Event Saving Tips & Hacks

Efficiency savings are becoming the watchword in all areas of life. Event planning is no exception. After the last few years of lockdowns and limited face-to-face interactions, the true value of gathering people together is not to be underestimated or taken for granted. We need events more than ever. We can’t lose them to budget cuts. With this in mind, I’ve consulted the very best brains in the industry to draw up our top tips and hacks to achieve maximum VFM for your conferences, meetings and venue finding.

My first tip for planning an event on a budget is to know your attendees inside and out. A clear view of your audience demographics will help you plan more efficiently and spend less on unnecessary marketing and event elements. The classic event planner questions can’t be underestimated. Who are your guests? What makes them tick? Why are you inviting them? And, where is the best location to encourage attendance?

If you’ve read my Diary of a Party Girls blog before, you will know I’m the Queen of Planning! A well-organised event schedule mitigates escalating costs. Read my Event Planning Checklist blog to help you stay organised, focused, and on task.

From the get-go, set a final budget for your events rather than a rough bracket. Psychologically, having a financial ceiling makes financial planning more focused and encourages better choices. Using a seasoned venue finder like Eventify can save you considerably on venue and supplier bookings. Their knowledge, bank of contacts and industry clout enable them to negotiate deals to maximise your budget.

Making advance bookings on venues, travel, suppliers, and accommodation gives more scope to negotiate better rates than leaving it to the last minute. Furthermore, you can often agree favourable payment terms and spread out payments. Importantly, I would always recommend allowing sufficient time to invite your audience and for them to respond. As the event planner, you need a more precise grasp of your audience size to minimise costly last-minute additions and dropouts. Likewise, invite people too far in advance, and you risk people not wishing to commit or forgetting.

The most popular, and therefore often expensive, weekdays for events are Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Snap up the less popular Mondays and Tuesdays to bag a good deal. A note of warning, a later mid-morning Monday start is often preferable to guests travelling on a Sunday evening or at the crack of dawn on Monday morning. Most venues hire out their spaces for a day session and an evening session, with the day hire usually ending at 5pm and the evening starting at 6pm. Be flexible with your start and finish times to avoid paying venue hire for both day and evening.

Think carefully about your delegate’s travel needs. Would an out-of-city-centre venue be preferable, allowing you to make potential savings on the venue choice? Could you have a car-share scheme? Alternatively, a venue close to public transport links might save travel costs if these are also part of your overall budget. Have a read of this international training event case study with a venue accessible by train to reduce air travel by delegates travelling from across mainland Europe, the UK, and Ireland.

Chat with colleagues and business partners to see if they are also organising events. Perhaps join forces to negotiate a preferred rate to benefit all parties. Could a booking be split with one team or organisation hosting the morning session and the other in the afternoon? Make use of Eventify’s free venue-finding service. Get expert advice, let them research and source your venues and negotiate preferable rates for conferences, meetings, dinners, awards, training events and more.

Rather than booking ad-hoc events, work out an event schedule and be rewarded for making a series of booking with the same venue or group of venues. Eventify can help with this and create an easy-to-view personalised event programme. Also, if you use third-party suppliers such as AV, event management, entertainment, and catering – bulk orders generally work out more cost-effective.

Invest and reuse generic non-date specific event branded materials such as staging, signage, and delegate packs. However, you need to factor in shipping and storage costs. Or better still, use digital options which are kinder on your pocket and the planet!

Are travel costs adding up? Consider hosting part or all of your event online, especially for fare-flung guests. Virtual doesn’t have to mean remote and detached. Here are some creative digital event ideas and suggestions.

Research local suppliers to reduce travel and transportation costs. Often local colleges, training centres and universities are keen to organise volunteering for their students. This is a great way to boost your onsite support while giving work experience opportunities to the next generation of event planners.

Do you really need a cloakroom in June? Is coffee on arrival or after the meal necessary? Mid-afternoon snacks are lovely, but if you anticipate some guests may leave early, will these go to waste?

Event merchandise continues to be a valuable marketing asset. Certainly, well-considered, useful and sustainable options are a sounder investment. Our friends at Firefly share their ideas on elevating your event giveaways, corporate gifts and in-house promotions with innovative and eye-catching products that don’t cost the earth.

So, there you have it, my top tips and hacks to ensure your events are cost-effective. After a few years of event droughts, we’ve all realised the importance of bringing people together for meaningful interaction. With a few tweaks and careful planning, events represent exceptional value for money and return on investment.

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Diary of a Party Girl x

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