After 5 EventsWhat the cost is made of
Venue and accommodation: the site, the rooms if it is an overnight, access to a hall or a tent. Food and drink: lunch, dinner, bar, breakfast if people are staying. Programme: the activities by day, the band or DJ at night, an MC if there is one. Production: sound, light, staging, the crew to run it. Transport if the place is outside the city. Contingency for the two things that always come up.
Most organisers think in per-head numbers because finance asks for one. A per-head figure is useful once you know what it includes, and misleading when you do not. One venue quotes you a per-head that covers the room, three meals and basic AV. Another quotes lower but charges separately for sound, for the bar after midnight, for the projector. The numbers look comparable; the events are not.
When the decisions happen
Venue first, four to six months ahead for a summer date. The venue determines transport, accommodation, the size of the indoor fallback if weather turns, and whether there is power where you need it. Sign the venue and you have locked in forty to sixty percent of the budget.
Catering next. Most venues either include it or require you to use their kitchen. If you have a choice, decide the style of service before you compare prices — a served three-course dinner costs more than a buffet and takes longer, and both are correct for different groups.
Programme and production together, two to three months out. The daytime activities — a boat trip, clay shooting, a workshop — are line items you can price and swap. The evening is a system: if there is a band, there is a stage and a lighting rig and a sound engineer, and all of those need power and a roof and a load-in window. Deciding the evening programme and the technical production separately costs you twice — once when the venue says they have no power where you need it, again when the supplier you called in March is gone by the time you are ready in May.
Where money is wasted
Late changes. The guest count that grows by fifteen percent two weeks before the event costs you the deposit on a bigger tent, reprinted materials, extra accommodation scrambled at short notice. Set the RSVP deadline and hold it.
Buying the same thing twice. You pay a coordinator to plan the event, then the coordinator calls a production company that brings in a lighting vendor, a sound vendor, a staging vendor. Four margins, no one with responsibility for the whole room. The cost is higher and the quality is more variable than a single crew that quotes, builds and runs the night.
Under-specifying the brief. A quote for 'sound and light' means nothing until you name the room size, the ceiling height, the programme format and the power available on site. An accurate quote needs those four, and a vague brief gets a vague price that grows when reality appears.
Where money is under-spent
The MC or host. Eighty people in a tent with a band and no one to open the evening, announce the programme, keep the hour moving — the night does not collapse, but it also never quite starts. A capable host is not expensive and the difference is visible in the first fifteen minutes.
Rehearsal and site visit. Most summer venues look better in the brochure than they do when you arrive with a truck. Sending the production lead to the site two weeks early finds the problem while there is time to fix it — the missing extension lead, the stage position that blocks the only exit, the wet ground the brochure called a lawn.
Contingency. Budget five to eight percent for the two things that come up. They always come up.
What 'included' actually includes
Many manor houses and holiday centres advertise an all-inclusive rate. Read it. Included usually means the venue, accommodation, and meals at set times. It rarely includes the bar after eleven, sound and light beyond a lapel mic, transport from Tallinn, or the staff to run anything technical.
If the venue says AV is included, ask what that means in the room you are using. A projector and a screen is AV. So is a line array and a lighting desk. The words are the same; the events are not.
Two kinds of event supplier
One kind plans the event and then forwards the brief to subcontractors — a lighting company it found that month, a sound hire firm, a catering team. The organiser pays the coordinator, who pays each supplier and takes a margin on every line. No one has worked with anyone else before, no one has accountability for the whole evening, and when something goes wrong at nine PM there are three phone trees between you and the person who can fix it.
The other kind is the crew. The people who give you the quote are the people who visit the site, who build the stage, who run the desk, who pack the truck at two in the morning. One price, one conversation, one point of failure. After 5 Events is the second kind — the production team writing this guide is the production team on site.
What to settle before calling anyone
Date and rough headcount — a range is fine, but sixty people and a hundred and twenty people are not the same event. Whether it is one day or overnight. Whether the evening is indoors or needs a tent. What the programme includes: seated dinner or buffet, live band or DJ, activities by day or just the party at night.
Those six decisions let someone quote you accurately. Everything else can move.