You’ll need to create a strong business plan if you want to transform your event into a successful venture. An event business plan is the foundation of a flourishing enterprise, regardless of your goals—whether they want to increase revenue, attract investors and partners, or just maintain your commercial objectives.

A well-written plan may be a priceless tool for you, your team, and your event, but it doesn’t have to be difficult to write one. Our step-by-step event business plan tutorial will teach you how to write one and provide you helpful examples for budgeting and advertising that you can customise for your target audience.

How to Write an Event Organiser Business Plan

How do event planners create a business plan?

Making a successful event business plan involves a number of processes, from developing your vision statement to planning the finer details of your event. Continue reading to learn more about what should be included in your strategy, as well as our detailed advice and examples.

Our advice for creating an event business strategy is divided into eight pieces in this post. We’ll demonstrate how to:

Start your business strategy for the event with a mission statement.
Create a vision statement that outlines your larger goals.
Make a list of the main goals you wish to monitor.
Storytelling may help your event business strategy.
Describe your event marketing plan.
Describe the operational needs for your event.
Calculate the costs for your event.
With this business plan event example, ace SWOT analysis.

1. Start your business strategy for the event with a purpose statement.

In one or two brief sentences, your goal statement sums up your event. It serves as the cornerstone of your marketing and aids in promoting your event to significant stakeholders. In fact, because every choice you make will eventually relate to your purpose, it will also aid in keeping you focused.

The expansive Mercato Metropolitano (MM), a community market and event venue with delicious cuisine at its centre, is just one illustration of how a straightforward goal statement might result in a successful business.

According to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, food is a human right and a component of a sufficient quality of life. Andrea Rasca of MM bases her philosophy on this idea. It encapsulates MM’s principles and operational style:

“Adequate implies that food must be available to everyone, at all times, and under all conditions. It needs to be culturally or locally appropriate, nourishing, and enriching.

This broad mission statement effectively captures the essence of MM. Make yours similarly motivating and as brief as you can to make it simple to remember your goal. For instance, The Waste Not Supper Club included the two phrases “Waste Not”—which sum up their mission statement—into the name of their event.

The Umbrella Cafe in Kent created the Waste Not Supper Club to use up both their own and other people’s leftover food after a UN study urged a shift to more sustainable diets. A three-course vegan or vegetarian evening meal is provided to guests for a pay-what-you-feel cost. The organisation FareShare Kent, which collaborates with local farmers and retailers to utilise their “wonky” produce and overstocked food, sources all the recipes’ undesirable components.

2. Provide a vision statement outlining your larger goals.

A vision statement, in contrast to a mission statement, outlines the goals you have for your event’s brand. You may refer to it as your “Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal” (your BHAG).

The goal statement of the Susan G. Komen Foundation is “Save lives by addressing the most pressing needs in our communities and funding ground-breaking research to prevent and cure breast cancer.”

However, the foundation’s goals are much loftier:

a globe free of breast cancer.

What do you see in the distance? You may not be able to cure cancer, but you could want to someday expand your gastronomic pop-up into a network of “locavore” events throughout the country. Maybe you wish to show the audience a different kind of dance? or bring art into people’s homes around the country?

You should be able to summarise your vision statement in one concise line since conciseness and clarity are also crucial in this portion of your company plan. For instance, a number of companies now have goal statements like “net-zero by 2050” because they want their operations to create zero carbon emissions at all.

Asking yourself what impact you ultimately want your event to have more broadly will help you come up with your vision statement. Be as creative as you can while keeping in mind the reason you started the event in the first place. You will be able to write more evocatively and hence have a stronger impact on your readers.

3. List the main goals you wish to monitor.

Your main goals translate your mission statement into practical results. They are attainable objectives that you can accomplish both now and in the future. Several instances might be:

acquiring a certain quantity of social media followers
extending your event to a new location
securing an appearance from a special guest
selling a certain number of tickets for each occasion
List the essential duties and deliverables for your event. A few main goals in the gourmet pop-up example above would be to:
This year, host three gourmet pop-ups in your neighbourhood.
Find 10 or more sponsors.
eateries or food vendors in the area
Obtain 10,000 Instagram followers

Make sure that your goals are quantifiable, but also ambitious and feasible. Keep track of your progress toward attaining these objectives and assign metrics to each one. You may utilise the analytical data provided by Eventbrite to measure your return on investment (ROI) and other things.

