Planning and executing an event or conference budget can be challenging for event managers. This article attempts to provide some simple guidelines to help you get started planning your budget.

Your budget can be broken into seven primary categories. Not all events will have all seven, and some may have more:

Promotional/Marketing (20-25%)

Venues (10-15%)

Catering (20-30%)

Speakers (5%)

Staffing/Vendors (12-15%)

Transportation (3-8%)

Miscellaneous (2%)

These budget benchmarks are more meaningful if you have a revenue goal in mind when you plan. A revenue goal helps determine your ticket price, which drives the type of attendee your event is likely to get. Keeping historical data on hand is also useful, such as gross and net profit from previous events, ticket price and staffing.