Financial planning is essential and it’s important to have a working budget. You’ll first need to work out what the budget is required to cover and don’t forget items such as facilitators’ fees and overseas travel costs.
As conferences are dynamic events, it can be a challenge to determine contingency costs but having a budget in the early stages of the planning process makes choosing a venue much easier.
Determining a venue requires you to compare quotes and proposals but it’s important to check the details to ensure you make a fair comparison, e.g. some venues don’t include dinner in residential meeting packages while others do.
Another consideration is to determine whether the conference is intended to make a profit/loss or break even. Some may be paid entirely by the company because of its benefit to attendees. Most meetings today are corporate conferences fully funded by the organisation and focus on training, management, strategic planning, sales and product launches.
