Get quotes for every aspect of your Ball – the venue, the catering, transport, security, photographer, entertainment, DJ, band or whatever. Make sure you know which costs are fixed and which are variable depending on how many attendees you have – and ensure your quotations are inclusive of VAT where applicable.
Use the planner spreadsheet to calculate the overall projected cost and to figure out what your likely income is going to be – make sure you aren’t cutting things too fine or relying on being lucky with costs or income. On the spreadsheet you need only insert information in the blue boxes.
There are six sections:
- Capacity – you need to enter your number of members and the venue’s capacity
- Sponsorships – you can enter any sponsorship money or Club/Society funds that are to be used for the event
- Costs – enter all details of planned spending
- Tickets – choose how you want to set your ticket prices
- Timings – this will calculate deadlines for getting things done
- Breakevens – shows the effect of the choices you’ve made (and you can use it to see the effect of ticket sales later on)
Consider carefully what your ticket prices ought to be – bear in mind the likely state of your members’ finances by the time your Ball comes around.
There are two broad approaches to coming up with a ticket price and the budget that will be dictated by it:
- Establish preferred ticket prices and see what that allows you to afford (Method A)
- Figure out the overall cost to be covered and see what ticket prices are needed to cover that (Method B)
The planning spreadsheet will help you calculate by either of these methods.
If you plan to get sponsorship for your Ball make sure that the sponsor explicitly agrees for their money to be used for that purpose, that the amount you’re putting toward the Ball is the amount you put in the spreadsheet, and that the money has actually arrived in from the sponsor!
Remember that if non-members are to attend they must pay a higher ticket price than members, that Society money (including sponsorship) can’t be used to subsidise their tickets, and that non-members cannot make up more than 20% of the attendees (otherwise it can’t fairly be considered an event for your members’ benefit). The spreadsheet will automatically calculate the non-member price, though you can override this (but only to amend it upwards).
You need the income to exceed the costs by a safe margin in case tickets don’t sell out, so if any costs need to be cut to make this happen you need to make those cuts. If ticket sales reach or exceed budgeting expectations you will probably be able to reintroduce any optional elements to the plan at that point.
Be aware of the point at which you would have to accept that the Ball is not viable. It’s a situation that nobody wants to be in, but if ticket sales are very low and costs can’t be covered then you may have no alternative but to cancel. The tipping point is where the cost to the Society of cancelling (typically a contractual cancellation fee from the venue and/or caterers) is less than the shortfall between ticket income and the event costs – if this is the case it is your obligation to cancel in order to minimise the loss.
Put together a Risk Assessment, ensuring that you consider all aspects of the event – getting to the venue, while at the venue (usually the venue management will take responsibility for this element by default), getting everyone home again.