The event budget and P&L, in one page

Most small events are budgeted in someone's head, and heads are optimistic. The point of writing it down is not accounting, it is that a single number, break-even headcount, converts every later decision into a yes or no. Should I spend 200 on ads? Depends whether you are 40 tickets short or 4.

Split costs into fixed and per-head

Fixed costs happen whether ten people come or four hundred. Per-head costs move with attendance. Sorting them this way is what makes the break-even calculation possible.

Fixed costs

• Venue hire, or the bar minimum you are liable for.
• Artist fees and guarantees.
• Sound engineer, technician, extra PA or lighting hire.
• Security, where it is a flat booking.
• Design, photography and video all sit here.
• Insurance, licences, permits.
• Travel, accommodation and rider for booked artists.
• Advertising spend.
• Printing, decor, production.

Per-head costs

• Ticketing platform fee and payment processing per ticket.
• Cloakroom costs if you run one and it is not revenue-positive.
• Anything given to every attendee: a drink token, a wristband, a print.
• Staff who scale with capacity, if your venue steps security by headcount.

Work out contribution per head

Take your ticket price, subtract the per-head costs, and you have contribution per head: the amount each additional person adds toward covering fixed costs.

A 14 ticket with 1.10 of platform and payment fees and a 0.40 wristband contributes 12.50.

Break-even headcount

Fixed costs divided by contribution per head. With 1,400 of fixed costs and 12.50 per head, break-even is 112 people.

That number is now the most useful thing in your plan. It tells you whether the room is the right size, whether the price works, whether an ad budget is justified, and at what point in the campaign you should be worried.

Run three cases

Do not budget on one number. Do pessimistic, realistic and good.

• Pessimistic: around 60 percent of capacity, or your worst previous event. Can you survive it? If not, change something now.
• Realistic: what actually happened last time, adjusted for the lineup and the day.
• Good: sold out. Useful mostly for checking whether the upside is even worth the effort.

If the good case makes 400 and the pessimistic case loses 1,200, the risk is asymmetric and the event needs restructuring, usually by cutting fixed costs or finding a room deal without a guarantee.

The costs everyone forgets

• Payment and platform fees. Between about 3 and 10 percent of ticket revenue depending on where you sell. On 3,000 of tickets that is up to 300, which is an artist fee.
• The bar minimum shortfall. A minimum is a cost until the bar clears it. Budget the worst case, not the expected one.
• Comps. Twenty guest list places on a 150 room is over thirteen percent of your revenue, given away.
• The rider. Small on paper, real in a shop at 6pm.
• Cash float. You need change for a cash door, and it has to come from somewhere.
• Refunds and chargebacks. Small but non-zero, and they land after you have paid everyone.
• Your own time. If you never pay yourself, the event is a hobby subsidising other people's fees. Put a line in even if you zero it deliberately.

Revenue lines beyond tickets

Ticket revenue is rarely the whole picture, and for bar-deal events it can be the smaller half.

• Bar share, or whatever the venue deal returns to you from the bar.
• Door sales at the higher walk-up price.
• Merchandise sold on the night or pre-ordered.
• Sponsorship or a brand covering a cost in kind.
• Cloakroom takings, where the venue lets you keep them.
• Bundles and group orders.

The revenue guide goes through which of these are worth the effort at small scale.

Reconcile within a week

After the event, fill in the actuals next to the estimates. This takes twenty minutes and it is the only way your next budget gets more accurate. Pay attention to two things: where you were wrong, and how many people came through the door compared to tickets sold, because that ratio is your no-show rate and it should feed straight into the next plan.

The one-page layout

Six blocks, in this order. Fixed costs, per-head costs, contribution per head, break-even headcount, three attendance cases with the resulting profit or loss, and a revenue section for everything that is not a ticket. If it does not fit on a page, you are budgeting a festival and should be using a spreadsheet with a tab per department.