5 Top Tips on Running a Successful Event on a Tight Budget

Whether you have €500 or €5m for an event, it’s vital to keep it within budget. If funds are tight, though, this is even more essential, since there’ll be less room for maneuver.

Running a successful event depends mainly on hard work, but there are also strategies that can help, from careful planning to selling tickets online. Here are five of the main ones.

1. Plan What You Want from Your Event

It essential to define what you want out of the event before you can make it a success. Besides deciding whether you need to make a profit or break even, or whether you’re willing to take a loss, what’s the aim? To generate leads? To increase your reputation in your sector? To raise awareness of a charitable cause? Once you know this, you can plan your event.

2. Look for Sponsors

Persuading local businesses to sponsor your event can have a dramatic effect on your budget, but you have to make sure you stand out from the crowd. Even charities face stiff competition for sponsorship, and business events more, so you’ll need a clear and compelling outline of what you’re aiming to achieve, emphasizing benefits to the participants or the community.

3. Look for Cheap or Free Venues

Whether you want a field for a charity fête or a room for a seminar, prices can vary enormously. Again, many venues will be willing to give the space free of charge to a charity, but for commercial events look for venues whose business might benefit from your event enough to hire their space out for a nominal fee.

4. Find an Affordable Event Management Platform

Online event management platforms vary a good deal, and the best-known isn’t always the best choice. Questions to identify an effective and affordable event management platform include:

• Does it automatically link to your website and social media pages?
• Can you customize your event page with your own branding?
• Can you add questions to your registration form to learn more about your customers?
• Can you segment your tickets, creating different types of ticket for the same event?
• Does the platform operate a waiting list, so you don’t lose out from cancellations?
• Does it offer a range of payment methods?

5. Follow Up

Whether you’re looking for business leads or charity donations, your event won’t be a success unless you follow up. Make sure you collect the contact details of the people attending, and phone or email them as soon as possible after the event.

All these steps are vital, but central to the success of your event is finding the best affordable event management platform. If you want to know more, feel free to get in touch with us.