Cost of Hosting a Conference: Creating a Unique and Sustainable Event for Your Business
Cost of Hosting a Conference: Creating a Unique and Sustainable Event for Your Business
Show Notes
How much does it really cost to host a conference? Isaac and Nessa explore what people are actually asking and how trying to host “a conference” instead of your conference is holding you back! Learn more about us at geteventlab.com
The core question of how much it costs to put on a conference is often misunderstood. To address this, businesses should identify their event strategy by figuring out what kind of conference can they sustain and what their goals for their business and community are. They should also identify what resources they have within their business and what the makeup of their business is in order to deliver on their goals.
Timestamps
00:00 Intro: Welcome to season 2!
01:52 How much does it cost to put on a conference?
02:25 What people are actually asking?
03:34 What’s the actual problem?
12:23 How do we solve it?
Key takeaways
When people ask about conference costs, they usually are most concerned about logistics. BUT the logistics of a conference, like AV and catering, are in fact, the easiest to deal with!
There’s a big difference between “a conference” and your conference! You don’t need the budget of a multi billion dollar company if you set a clear event strategy and goals in place.
When you define the conference that works for your business and your goals, the conference budget molds itself to your business, not the other way around.
Don’t forget to look around yourself: What’s the makeup of your business and what are the resources you have at your disposal right now
Next episode: How do I get a big name speaker at my conference?
Credits
Episode edited by Justin Bott
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Full Transcript
[00:00:00] Isaac Watson: How do you as a leader of a growing community, Truly make a conference or event that has impact, a gathering with purpose and an attendee experience that knocks their socks off. An event that leaves your audience in awe and wondering where you've been their whole life, Make It Kickass is the podcast that explores these questions by uncovering the strategies.
[00:00:35] Isaac Watson: Tactics and tools that we use every day to bring our clients' conferences to life. I'm Isaac Watson, executive producer of Kick Ass Conferences, and we are here to help you make it kick ass.
[00:00:51] Isaac Watson: Hey everyone. Welcome back to Make It Kickass. I am excited to kick off season two with you all. As always, I'm Isaac Watson, executive producer at Kickass Conferences and I am here with the amazing, the incredible Nessa Jimenez. Say hello Nessa. Hi Nessa is Operations Manager. And we are just going to talk all things events.
[00:01:12] Isaac Watson: And conferences and the work that we do, and we're doing things a little bit differently with season two, we're changing up the format a little bit because we get asked a lot of questions. From clients, from potential clients, from people who just hear that we do conferences and events and, they just like to ask questions.
[00:01:31] Isaac Watson: So we're just gonna break down each episode by talking about some of these questions that we get all the time, and dig into them and see what what we can tease out from, what are people really asking? How can we answer those in a helpful way? Things. So this episode is all about well, money.
[00:01:52] Isaac Watson: So one of the questions that we get asked all the time is, how much does it cost to put on a conference? How much does hosting a conference cost we get? This is like usually one of the first questions that we get from people because, they wanna know, people just don't really know how much goes into it.
[00:02:08] Isaac Watson: But we believe that there's maybe some, there's like a real question under that's not the actual question. They don't really wanna know how much it costs to put on conference. They have something deeper. Nessa, what do people usually. Really mean when they ask us how much it costs to put on a.
[00:02:25] Nessa Jimenez: Yeah. So when we get that question, and you, and we do get that question a lot what they tend to actually be asking is like, what does the logistics cost? So they're thinking about what does catering cost, what does the venue cost? What does, what do badges cost? What do you know, this long list of things that can be part of a conference.
[00:02:44] Nessa Jimenez: That's usually what. What's on their mind, right? Or, how am I gonna pay for all this stuff? So they've got this huge list and they're thinking, Okay, how am I gonna pay for this? And when it's all said and done, after I've bought all of these things on this list this list they have in their mind Am I gonna make any money out of this?
[00:03:00] Nessa Jimenez: Am I gonna have any money left in my business after all of this?
[00:03:04] Isaac Watson: And I think that's the crux of it, right? Can I make any money or am I just gonna like shell. A bunch of dollars to, to make this all happen. is this something gonna be a loss? Can I break even? Is this sustainable for my business?
[00:03:20] Nessa Jimenez: Yeah. And it's scary because again, if you're coming up with this list of oh, food and swag and venue in catering and speakers and the lights and the this and the that, like of course It is scary cuz that is a lot of money and we're not talking about a thousand bucks, right?