4. Add narrative to your event business strategy

A detailed description of your event serves as the foundation of your business strategy. This is crucial since it not only explains to prospective investors what they are being asked to invest in, but it’s often your sole opportunity to capture a potential attendee’s attention online.

The goal in this situation is to provide a content that is both legible and instructive. Strike a balance between giving the reader all the information they need while avoiding information overload

Define what makes your event special and convince your audience of your vision using facts that give it real-world context. Let the reader know how many tickets you have sold for your events so far, for instance, if there has been a significant demand for tickets in the past.

With the help of our event business plan checklist, create a brief event story:
Describe your target market and do market research.
List any sponsors, investors, and partners who will help your event and have a say in it.
Describe the structure of the team you want to create. Who will be in charge of what?
Here, you must persuade the reader that your event will be a success. Show that you have the business sense to support your claims.

5. Describe your event marketing plan.

Although word-of-mouth advertising is still effective today, most events take time to get traction. Your purpose, your vision, and the event itself have previously been discussed; now you can leverage this material in your marketing plan and add further details:

What will the cost of the event be?

Will you charge a fixed fee or provide a discounted early-bird option? However, recurrent events like workshops would benefit from a different marketing strategy. The latter could prove to be a terrific concept for festivals and conferences. Consider offering tiered ticketing choices for regular events, allowing attendees to choose between a normal or VIP ticket with additional perks. This may generate talk about your event’s prominence.

What is the budget for promotions?

To properly advertise your event and ensure a positive return on investment, you must be aware of your available resources.

What marketing platforms will you employ?

The focus of your marketing channels will depend on your target market. Included in this is the social media channel you decide to promote your event on. For instance, Instagram’s highly visual environment will often be a better marketing fit for your arts event if it appeals to twenty-somethings than LinkedIn, which is more suited for specialised industry lectures and business networking events.

Making the appropriate channel option implies that you’ve already done half the job since more individuals who are already interested in your industry will learn about your event, increasing the lead-to-conversion rate.

6. Describe the operational needs for your event.

Even the simplest event involves a huge number of logistics. Just as a starting point, group your demands into the following categories: facilities, services, personnel, production, technology, legal, and insurance.

Start by imagining what each of these categories’ actual ramifications will be for your event. Facilities may include putting up a cloakroom or renting porta potties, shower cubicles, or charging stations depending on the details of your particular event. Services might range from food to trash removal to cleaning to the price of essential utilities if they are not included by the venue rental. The cost of production may include hiring artists, creating tickets or wristbands, and moving sound equipment.

Don’t forget anything. Assigning a price to each component of your event will be the next stage, which this exercise will assist you with.

7. Calculate the financial details of your event.

To determine if the event will be successful and to turn your strategy into a business plan, financial estimates are crucial. Both a summary of your financial information and a comprehensive budget worksheet are often included, generally as an appendix.

Determine all possible sources of money, such as sales of tickets, display space, meals, or goods. Include any cash or resources you have already acquired.

Additionally, you must total up all expenses, including your operating and marketing charges. These expenses might include renting a space and purchasing the necessary supplies, paying employees to run the event, and paying for specifically targeted advertisements.

Potential investors may be won over by your company proposal. For instance, if your suggestion for a national yoga teachers’ conference needs a financial boost to get started, demonstrate in your budget how it would pay for itself in a few years. Give specifics on cover charges, including any bargains you were able to strike with vendors or the venue.

Make sure to display the expected revenue from your event in a straightforward graph, such a bar or pie chart. This is a clear and effective method to explain how you’re using your money to your advantage.

8. Make a SWOT analysis of your occasion.

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats is referred to as SWOT. Every occurrence involves inherent risk, and it is a liability to overlook those risks, thus this evaluation is crucial. Any hazards should be identified, acknowledged, and then remedies offered. Let’s examine this idea using the illustration of a triathlon for charity.