Event management
budget uncertainties
insurance against risks
MST326 lecture 8
24 February 2007 MATS326/[Link]
Event management
What is an event?:
• conference, symposium
• hands-on training
• marketing exhibition
• sports competition
• many others ...
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Rudyard Kipling's poem:
I Keep Six Honest Serving Men:
"I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are
What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who"
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Budget: conference venue
• Day rate per person all-in
• Hire venue at fixed costs, and either
pay lower day-rate to cover refreshments
• perhaps with teas/coffees required
leave delegates to find own refreshments
• Access arrangements
disabled persons
exhibition materials
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Budget: conference speakers
• speakers pay full registration fee
include their accommodation?
include travel and subsistence costs?
• generates goodwill and eases speakers load
• speakers pay (reduced) registration fee
• speakers attend free
the latter two require higher registration
fees from non-speaking delegates
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Conference: delegates
• Poster papers
often used to gain additional delegates
• Access for disabled persons
• Special dietary requirements
vegetarian, vegan, halal, etc
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Budget: marketing and media
• advertising
TV, radio, journals, magazines
specialised mailing lists
e-discussion lists
SMS/MMS telecommunications
• media
flyers, brochures etc
• design costs
• printing costs
• mailing costs
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Budget: other costs
• administration
• personnel on-the-day
• travel (to view venue in advance)
• audio-visual aids and technician
... and other income
• sponsorship
• “flyers” in the delegate pack
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Budgets
• “Annual income twenty pounds,
annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen
shillings and sixpence,
[£19.97½p] result happiness.
Annual income twenty pounds,
annual expenditure twenty pounds and sixpence,
[£20.2½p] result misery”.
Mr Micawber in Charles Dickens “David Copperfield”
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Continue or cancel?
• cancellation may incur:
lost deposits on venues
refunds of any prepayments
speakers spending in anticipation of event
“all that effort for nothing”
• continuation may result in:
negative budget
“loss leader” informing future events
loss of reputation,
if delegate expectations not realised
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Other types of events
• Broadly the same considerations
• outdoors may also need
formal permission to use public space
fenced area accessible only to ticket holders
security to ensure no freeloaders
public address systems
first-aid provision
independent caterers
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Insurance
• what can go wrong?
pay-on-the-day and no-one arrives
the weather (no audience - no “atmosphere”)
• insurers will cover the risk?
they are in business to make money
they consider the risks involved
they request lower premiums where
• a full risk assessment already exists
• where plans/budgets have sensible contingency
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