[00:03:34] Nessa Jimenez: We're talking about a significant investment. But the actual problem I think, and this always comes up, is that they're trying to host the, what they think a conference is. So they have this image of what a conference is supposed to be, what a conference should be, and they're focused on that instead of trying to figure out, okay, what. this conference look like, what does my conference look like, right? . So they come to us with this idea of Tony Robbins and Oprah levels of that's a conference. That's a real conference, right? And they think that they have to imitate that, or they have to spend what, what is being spent to achieve their goals. And that's not true..
[00:04:16] Isaac Watson: Yeah, I, a lot of people are, think naturally back to the last conference that they attended, and that becomes the standard or the bar that they're setting for their own thing. And I think it's important to remember that. There are- conferences can take all shapes and forms, all sizes. and if you aren't really thinking about what what you are creating for your community, for your audience, for the people that support your business, and you're instead thinking about someone else's, you're already misplacing your expectations.
[00:04:47] Nessa Jimenez: Because again they're not owning the creation of This is my conference, this is what I wanna do. They're looking to other people of What am I supposed to emulate? What am I supposed to copy? What does it mean to be a real conference? That comes up a lot of I have to do X, Y, and Z because that's what I've seen in other places. And that. People expect a conference to be. And that's not true.
[00:05:07] Nessa Jimenez: That's not true at all. In fact, there's plenty of people who hate that. Like Tony Robbins, big splashy, spectacle type of conferences, and they don't go. So it really comes down to understanding what do you want your conference to be? Why are you doing this? And then you'll be able to like, We wean them off of that idea, , right?
[00:05:27] Nessa Jimenez: We've had conversations with people about this don't worry about all of that. We're talking about you and your community. So let's focus on that. I think another, like the actual problems when we're talking about this question that they're asking and what they actually mean, something else that comes up is that they don't actually understand what kind of resources they have available to them to make an event happen.
[00:05:49] Isaac Watson: Yeah, I think that the there are two common approaches to that or sources of that misunderstanding. One is not really getting how how do I wanna say this? Not really understanding your audience well enough to know what they need, what, what resources your audience is gonna bring to the table, right?
[00:06:06] Isaac Watson: How willing are they to attend something, whether it's virtually or in person? How much How much are they, if you're gonna charge for tickets, how much are they willing to pay for it? And how does that support your revenue? For, to cover your expenses, right? Cause that's gonna make a difference.
[00:06:21] Isaac Watson: But then also misunderstanding the marketing resources, the leverage, the The reach that you may have as, as simply as like the people that you can reach out to help you spread the word, like your, your best kind of business friends and colleagues and people who are there as supporters who are willing to help you market and sell this event to extended audiences.
[00:06:42] Nessa Jimenez: Cause resources isn't just money. When we say misunderstanding the resources, we're not saying like misunderstanding the money that they have. We're talking about, they don't realize Instead of spending X amount on ads, like your marketing budget can be who are your business besties and their communities and leveraging that.
[00:07:01] Nessa Jimenez: In terms of speakers, people think about, Oh Lord, I don't know how much a speaker costs and how can I afford a speaker? When in reality is a lot of the time, They, their own communities have amazing speakers that, that they can tap into and invite and like more, they have something more interesting to say than like these big names that they start imagining that they have to get right. [00:07:27] Nessa Jimenez: So it. Yeah. Misunderstanding resources. What do you already have? Who do you already know that can help you achieve these goals. That isn't just the, I'm spending X amount of money to get somebody to do , X, Y, and Z.
[00:07:42] Isaac Watson: Yeah. And it can be as simple as thinking of who are the first people you want to tell about this?
[00:07:47] Isaac Watson: Like the three people that come to mind immediately. If you were to make a decision to actually do an event who are the people who you would tell? , Who would get excited with you? Who would be there to support you? Those, that's your, that's gold right there.
[00:07:59] Nessa Jimenez: Yeah. And that's a perfect way to start because who better to help you spread the word than people who are excited about it from the get go. Like they don't even know details, they just know it's an event that's happening in the community and they're like all for it. That's gold right there just from the start, so thinking. Who do I know? What do I have that can help me make the conference that I want to make, Not the conference.
[00:08:25] Nessa Jimenez: This right, this imaginary thing in the mind is super important. And I'd say a third thing, addressing the money issue of at the end of the day, what am I gonna have? It's that concern of am I offering enough? To make this worth the effort for people or vice versa is it worth this, all this effort? What am I gonna get out of that?
