Budget and P&L for your event

Overview

Before you book a venue or confirm a band, a budget should answer two questions: what does the event cost, and how many tickets do you have to sell to cover it? This guide shows how to work out both. The template below does the formulas for you.

Download the budget template Excel file (.xlsx) with an English and a German sheet

List income and costs

Start by writing down everything that brings in or costs money, even if the amount is still an estimate.

Income: tickets, the bar, the cloakroom, sponsorship, grants, merch.

Costs that come up at almost every event:

• Venue: rent, cleaning, power, often a deposit.
• Artist fees: the artists, plus travel, accommodation and catering from the rider.
• Tech: sound, lights, stage, the tech crew.
• Security: security guards and stewards, usually per person and hour.
• AKM: Austria's music rights society sets its rate by the venue's capacity and the ticket price, among other things. See AKM and other levies.
• Drinks purchasing: if you run the bar yourself.
• Ticket fees: see Understanding ticket fees.
• Advertising, insurance and the rest: posters, paid posts, event liability insurance, wristbands.

Fixed and variable costs

Split your costs into two groups:

• Fixed costs don't change with the number of guests: the venue, artist fees, tech, advertising.
• Variable costs grow with every ticket: ticket fees, wristbands, and at some venues a charge per guest.

The difference decides how many tickets you need. Each ticket brings in its price minus its variable costs, the contribution margin. Together, those margins have to cover the fixed costs.

Break-even

The formula: fixed costs divided by the contribution margin per ticket.

An example: fixed costs come to €3,000. A ticket costs €18, and each ticket carries €3 in variable costs. So each ticket brings in €15, and the event is covered from the 200th ticket sold. If you count the bar's surplus, the number drops. Count it carefully, though: the bar only sells as much as the guests who show up.

Three scenarios

Run every event three times:

• Cautious: you sell 60% of the tickets. If that doesn't cover the fixed costs, you know how big your risk is.
• Realistic: as many tickets as at your last comparable event.
• Sold out: this shows what's left in the best case.

Add a buffer of about 10% of your costs for the unexpected. If only the sold-out scenario carries the event, the ticket price is too low or the program is too expensive.

With or without VAT

Enter every amount the same way:

• Under the small-business exemption you work with gross amounts. You don't get the VAT on your costs back, so it is part of your costs.
• If you charge VAT, you work with net amounts: income without VAT, costs without the input VAT you reclaim.

There's more in the guide Running events under the small-business exemption. If you book artists from abroad, check the withholding tax before you agree on the fee. The guide AKM and other levies covers it.

Grants and sponsorship

Funding bodies usually want a cost and financing plan before the event and a statement of accounts afterwards. So set up the template in a way you can fill with the real numbers later. Only count a grant as income once you have the commitment in writing.

The template

The Excel file has an English and a German sheet with the same formulas. You overwrite the sample values in the highlighted cells: the ticket price, tickets sold, your plan and each line of income and costs. The totals, ticket fees, result and the tickets needed to break even calculate themselves.

With Gathermatter

• After the event, Finance › Events shows revenue, fees and net per event. Put the result next to your budget and note where you were off.
• You record costs in the finance area, as described in Expenses, event settlements and artist fees.

Sources

• Gathermatter pricing for the fee rates in the template