How to organise a corporate event on a budget

Corporate events are usually designed either to entertain a business’s employees, or as a marketing exercise to show clients and/or the public how great you are.

But there’s no point in putting on a corporate event if it’s so expensive it bankrupts the business.

So here’s our handy guide on how to organise a corporate event on a budget.

Write down all your planned costs

The first step of organising a corporate event on a budget is to actually have a budget.

To work out how much you need to spend, write down a list of all the costs associated with planning and running your corporate event.

This includes everything from speakers and entertainment to food and decorations.

What do you expect to get out of the corporate event?

Every corporate event should have some sort of goal, otherwise there’s no point in having one.

It could be that you want to raise awareness of your brand, or you might want to show off a new product or service.

Whatever your goal, make sure the planning of your event reflects this and that every penny you spend goes in some way towards reaching that goal.

Don’t buy things you don’t need

It can be easy to get a little excited when you are planning a corporate event, so much so that you might make purchases which you don’t really need.

Even if it’s small, low-cost things like extra decorations or food, it all adds up.

So only buy things that you know you actually need for the event.

Food and drink

If you don’t want to order all the food and drink yourself, make sure you shop around before choosing a caterer.

If you are ordering the food and drink yourself, try not to order way more than you need.

It might even be a good idea to order a little less than you think you will need to account for any no-shows – this will make the initial food and drink cost lower and make getting rid of the waste food at the end of the event easier.

Keep on top of your expenses

You should record every single expense that is made, even the smallest ones – it’s the only way to really keep track of your expenses so that you know you are sticking to your budget.

You should also regularly communicate with whoever you have put in charge of spending for the event to make sure they are actually sticking to the budget and not paying for unnecessary things.

Entertainment

If you aren’t budgeting properly, entertainment can quickly use up the majority of your money.

Many corporate events resort to musicians or comedians to entertain their guests, but there is a much more effective and cheaper way.

When you hire a photo booth from CheesySmiles, you choose to make your corporate event extra special, because you create a space where your guests can come together to have fun.

You’ll also want to make a record of the event which you can use for marketing purposes or just to remind yourself of what a great time you had – our CheesyMoves service allows your employees to film the event with our cameras, and then we’ll edit the footage into fun and professional videos.