[00:08:47] Isaac Watson: Yeah. I think that the a lot of people approach a conference is a one off thing from a. Profitability standpoint or from a sustainability standpoint. And I've we've worked with a lot of clients who are starting a conference for the first time. And then we've worked with others who have been doing it for a while. But the people who are starting out for the first time, Are always far more concerned with the money that they're gonna have to put out to get things rolling. And the truth is that yes, usually it requires a lot more investment upfront.
[00:09:19] Isaac Watson: Especially if, you need to do some marketing and branding and you need to bring in some social media marketing, some lift there. It can be. It can add up quite a bit. I think that what people need to understand is that if you set out to start hosting a conference, you need to be in it for the long game.
[00:09:36] Isaac Watson: . And you need to be thinking in terms of 3, 5, 10 years of sustainability as opposed to how is this first year going to be successful financially? Now that's not to say it can't be profitable. It depends on a lot of factors from, the robustness of your audience to your marketing strategy, to sponsorship strategy, things like that.
[00:09:57] Isaac Watson: But in a lot of cases you would be lucky as a first time conference host to break even. , because there's just a lot more that goes into spooling up an annual event or even a quarterly event like that is really not gonna start paying off until you get a few under your belt.
[00:10:16] Nessa Jimenez: Yeah. In the first year of a conference. That's proof of concept. First year, it's just proving like this is something that people want. The idea that I had is viable. Basically, that's what we're proving in the first year, right? that's the year of experimentation seeing how the audience responds.
[00:10:33] Nessa Jimenez: But I'd also say, if you're putting on the conference that you can afford, like the best quality that you can with what you have, instead of trying to like full tilt, do what you're seeing on tv, like you are way more likely to be successful and to reach all of your goals because yeah, you're creating what you can, not what you think should be.
[00:10:58] Isaac Watson: Exactly. I think that kind of long term approach and we could call it an vc, a minimum viable conference, right? Exactly how can you get this proof of concept out there? How can you deliver something really great with the resources that you have and then iterate upon that and expand and grow from there. You're not gonna, you're not gonna launch a 1500 person conference from zero to 60 in 12 months. That's just,
[00:11:25] Nessa Jimenez: Yeah. You're not gonna, you're not gonna host the first time conference, a five day festival with at 1200 people. No one's ever heard of you. That's silly. That's silly to try to do that because Yeah, it's just too much, too fast. And we've done it before where we've had first year conferences. They have made a profit and they have been very successful. And then what did we do? We came back the next year and we were able to expand, make it bigger and better, bring in more people, do more things, because we used that first year to prove the concept.
[00:11:59] Nessa Jimenez: To prove the core concept. Not flashy, whatever the first year was about proving the core of the concept and this is. With this is what the community wants. This is serving a purpose. So now that we know that our hypothesis is true we can come into it next year and add a little more flash and be more in confident about it.
[00:12:23] Isaac Watson: Yeah. I think it's important to think about conferences as as a product, just like any other that or a service that you might be selling because it is all hypothesis and experiment. You're testing a theory , and you're testing how well the audience. Wants to gather together and then putting that into practice, and then you're evaluating, you're seeing how that went.
[00:12:49] Isaac Watson: You're seeing if it, did it make sense? Did, were you correct in your hypothesis? And then you're tweaking and iterating and evolving and trying again.
[00:12:59] Nessa Jimenez: Yeah and going back to the original question that people come to us with, like, how much does it cost to put on a conference? Our answer is, what kind of conference are you trying to put on? . What do you mean? Like conference is a big word. There's a lot of conferences that can exist, So it, it It's might not be what people wanna hear, right? Like people just wanna, Okay, a conference cost a hundred thousand or, you know what I mean? That's not right. Our answer is not like the flashy easy answer, but it's the true answer of how much does it cost? How? Can I afford this? It depends, right?
[00:13:32] Isaac Watson: Yeah. And at the end of the day, if you're really just considered about how much am I gonna pay out of pocket? There is no hard and fast rule to that. The cost per person for a virtual event is a pitance compared to hosting something in person. Where you're providing meals and there's a lot of AV tech and things like that. It really is a it depends like what are you, Yeah. What are you trying to achieve? Yeah. And what is your strategy around it and what are the theories that you're trying to test? And then we can help you figure out what kind of costs would go into that.
[00:14:04] Isaac Watson: And I get it. Cash flow is. A concern, right? Can I support the the outgoing costs and then make it up within inbound revenue? If that's the way you're structuring your event is there room there for sponsorship revenue as well to bring in third party dollars to support the cost of the event or depending on your goals and what you're trying to achieve with it, is it you.
