Budgeting

Here is how we do budgeting, we split the cost estimates in two:

• Varying costs which are covered by the ticket price for each attendee
• Fixed costs which are covered by the sponsorship money

This enables us to never get into financial problems if attendants were to drop, as long as we keep the fixed costs inline with the amount of money raised through sponsors. This way of structuring things prevents the organizers from having to put up money or run personal financial risk due to investing money in the conference.

Structuring the fixed costs budget

In order to keep the costs under control, we prioritize the things we want to do for the conference into three levels. This enables us to have clear goals for raising sponsorship money. Each level is a new milestone and it eases communication about where we're at.

• Level 1: the bare minimum required to host the conference, which means renting a venue, some speakers and our running costs for services like hosting, etc
• Level 2: This is where we add more things like merchandising, gifts for speakers, party expenses, etc
• Level 3: Level 3 is the level where we get to do all the things we want to do. This is what we aim for when it comes to raising money.