On this page, we’ll explore the basics of budgeting for events.
It is imperative to pull off a fantastic event that dazzles your attendees, but it is equally important not to let that event break your bank. At Miller Tanner Associates, we work tirelessly to provide you with the best value for your budget. We can help you craft world-class events that work for your business.
What Is an Event Budget?
An event budget is a comprehensive projection of how much money you will spend on an event. It helps you manage your spending and earnings and provides a metric for measuring the success of your event. The value of an event budget cannot be overstated. While creating and managing a well-planned event budget takes work, it can make all the difference.
Controlling Your Event Budget
Take Control of No-Show Food and Beverage Costs
Food and beverage costs are frequently the most mismanaged expenses, and event planners rarely search for savings in the right places. Inefficient registration processes that limit visibility and accountability for the sales team are often the cause of high no-show rates. You can track your event outreach with integrated reporting tools using end-to-end event management software to coordinate all communication efforts around your events. By personalizing and tracking all event communications, you can reduce no-show rates and reduce food and beverage costs.
Employing Vendor Partnerships
Effective event planning firms can employ vendor partnerships and volume usage to negotiate pricing that favors all their customers, big and small. Due to the volume of use that premier event planning firms have, these vendor partnerships provide excellent service to clients and offer special pricing or discounts on some of the event expenses. When vendor partnerships offer us discounted pricing, those savings are passed on to you, allowing you to control your event budget.
Hiring an Expert Event Planner
In addition to vendor partnerships, expert event planning firms can help manage the cost per attendee by leveraging their extensive industry knowledge to recommend the most cost-effective venues and times of the year for your event. Excellent event planners present solutions that will fulfill your needs and fit within the budget limits you have set for your event. In addition to helping clients with venue selection and event schedules, good event planners also help clients with expense management by ensuring that flight and other event-related fees are booked in the most appropriate time frame.
Miller Tanner Associates has planned, hosted, and executed events of all types, styles, and sizes for more than two decades. In its 24+ years of practice (10 years in virtual events), MTA has managed thousands of events worldwide across Boston, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Budapest, and other major hubs. We have organized an expansive volume of guests and a broad clientele with unique needs, objectives, and event concepts. The plethora of experiences gathered makes MTA your ultimate event partner.
Running a Multi-Level Review
Running a multi-level review of event expenses can help you manage the cost per attendee. This protects you from false charges or inappropriately charged rates on pass-through expenses by ensuring that all contracted and rendered services are accurately billed at the appropriate rates.
Along with a multi-level review, MTA thoroughly evaluates all your attendance reimbursements to ensure that all funds are reimbursed according to your cost reimbursement requirements.
Mitigating Event Risk
MTA mitigates risk by creating standard organization contract clauses that automatically appear on every vendor agreement. These clauses provide you with the peace of mind that our vendors will deliver on their promises.
Leveraging Technology in Event Automation
Technology can save you a great deal. If you haven’t tried virtual or hybrid events yet, you’re missing out on immense cost savings due to fewer travel-related expenses for event attendees. Both virtual and hybrid meetings can help you save money while still providing opportunities for collaboration and networking.
When you consider the advantages of virtual and hybrid events, it’s easy to see why they have become more mainstream; however, they are not without challenges. It is critical to work with a reputable planning team. If you want to reap the most out of these meetings, you’ll need an experienced team that understands how to maneuver them with ease.
With MTA’s virtual and hybrid event planning experience, you’ll have plenty of sophisticated technology to integrate into the overall event experience, resulting in a shared experience for your face-to-face and virtual attendees. No one will be left out, regardless of location.
With MTA’s VALTs Virtual Assessment Learning and Training Source, you can expand upon your training offerings with on-demand content. It’s the tech-driven training solution you didn’t realize you needed but will undoubtedly become a standard for your team in the future.
Event Budgeting FAQs
1. Can Miller Tanner Associates process and audit the reimbursement of expenses for attendees?
Yes! All reimbursements are audited and reviewed to ensure that each aligns with your event’s expense reimbursement directives.
2. Does MTA practice proper transparency? (for Life Sciences)
Yes! We continually seek knowledge to stay informed of the changing transparency spend regulations for regulated industries such as the Life Sciences industry. We can provide transparent reporting in both MTA’s standard template but also in client-specific templates as well.
3. Does MTA provide expense management and review?
Yes! We work across multiple departments to review all meeting-related expenses and perform numerous levels of review to ensure the services were appropriately billed based on the services contracted and received. Vendor partnerships and discounts provided often pass directly to our customers. For every event, we work diligently to protect client spend amounts.
4. Does MTA offer billing portfolios?
Yes! We provide a complete package at the finalization of a meeting, including the supporting documentation for all charges and reimbursements. This comprehensive billing portfolio provides details and support for all event-related expenses. It is then indexed for your convenience, providing easy access to documentation for any charges related to the particular event.
Connect with MTA
Locking in the maximum cost savings in your event budget will go a long way in building organizational efficiency. Remember to closely track your event costs and reimbursements for the best results. You can also reach out to an expert to help you. MTA is a WBENC-certified full-service corporate event planning firm that has been in operation since 1997. We deliver excellent face-to-face, virtual, and hybrid event experiences that exceed your expectations through personalized knowledge and tailored solutions. Contact us today to maximize your cost savings.
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