Danielle Rivenbark

View Original

Budgeting: The Break Even Point

At the School of Government, like most organizations, budgets are everything. It's rare that any event operates without one. Whenever you're planning an event, you certainly don't want to lose money. So how do you come up with a registration fee and a break even point so that you can avoid losing money? I'm here to help!

There are two main ways to determine your break even point. The minimum number of attendees you need, or the minimum registration fee based on the number of attendees you will have. 

Number of Attendees

In this scenario, you will need to know what your fixed costs are, variable costs, and what the registration fee is that you are charging your participants. 

For example:

Fixed costs (don't change regardless of attendees)

  • Facility Rental - $500
  • Awards - $200
  • Marketing - $150
  • Total - $850

Variable Costs (dependent upon the number of attendees)

  • Food - $10 
  • T-shirt - $15
  • Total - $25

Registration Fee

  • $60

Based on our example above, here's what we have:

Registration Fee

In this scenario, you will need to know what your fixed costs are, variable costs, and the number of attendees that you are expecting. 

For example: 

Fixed costs (don't change regardless of attendees)

  • Facility Rental - $800
  • Awards - $200
  • Marketing - $300
  • Prizes - $200
  • Total - $1,500

Variable Costs (dependent upon the number of attendees)

  • Food - $40 
  • Bag - $20
  • Total - $60

Number of attendees

  • 100

Based on our example above, here's what we have:

Obviously, these are simplistic examples for budgeting. Budgeting can become WAY MORE COMPLICATED than the examples I've provided. In fact, we have a spreadsheet that covers a myriad of items that are both variable and fixed to consider for budgeting purposes. If you are lucky enough to have a spreadsheet that does all this magical calculating for you that is always the best kind! If you have questions about creating budgets feel free to email me at eventsssimplifieddr@gmail.com. Happy budgeting!