Virtual event budget template is free and includes an outline

Additionally, event organizers have to contend with constantly changing expectations. They must compete against less attention spans as well as balancing ever-smaller budgets. Additionally, they need to prove the return on investment (ROI) of their events, and they're usually expected to generate exactly the same kind of attendance that you would on the day of the event.

In the next part we'll look at how you can budget for your virtual event, what are the line items that you should eliminate from your spreadsheet, and how you can measure the effectiveness of the event so that you can get a bigger budgets for your next event!

Print an image of one of our free budgeting templates for event budgets.

In this article

1.     Why you need an budget for your occasion (especially for virtual and hybrid events)
2.     Hosting costs for the event
3.     Cost breakdown for virtual times
4.     What are the requirements for a successful virtual event
5.     What are you able to gauge the effectiveness of your online event
6.     Add human touch to make your virtual experience appear as if you are in real life
7.     FAQs about budgeting for an event that is virtual
8.     The time has come to get planning your event

The reasons you should have an expense budget for your event (especially when it is a hybrid or virtual event)

Virtual parties can be much less expensive to host as opposed to traditional events. In the end, there's no need to lease chairs or a space to hold an event or printing equipment. You can also sort accommodation, or even put up boards of charcuterie.

But, establishing the budget can help you take important decisions for your virtual event including how you can lower costs, and to discover possible sources of sponsorship as well as the flow of cash.

If you've got an estimated budget for the celebration prior to the event date, it is possible to determine what line items are essential to include, as well as which could be cut, as well as how you can get creative to surprise and delight your attendees.

Cost of hosting an average virtual event

The average cost of hosting a virtual event is contingent on several factors from the duration of the event to the speakers and attendees who attend.

In the next post in the next post, we'll discuss the cost of hosting an event online so that you can be able to determine more precisely the cost of hosting the event of your choice. However, for now, we'll provide what you need to know about the fees to spend to cover the cost of hosting an event online:

• For a shorter webinar with more than 500 attendees, you can generally expect to pay between between $2,500 and 10,000.
• If you're planning to host a one-day virtual conference with presentations, as well as breakout rooms, you can expect expenses to be between between $4,000 up to the amount of $20,000.
• For a multi-day virtual conference with multiple sessions, breaks, discussions and even recordings, you can expect that you will spend between $50,000 to 150,000.

It's clear it's quite a large range.

We'll look at the different line items to consider when planning the budget for your online event, in order to estimate the costs more accurately.

Cost breakdown for virtual events

Cost breakdowns for planning virtual activities

What steps need to follow to ensure an event that is successful online

It is technically possible to run an event online using an online room, cameras and microphones. However, if you're looking to make sure you have an fluid, smooth virtual experience, here are some items you might think about investing money for.

Gear

It's not a lot of equipment to make speakers online look professional and polished. However it requires certain.

Instead, prepare presenters prior to time and begin preparing these:

• Microphones that ensure that the audience is able to hear each sentence ( prices start at $40)
• Cameras that produce clear videos ( prices start at $24)
• Ring lights that are managed to address any lighting issue ( prices start at $30)
• If you are required to screen your green screens, they are readily available ( prices start at $18)

If you're hosting an event that is budget-friendly that's less expensive it's possible to avoid some of the items above Check the speakers' current setups prior to the event and instructing your speakers to enhance their lighting as well as levels of background noise during the celebration.

Learn more about the equipment

Virtual Event Hosting Software

You can think of event hosting software as the venue that is virtual the event that takes place. Similar to the actual venue, these platforms will give you a wide range of functions.

According to Markletic is a good resource for what you can be expecting to pay for the cost of a virtual-event platform monthly:

• Between $50-$250 , it is possible to hold small-scale virtual meetings that can hold up to 100 people every time.
• Between $600 and $8,000 you could host more virtual gatherings with anywhere between 500 to 2,500 guests.
• Between $25,000 and $40,000 to hold larger gatherings that have more than 3000 attendees.

The majority of virtual event platforms cost per user and will have different pricing tiers based on your requirements for the virtual event. (Think about the amount of guests, marketing and promotion features and security measures, for instance.)

