Milestone Birthday — Sillamäe

The birthday that ends in a zero changes the room you need. Thirty people fit around a long table; seventy need a hall, and a hall in Sillamäe in winter means heating cost appears before you've touched sound or lights. The venue moves the budget more than anything else, and in a small city the short list is shorter than you think.

Most of the cost is the room and what it takes to make it work. After that: how many hours, how much gear has to travel, whether the date falls on a weekend. Food moves the number. A live band moves it. Décor that isn't two hundred tea lights moves it. Everything else is rounding error.