Event Marketing: How to Successfully Promote Events, Festivals, Conventions, and Expositions

Identifying Funding Resources

Now that you have identified your budget needs for your market-

ing plan on the expense side, you have to cover those expenses

through revenue. There are three revenue areas from which to

draw:

■Internal

■External

■Client

Internal Sources

Cash reserves (advanced as seed money)

Discounts (organizational bulk purchasing power can lower

the overall price paid for a product or service)

External Sources

“Loss leaders”

Ticket sales

Merchandising

Licensing

Loans—lines of credit with lenders

Concessions

Donations

Vendors

Sponsorship

Promotional partnerships

Back-end revenue—selling attendee mailing list, for example

Client

The event covers all expenses. The event may recoup investment

through the use of external sources. Sometimes this type of fund-

ing is called “HIC,” or “hope it comes,” funding.

Usually, you will see a combination of these sources used on

the revenue side of the event budget. It is not uncommon for an

entity to undertake the financial liability for an event (internal or

client) and then recoup that expense through external sources

such as a loss leader. A loss leader is basically taking the risk of

losing revenue in one area, such as providing complimentary or

discounted registration fees to increase buyer attendance, in order

to increase exhibitor demand, greater booth sales, and enhanced

net income.

90 Chapter 4 Funding the Event Marketing Program