Make sure to take note of exactly what features your platform for events comes with. Although some platforms may on the surface -- seem to be expensive than other platforms, they might have extra features that make them more affordable over the long term.

Other software is also required.

If you decide to select a model that doesn't have these capabilities, however, make sure that you include the following costs into your budget when needed:

• Landing page hosting:starting at 39$ per month for landing pages which are hosted on a domain that is owned by an individual. Enterprise plans for businesses hosting multiple events on an enormous scale, could be priced as high as 469 dollars each month.
• Forms for registration to the following events: free for free occasions, but otherwise you will pay an fee for ticketing (for instance, $0.99 and 2% of the ticket price) for each ticket, or monthly for subscriptions beginning at 39 USD per month.
• Software to manage emails: starting at $3/month to send 500 emails per month. Premium and Enterprise plans typically cost between $150-$36 per user for a month.
• Audience engagement software: starting with 8 dollars per month with audiences as large as 50. Pricing for Enterprise plans can vary between $199/month and 1,000 per month.

Speakers

Because virtual events take less traveling and more time as traditional occasions and require less travel, most keynote speakers are charged around 50% of their fees in person in the case of online event. Exactly how much an individual speaker can charge but it is usually dependent on their knowledge and the acclaim they have earned.

According to the Big Speak You can anticipate to pay:

• Between $500 and $2,500 to an expert who is fairly new to this area.
• Seven,500-$10,000 for an established keynote presenter
• A $30,000-$10,000 price range for a thought leader with an impressive following or someone who has written books
• A range of $20,000-$75,000 for celebrities
• $100,000 to $200,000 for famous celebrities

Content

If you're pre-recording any content for the celebration, be sure add production costs to the budget.

For example, to pre-record in the studio, be prepared to spend anywhere from $300 to $500 per hour for filming. If you're recording via remote the cost will drop by $125-$200 an hour.

No matter what you decide to do, warns Zephan Blaxberg who is the CEO of the ZMBMedia studio ZMBMedia, the video production studio ZMBMedia Expect that your costs for production will be three times higher than the initial estimate. If you are planning to make edits to your video post-production budget for between $100 and $200 for an hour.

"Keep your mind about a ratio of 1:13 for pre-event recordings in that for every minute recording it will cost you around three times the duration of time that is paid. Although your presenter may speak for only 60 minutes The livestream technician is expected to arrive an hour earlier to prepare the studio and begin preparing. The tech will remain at least for an hour following the recording has been completed to back up footage before commencing editing."

Marketing and advertising

Do you ask you (and your team! ):

• How long the marketing team of our company will spend on the event?
• How can we advertise this event to potential attendees?
• What is the cost we will invest for advertising on social networks?
• What kind of marketing message are we is it going to be?
• We will work together with influencers and help them spread word about our occasion?
• What is our post-event advertising strategy? How would it appear?

Keep in mind that marketing and advertising are among the most expensive aspects when hosting an online event.

"The most significant expenditure we can make is advertising. This includes experts and thought leaders we invite to our occasions," says Miles DePaul director of Demand Generation at Superside. "This is the point where the worth of the Superside branding is realized. As people become familiar with our brand and take advantage of our information Our participation increases, and costs for events may start to reduce. Advertising costs are reduced since our cost-per-click is reduced due to the increased recognition of our brand, as well as more organic marketing that pays off. It is possible to save by purchasing speakers as the best speakers want to cooperate with us, and they will provide discounts."

Once you've created a strategy, you'll be able to determine where you could make use of the resources you have at hand (such for example, your advertising team and the existing software for email marketing) or which sectors you'll need to fund in (for example, collaborations with influencers and landing page hosting).

The gift or the swag

• A notepad that has a brand name for note of ( $4.66)
• The socks can be made to order ( $9.78)
• A custom tote bag ($3.99)
• A plain mailer bag ($0.87)

The cost of shipping will be different according to the location of the attendees as well as the items within, the bags cost $19.30 which is less than $20.

Partners or sponsors

This is an aspect where you are able to get rid of the cost of the budget for the virtual celebration. (We would love to know.)

