Beating the Budget Blues

Inflation has made a big impact on many of our clients’ event expense budgets. Many have raised ticket prices and increased sponsorship funding to cover the gap. Are you still feeling the pinch? Here are some simple ways to cut expenses. When handled with a little creativity and flexibility on your part, these solutions can feel really great!

Pidgin Cooperative served some of the tastiest food we’ve had this year, pure farm-to-fork excellence on a buffet with paper plates for Washington Farmland Trust’s Love the Land event. Photo by: CB Bell

Make food service more low-key. 

You’ll find that going from a plated meal to a buffet, replacing china plates with leafware or paper, replacing glassware with disposable cups, and hosting a simpler bar without mixed drinks can add up to significant savings. If any or all of these options would fit the style of your event, go for it! 

HOT TIP: Be sure to add adequate time to your event schedule for everyone to flow through that buffet line.

Guests “cheers” at their dining tables in Futurewise’s beautiful ‘event in a tent’. All the storytelling happens on the mic, no videos are shown. Photo by: Michael B. Maine

Make A/V less of a production. 

If your program doesn’t feature any pre-recorded videos, you may be able to run an amazing event while eliminating the costs of projectors and screens.

HOT TIP: Make sure you have a good sound system and enough lighting on the stage to easily see the people who are speaking. These two A/V elements are essential no matter the style of your program.

Solid Ground’s 50th Anniversary Celebration was a big, beautiful, sparkling downtown gala … on a Wednesday night! Photo by: Michael B. Maine

Get creative with the schedule!

Many venues rent Tuesday nights and Wednesday nights at a discount compared to Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. Consider if your crowd will come out to support you on an ‘alternate’ event night … or perhaps for a weekend brunch … ?

HOT TIP: A quick poll of your board members and past table captains can be a great way to get an answer on whether to make a creative scheduling move … or not.

City Year’s innovative Ripples of Hope event is a fundraising party that happens on a Saturday afternoon, with light snacks served and a huge group volunteer project! Photo by: Danny Ngan

Get creative with the event format. 

As a general rule, the price per guest for a lunch or breakfast fundraising event is lower than dinner-time: the meal is less expensive, there is no alcohol served, and venues often are less costly during the day. Some of our groups have good luck with a heavy hors d’oeuvres after-work cocktail party, or a weekend afternoon party that ends on time for guests to go get dinner elsewhere.

HOT TIP: With breakfasts, luncheons, and cocktail parties, ending the formal program on time is KEY. If you are switching to any of these, keep in mind that revamping your stage program to a crisp 45 minutes max will be the only way to win.

Sometimes when we simplify, an event can become an even more mindful, authentic celebration of what makes your community unique and special. You can shrink the expense budget and still have an event that shines - remember, you’ll still have full control of the most important thing: your storytelling.

If you’re interested in learning more about Synchronicity and our approach to event strategy, design, planning and production, please be in touch at hello@synchronicity-events.com. We still have some openings in our calendar for 2025 and we’d love to work with you!

Happy event planning.

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