ticketworks - United Kingdom (UK)

Breaking Even The threshold to breaking even and how to break through it.

Friday, 29 January 2021


Setting the final price for ticket sales is not easy and requires some information about your audience and who you are actually catering for with your event.

The costs associated with running an event;

  • Venue Hire
  • Equipment Hire
  • Staffing (Security, Bar, FoH, BoH, Performers, DJs)
  • Wages
  • Food & Beverage
  • Decorations
  • Marketing
  • Ticketing Costs (If Pre-Printed)
  • Miscellaneous

Once all the costings have been added and the duration of the actual event.

Work out the venue capacity limit (max) along with how many will be on sale.

As a rule, for first time events you can look between 45% to 75% of the actual capacity based on the limited exposure of the event beforehand.

For more seasoned events (based on good feedback and good marketing), you can look between 70% to 95% of actual capacity.

You should work on the base of 35% of venue capacity to break even for your event.

If you need a certain amount of profit, you will need to factor in any tax that will also be applied overall and before costs.

Once these factors have been added, you should have an amount that will be the per person price.

If you are providing a concession or other type of discounted ticket, you will need to look into a further breakdown of how many could make this figure. Based on our own figures it's around 24-38% of sales.

Having details about your demographic will help determine whether this number increases or decreases.

Understanding your audience for your event will help you in several areas such as sales, marketing, style of event.

Having this information with the right planning involved before you start, you will end up more informed and hopefully successful and break more than just even or having a loss.




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