Sponsorship opportunities may look distinct for virtual events as those for live events however, they're still offered. Before the event, sponsors will be highlighted in the promotion for the occasion prior to the event like your event's web page along with social media updates and your business's announcements, newsletters and reminder emails. You can also email attendees with information about special offers offered by sponsors or partners.

When you host the celebration, you could display sponsors' logos on your slides, conduct sponsored polls on their behalf, host a panel discussion with the sponsors, or show the short form videos of your sponsors. If they'd like to send merchandise from sponsors to the attendees, these are able to be included in your swag bags.

Be sure to feature the sponsors you've partnered with on your post-event content which includes on-demand video along with post-event email messages and social media updates as along with video short snippets. This way, you're actually increasing the value of the sponsors you've partnered with, as they continue to receive an airtime for a long time after the event ended.

Other sources related to events

What is the best way to assess the success of your online event?

Most likely, you've realized that there are various costs associated with running an incredible online event. To show the value of the investments of your enterprise and to secure the funding required for future events, it's critical to track and record the outcomes of your event.

A few metrics you might consider tracking include:

• Brand awareness is determined by the number of registrations at an event web traffic, event registrations and events impressions and social media engagements.
• leads and customers generated that are tracked by events, response to survey questions or other action taken by lead (such as starting a free trial).
• The level of education for the viewers Measured by the number of sessions attended by guests and by the amount of involvement in discussions, discussions, and responses, chats.

"Our plans for events work best in delivering value across the entire funnel, and encouraging the customers not just to be problem-aware as well as to facilitate more meetings with sales ultimately bringing in more revenue" DePaul says. DePaul.

He adds:

Incorporate human-like touches to give your virtual experience the appearance of IRL

If you're hosting an event online, it's easy to forget the fact that participants are behind screens, and the attendees are likely to become bored or distracted.

DePaul and Superside and Superside team appreciate the value of mindful, personal elements when planning online occasions. "Throughout the whole process we are constantly trying to include an element of human interaction through things such as sending letters, gift cards and content created by users or videos," he says.

Here are some strategies to make your guests feel more connected to the event, fellow presenters and attendees.

• Utilize tools for engagement with your audience, such as chat rooms online or an Interactive surveys and Q&A sessions for ensuring the event you host is an active discussion, not a monotone.
• Invite attendees to get together and have a chat in the breakout rooms. Also, set up a LinkedIn group so that attendees can connect with each other after the conference. This can add an element of social interaction (and extra value!) to your virtual event.
• Give out swag bags or use prizes to encourage participation. These small elements can help create excitement and keep the attendees active throughout the event.

DePaul's continues:

"For instance, our biggest Summit of 2022, Momentum Summit, was promoted heavily by short videos of our speakers. They were used in our advertising along with custom-designed email messages that are 1:1. If you visit our landing page you'll see videos of the speakers as well as members of our team discussing questions we'd like to talk about during the meeting in lieu of a static landing page which contains mostly written text.

We encourage a handful of our VIP attendees to come along and invite friends to join in by providing snacks in boxes or offering to pay for their lunch during the day's program. On the day of the event is when we focus on peer-to-peer interactions through discussion in the event chatroom, roundtables for executives that are smaller and inviting them to the Superside Community to have discussions that last long into the evening."

Questions on budgeting for virtual event.

Are you still pondering about budgeting your future virtual event? We'll answer a few commonly requested questions, as well as offer links to additional resources that can aid you with planning the event.

What's the budget average for virtual events?

According to Statista according to Statista, 34% of marketers say they invest between $500 to $1,000 to each participant of a virtual conference.

What can you do to plan the budget of an online-based event?

What are the ways that hosting virtual events generate income?

What are the top things to look for in the best virtual event platforms?

The time is now to get started on planning your next event

The planning process for the virtual event may take a great deal of effort however, it provides unique opportunities to increase your reach, collaborate with innovative presenters and sponsors in addition to delighting guests. Along with hosting events, the platform lets you create an impressive website, distribute event reminders, connect with guests, link to your marketing software, and analyse post-event analysis.

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