Budget and money
Overview
The Canterbury Faire Subcommittee has prepared a budget template and a summary of previous costs to make the budgeting easier for a prospective steward.
The budget template ensures that all costs are captured, that modelling for different attendance numbers is easy, and that budgets are in the same format going forward to allow for easier comparison to historical budgets.
Quotes to obtain
The Waipara Adventure Centre provides a quote in June each year which outlines the prices for hiring the site. These prices include fixed costs such as the hiring of the kitchen/halls as well as variable costs like the per person per day attendance fee.
The costs of hiring the marquees and truck will vary each year and new quotes must be obtained to ensure that increases since previous years are taken into account. While this wiki includes a list of providers (including our recommended provider) it is always good to ask for quotes from multiple providers.
Food costs will vary depending on how the feast, repast, meal plan, and ball supper are being run. These costs have continued to rise significantly year on year and the budget should take those cost increases into account, and must include an allowance for how much the food costs will rise between the bid preparation and the event (which can be 6 months apart).
The costs for tokens and souvenirs will vary depending on what is being offered. Care must be taken on items which have minimum order quantities or large up front costs such as screen printing on T-shirts/bags.
Using the budget template
The spreadsheet includes an instructions tab. It is important that you follow these instructions.
The basic steps are:
- Input the event date details (this allows for a per day calculation to be completed).
- Input per person, fixed, and passthrough costs into the appropriate tabs.
- Perform attendance modelling to determine a break even attendance number and prices.
Costs are broken down into 3 different categories
- Fixed costs are costs which are incurred regardless of how many people attend. A portion of this cost gets paid by everyone who attends the event.
- Per person costs are costs which are charged to us on a per person basis. Sometimes there are different rates for children and adults and sometimes the cost is the same for both.
- Passthrough costs are costs for things which some (but not all) people will use and the costs are passed on to the people who use them directly. Examples include hiring tents from the site, buying haybales for personal or household use, or food.
The attendance modelling asks for a target attendance numbers for each of the ticket categories, and from this data it will calculate the cost for that category.
This allows the user to enter the ticket prices for each category and the modelling data will then show the estimated surplus or deficit based on the attendance numbers.
Target numbers
Canterbury Faire is Southron Gaard’s largest even by far and it represents an opportunity for the barony to cover many of its operating costs for the next year.
But it also represents a significant financial risk, with the potential to lose a lot of money if the event attendance is significantly lower than expected (or if the beak even number is too high), or with a potential to overcharge our attendees if the beak even number is too low.
The operating costs for the barony are calculated by the Reeve at the end of the financial year and it is generally accepted that Canterbury Faire should aim to make a surplus that will cover approximately 75% of those costs.
The attendance numbers for Canterbury Faire will vary year to year but it is recommended that the break even number be set at the average of the last 5 years (not including years marked as abnormal like 2020 and 2021 which had norovirus and covid outbreaks).
