Event Finance - Your Pathway to Financial Sustainability!

Talking Regional Events (with Linda Tillman)

In Episode 3 we are going to look at the pathway to financial sustainability, to help you transition your events to be financially-viable and self-sustaining just like many other regional festivals throughout Australia and the world are. Having a clear and focused pathway to financial sustainability will support the success of your event. This pathway will dictate the strategy of your event and should form a large part of your decision-making. It does not matter how small your event is or if it is a community event - an event is a business and it needs to be treated that way. We would not run our businesses without sound financial management and budgeting, so we should not ignore this for our event. In this episode, Linda shares about The four stages on the pathway to financial sustainability Setting the event budget The responsibilities of the Treasurer Income and expenses Useful tools Highlights: 1:19 Your financial drive - your reason for raising funds 1:56 Pathway to financial sustainability 2:08 Four stages of the pathway: Stage 1: Seed-funding new events Stage 2: Becoming financially viable in 2-5 years Stage 3: Moving to self-sustainability - 5 years+ Stage 4: Optional: commercialization 3:02 What stage is your event in, and where would you like it to be? 3:33 Setting your event budget - in an efficient and effective way 3:57 Committee's risk appetite 4:52 The Finance Coordinator/Treasurer's role 5:13 Regular budget monitoring - tracking expenses 5:46 Do you set your income or expenses first? 7:06 Expenses: estimates, monitoring actuals 7:40 Portfolio managers to manage their own budgets - and not overspend! 8:49 Income: benchmark ratios, breakeven point 10:10 Scenario planning: targets (e.g. ticket sales) for best case, worst case, break-even and other scenarios (e.g. big headline acts) 11:26 Revenue streams to replace reliance on grants and sponsorship, including year-round revenue stream examples 13:13 Ticketed vs free events 13:44 Last minute and unplanned expenses 15:02 In-kind sponsorship that reduces expenses 15:49 Useful tools for financial management: Xero, Stall Manager, Local Tickets and similar, online banking, rEvents Academy templates