex charges no commission on ticket sales. Your payment gateway's processing fees still apply, so keep them as their own budget line.

  0% commission ticketing

• Payment gateways and balances

  Take payments through Stripe, PayPal, Square, Authorize.Net or TrustCommerce, or by check. Send a payment link for unpaid orders, or allow partial payments with Stripe Direct or PayPal Adaptive.

  Event ticketing software

• Donations and sponsors

  Donation tickets let registrants choose the amount they give, and sponsorship can be sold alongside tickets.

  Fundraising event software