This is a guest post by Nicola Lloyd – Event Marketing Team Leader at Washington Frank.

Balancing a budget is one of the major challenges event planners face.

As the event planner, coordinating and managing the budget is part of your role but it can be daunting trying to decide where you should be spending and where you should be saving. The budget will only stretch so far so you might need to make difficult decisions and cut costs in some areas to stay on target.

It can be tempting to try and cut costs at every turn but let’s take a look at what is worth spending money on, and when a cheaper version will do the job just as well.

Venue

Of course, your dream event would take place at a fantastic venue, full to the brim with the latest technology with incredible views in a really trendy part of town. In reality though, when you have a budget to manage, you really have to work out whether a venue like that is worth the price tag?

Is that venue going to positively motivate guests to attend? If the answer is no, or you just can’t justify it, consider moving a couple of miles out of town. What you lose in the city surroundings you make up for on savings. When choosing a venue outside of a city or town centre, make sure it is easily accessible by public transport or has enough parking spaces to cater for your attendees.

You’re never going to be able to please everybody, but moving your venue outside of city centres can also have the added bonus of avoiding the stressful rush hour traffic, meaning you and your attendees will arrive at your event on time and relaxed.

Travel & Accommodation

We all know it is important to shop around for the best deal but scrimping on travel for your keynote speakers and VIPs may be a false economy. It could be better in the longer term to spend more upfront to avoid being charged high change fees if the schedule or attendees change.

You also need to think about the premium placed on people’s time. Sometimes connecting flights can be quite a bit cheaper, but this will add hours onto the journey – you need to decide if this is worth the cost saving.

Accommodation is a good place to economise as prices between hotels can vary dramatically. If you just need to find a comfortable place for you and your VIPs to rest your heads at night, lodgings could represent your biggest savings. However, if a key part of your event involves breakout spaces and meeting you at the hotel, you may need to dip into the budget to get a nice, business-friendly hotel with a decent restaurant and bar.

Speaking from experience, make sure accommodation is absolutely finalised before you go. This is especially true for events taking place abroad, it is important to prepay to ensure there are no issues. This way you’re assured one less stress.

Equipment

In the past, we tried to buy all of our equipment, such as TVs and other electronics, on a budget rather than renting everything from the venue for the duration of the event. When our TVs arrived, they were all smashed which obviously isn’t great for anyone who wants to display any visual information!

We have definitely learnt our lesson in this area – we don’t cut corners now. I would advise taking the option to rent through the event supplier if they offer the service as it provides insurance that everything will work. The cost will likely be higher but you know what you’re getting and it will be set up correctly for you and your event guests.

Catering

Cheap food doesn’t mean bad food and there are ways of making that catering budget stretch further so that your guests may not even know you’ve cut costs! A lot of venues will automatically assume that you are using their in-house catering team, which can be very expensive, but you can make huge savings by going through an external provider and it is even cheaper if you can provide the refreshments side of things yourself. A couple of thermos dispensers and some teabags, coffee, milk, sugar and biscuits and you’re good to go.

For lunches, consider agreeing to an in-kind sponsorship agreement with a local vendor. In return for promotion at your event, you might be able to get a hefty discount for your orders or possibly get lunches paid for free.

If you really need to keep costs down consider if your event definitely needs that mid-afternoon refreshment break? Could you instead have a shorter afternoon session and finish the day a bit earlier? There is always food waste at events so think about if you are ordering the right amount and cut back ever so slightly if you need to based on your past experience.

The days of free bars and lavish drinks receptions feel like they’re coming to an end – especially for attendees who are driving! – so again the pressure is off to provide for this. What is happening more frequently is event guests are presented with the idea of going out for a short drink afterwards, if they like, in order to network and you can suggest a local pub or restaurant if they would like to take up that option but the burden is not on you to pay for or facilitate the social side of things.

Merchandise

It’s important to not drain your budget on promotional materials while spending enough to make your event memorable and appealing. Quite often, event organisers don’t put very much budget into their merchandise – it doesn’t go beyond literature – so you need to strike a balance between being stylish, friendly and helpful, and not too overbearing or distracting.

To keep spending down, we try and keep merchandise under £1 per item, but if we can see an opportunity to give out something like a USB stick to guests at our events we will occasionally spend a little extra. We’ve learned to select three or so items, one gadget, one toy, and one universally useful item. This means that guests’ children or colleagues will also see the items and builds up awareness of the event over time, especially handy if you are planning on making your event a regular feature in the industry calendar.

Do you have more events planned in the future? Think about merchandise that can be used at another event you are organising in order to reduce waste. We ship any leftover merchandise to our closest office and save it for the next event so nothing is wasted.

You don’t have to spend a fortune to make an impact with merchandise – don’t forget, everyone loves a pen!

In Conclusion

When dividing up your budget you need to think about the ROI and the areas that will have the biggest impressions on guests at your event. The bulk of your spend will inevitably go on venue, travel, accommodation, and other logistical things.

If you feel your budget is very limited, don’t worry. None of this has to break the bank. If you tap into the right hashtags on social, get pally with trade press, and use your networks (friends and family almost always know someone who can help out in a pinch!). You can also consider co-organising your event with other companies so you can put together an amazing event on a limited budget and share the responsibility of organising everything.