London Summer Event Show 2019: How can you maximise your event budget?

During the annual event at London’s Banking Hall, PA Life editor Jade Burke hosted a roundtable discussion where attendees shared their tips and ideas on how best to manage an event budget.

To mark the opening of the Corporate Buyers Day at the London Summer Event Show, PA Life’s editor Jade Burke hosted a roundtable discussion with event organisers, focusing on maximising event budgets for management buy-in.

As we enter a New Year, event budgets are naturally a major discussion point for companies up and down the UK, as many set out their expectations for the 12 months ahead with targets at the forefront.

With this in mind, the discussion at the annual show saw event organisers come together and suggest new ideas and tips to help those who are in charge of overseeing a budget.

For example, return on investment is a major cause for concern for those running an event and when trying to gain the budget to make it a success. During the roundtable, guests pointed out that an event needed to be profitable to work again – of course this sounds quite straight-forward and obvious – but getting this right is tricky.

Attendees suggested coming up with new marketing ideas to push an event, such as offering products to try out or gaining a well-known speaker, while others suggested that by ditching tickets and offering it as a free-to-attend event would draw more people in.

Meanwhile, another guest pointed out that securing sponsorships can make all the difference to an event, as it will provide a foundation within the budget to ensure targets are hit.

An Excel sheet is how one event organiser manages her budget and targets. By laying out exactly what the event needs, whether that is a venue, catering, entertainment or décor, she is then able to prioritise what needs to come first, thus using the money leftover to be spent on less crucial aspects for the event.

The market is saturated with functions, there’s no question about it, with competition fiercer than ever before. Attendees to the PA Life roundtable mentioned that they are responsible for hosting client dinners, team-building outings, conferences, mini exhibitions, product launches, panel sessions and even mini breaks away in Europe – making that all-important budget tricky to manage.

However, one guest recommended that by spending a little more on an event to make it lavish and glamorous, could actually lead to gaining more interest from premium clients who have more cash to play around with.

It’s certainly food for thought – but what are your tips to help maximise an event budget? We’d like to hear from you on Twitter at @PALifeMag.

PA Life is exhibiting at London Story Events today, where the team is offering an exclusive 10 per cent discount to join the PA Life Club. Make sure you stop by stand MP2 to find out more details and pick up your free copy of PA Life.