[00:14:28] Isaac Watson: A loss leader, for example, right? Like are is this truly a marketing expense from your perspective? And you have to decide how much you're willing to invest in order to see the benefits of that through either sales or a stronger community. Some of the tangible and intangible ways that can pay off.
[00:14:46] Nessa Jimenez: Yeah. And related to that, so if we can put this all together, and be solution minded, right? , and summarize all of this for people related to what you said, Like one of the questions, the first questions that we help people answer is, what's the conference your business can sustain? Because there are businesses that can and they have done it like they invest in the first year. Absolutely. Knowing that they're fine if it's, if they lose money or if they break even, because they have the budget their business is, A size that can sustain it versus other clients we have where we create a conference for them and we go in knowing this event has to pull in X amount of profit, right?
[00:15:31] Nessa Jimenez: For example, we had an event recently where, The summit that we created for them, that we produced for them the money that was made was to help sustain the organization behind it. , they don't sell memberships. It, they don't sell products. It's a nonprofit essentially. And the summit was to help keep the organization going and pay for the next year of operations. There, there's a lot of, there. It's a big spectrum, essentially. , but so what can your business sustain?
[00:16:05] Isaac Watson: Yeah. Another solution or another way to think about this from a solution mindset is what is the conference that works for your business and your goals? This goes back to this kind of minimum viable conference idea where you really need to be clear on what you're trying to achieve and why it's important and why it's a value to , the community that you are supporting. And. Based on that, you can then develop a strategy around how you can achieve that with the resources that you have available.
[00:16:37] Isaac Watson: And that's the third piece of it is what resources do you have? Both intangible and intangible. By that flat out cash or spending power and intangible that would be the reach and the the influence you can exert in the market and whatnot. The.
[00:16:53] Isaac Watson: The resources that you have are going to guide what works within your goals because you also don't wanna bite off more than you can chew. And you want to be able to speak to the audience in a way that is authentic to what you are creating with your community and your business. Keeping those three in mind are really the keys to.
[00:17:15] Isaac Watson: Creating a an event strategy that is going to be much more successful in pulling something off that without having to worry upfront about what's the single dollar amount that is going to. That's gonna take to to run this thing.
[00:17:29] Nessa Jimenez: And in EventLab, that's what we help people figure out, right? We help them answer these three big questions so that they can walk away from the conversation knowing Okay, this is the con, this is the type of conference that makes sense for me because of my goals, because of the business that I have and because of the resources I have available.
[00:17:50] Isaac Watson: Yeah, and we do At the core, we just need to understand what your business is and what your intentions are and what your goals are, and then we can help you craft a strategy to support that, to figure out, okay here's what your minimum viable conference is. Here is what you need to be thinking about from a strategic perspective to be able to deliver on this idea or this goal within your timeframe. Your your. Your overall business operations and whatnot. That is where, why it's so important to start with that as opposed to Yeah.
[00:18:23] Isaac Watson: Let's throw it together a budget because we don't know what, You can't budget for something. You have no idea what the scope's gonna be. Exactly. . So let's figure out what the scope is first and then we can put some dollars to, to line items from. All right. I think that about wraps us up for today.
[00:18:39] Isaac Watson: If I were to recap the core question that people ask us all the time is, how much does it cost to put on a conference? But we think that what that actually means is. Do I have enough money to pay for the logistics? Will I profit from this when this is done, is this going to be something I have to invest in?
[00:19:01] Isaac Watson: The actual problem underlying all of that is not really understanding the resources you have, thinking about a conference in terms of other people's conferences rather than your own conference and what kind of format that takes and being. Too concerned about the revenue of the event at the end to make it worth the effort of fleshing out all of these details.
[00:19:27] Isaac Watson: So solutions around that would be identifying your event strategy by figuring out what kind of conference can your business actually sustain? Having a really clear picture of that figuring out. What your goals for your business and your community are, and how a conference can support those goals.
[00:19:44] Isaac Watson: And then really identifying what resources, both tangible and intangible you have within your business and what the makeup of your business is in order to deliver on.
[00:19:59] Nessa Jimenez: Thanks for listening to episode one of season two of Make It Kick Ass. We hope you'll host your conference and not a conference, and that today's episode has helped you figure out what the difference is. Grab copy of the tool we use with our clients to help them plan their conference with their budget at geteventlab.com and get it for free.
[00:20:22] Nessa Jimenez: Thanks for listening and we'll see you next episode.