There are many areas that you will have to cost out and before you proceed you will need to know exactly how much the event is going to cost you to put on.

This figure should always be considered as a worst-case scenario loss i.e. if you don’t sell any tickets at all this is how much it will cost you personally.

Therefore you need to prepare a costing sheet to realise what your potential budget may have to be.

You should take the following factors into consideration when costing tour event. Setting it out as an Excel spreadsheet with formulas will enable you to easily calculate the necessary percentages and your break-even point.

The calculation for break even is: Total costs Divided by Net ticket price.

Example of costing sheet.

When working with bands, an 80% / 20% split is industry standard. Remember to write in a promoter’s profit (usually around £150, depending on the scale of the event) as your fee for work conducted. This means that in the event of a sold-out show, you don’t just walk away with 20 %, which may not amount to very much after all overheads. Therefore, a promoter’s profit is essential to making your business sustainable and to invest in the next show and to cover any deficits.

A miscellaneous figure should always be written in- this is to buy items such as towels and should be around £100.

Setting your ticket price. Once you have your costs and your venue you should be able to work out your ticket price accordingly, though the agent will sometimes determine this to bring it in line with the cost of all shows on a national tour.

You must bear in mind how big the venue is and whether your potential audience will be able to afford the ticket price.

Having established this you will need to work out your break even point using a costing sheet similar to the above example, though on smaller shows not all factors will be relevant- It will depend on the scale of your production.