How to Use Your Event Budget to Maximize the Attendee Experience

Between cool tech trends like AR, VR, social media walls, and gamification to event staples, like fine linens, fancy catering, and extravagant floral arrangements, it’s easy to rack up a big event invoice quickly. If your team, like most organizations, needs to stick to a strict event budget, you may be wondering how you can allocate your money in a way that will give your attendees the best experience possible.

Keep reading to learn more about how you can use your event budget to maximize the attendee experience and get the most out of your event.

Define the Purpose of Your Event.

We’ve talked before about the importance of defining your event goals, but it’s worth saying again!

In order to understand how your event budget can be used to maximize the attendee experience, you need to know what the ideal attendee experience is. By defining what you want the audience to take away from the event, you’ll have a better idea of what items or experiences will help you achieve your event goals.

If you’re throwing a fundraising gala with hopes of raising money and awareness for a cause, a photo booth will increase social media activity and put more eyes on your organization. However, at an internal CEO Town Hall, the same photo booth may distract from the purpose of the meeting.

By considering how (and if) a certain item, experience, celebrity keynote, or type of technology will help you reach your goals and have a long-term impact on attendees, you’ll better understand what big-ticket items are worth the spend – and which ones aren’t.

Understand Your Audience’s Goals.

Professionals attending an association meeting often prioritize hands-on training workshops and certification events, while investors at a shareholder’s event will likely want an opportunity to engage with the organization’s leadership team. By understanding who is in your audience and what they’re hoping to gain from the event, you’ll have a better idea of what technologies, techniques, and tools will be most effective.

It’s also important to understand the demographics of your attendees. Is your audience mostly made up of young, tech-savvy attendees? If so, investing in gamification technology and VR or AR capabilities for workshops, as well as event management apps and digital polling could be a great use of your budget. However, if your attendees aren’t as comfortable with technology, they’ll likely prefer more traditional methods for interacting with their events. 

Make sure the decisions you make and the way you spend your budget enhances the experience, rather than detracts from it.

Reflect on Past Events.

If you conducted a post-event survey following your last event, now would be a great time to review them!

Ask yourself: what did people seem to be most impacted by at the last event? What did they like? What did they wish there was more of? Use audience feedback to guide this year’s experience.

Even if you didn’t use a post-event survey, think back on previous events and how different aspects were received by attendees. If you invested in a lot of free swag for attendees and people were excited to collect and use the items, that may still be a great use of your budget! However, if you had a lot of merchandise left over after the event and people have rarely used the items since, it could be a sign that people aren’t particularly interested in swag, and those dollars may be better spent elsewhere.

Similarly, if you dedicated a large portion of your budget to a session or experience that didn’t get much traffic, it might be a good idea to rethink how you approach it. Perhaps there was a welcome reception the evening before the event kicked off with food and entertainment, but many attendees skipped it because they were first arriving onsite. Maybe there were networking breakfasts that were largely empty because attendees preferred to rest after late-night activities or had to catch up on their other work during that time.

If this sounds familiar, it may be time to remove or rethink how certain sessions are approached, even if it’s a longstanding tradition. During a recent AVentPro Conversations episode, event planner Cecilia Reaburn shared that the most expensive six words she hears are “it’s always been done that way.” Just because the event schedule was designed a certain way in the past doesn’t mean it has been effective or is still effective. Think critically about experiences that haven’t gotten much interest and consider reallocating the budget to something that will.

Invest in Accessibility.

In her AVentPro Conversations episode, Cecilia shared advice about accessibility that all event professionals should take: don’t make people ask for accommodations – just include them.

At a recent event Cecilia attended, a ramp was installed to allow a presenter to easily get onto the stage. While only one of the presenters required the ramp, nearly every speaker used it either to enter or exit the stage. When it comes to accessibility, we often find that there are many people who will benefit from accessible options being available, even if they don’t technically need them. Ensuring that events are accessible, regardless of who is attending, will make prospective attendees and speakers alike feel more comfortable and confident attending an event while letting them know that their presence is valued.

Accessibility goes beyond making the event easier to access physically. Consider adding interpretation services so that attendees are able to listen to presentations in their native language. Create a dedicated comfortable and private space for mothers who may need to pump and for attendees who need space to pray during the day. A room or lounge playing calming music where attendees can go to have a few minutes of silence so that they can recharge, catch up on emails, or jot down some notes from the sessions so far that day will allow them to be much more present in subsequent sessions.

Making events more accessible doesn’t just boost inclusivity – it puts attendees in the right headspace to hear your messaging.

Engage an Experienced Production Partner.

Your production team provides more than equipment. The right partner brings creativity, expertise, and talent to the events they work on, and while a highly regarded, experienced team may seem to cost more, they’ll often save you money in the long run.

A good production team will help you make the most of your budget with both creative recommendations and by ensuring there aren’t any unnecessary redundancies in your budget. From equipment to event labor, the production team will make sure you’re only paying for what you need.

Your event partner will also be able to analyze the event schedule and make sure all of the logistics fit the crew’s needs, keep everyone organized, and operate on schedule so there aren’t any unexpected overtime costs or fees.

While we’d love to definitively say that best way to use your event budget to maximize the attendee experience, there really isn’t one set right or wrong way to use your event budget. What makes sense for one event may not have the same impact on another meeting with different goals and objectives.

The most important thing to consider when approaching an event budget is how a certain experience, technology, or tool will impact your attendees and help you reach your event goals.

Our team can help you determine the best ways to reach your event goals! Email us at [email protected] or call us at (204) 226-5565 to start talking about your upcoming events!