Cutting Costs
How have you been able to keep costs down for your events?
Edwina, Great examples! Thank you for sharing!
Dr. Jean Norris
One of our employees family owns a pizza place so we got pizza for student appreciation week from there. We use a local church within in 2 minutes of the college to host graduations to cut down on additional venue cost.
Edwina, these are great ideas. Can you give an example of some of the discounts you utilize?
Dr. Jean Norris
We keep cost down by strategically planning and utilizing all available deals and discounts possible.
maria,
Thank you for sharing, those are great tips.
Dr. Jean Norris
we have been able to cut our cost by asking venders to donate food or drinks or bring in goodies for our guests.
You're quite resourceful, thanks for sharing your idea. There may be many opportunities to partner with local businesses to help cut costs AND bring more attention to the event.
Aside from using resources which are readily available, like location, educational materials, ect., you can also find ways to obtain donations for an event. If there is a morning conference, maybe someone can donate muffins or coffee for those in attendance.
We have started to move from quantity to quality as a way to keep costs under control. We are now defining which will be our 4 signature events for the academic year, so as to "own" them year after year within the community and media channels. Building on those signatures, we then focus on earning segment-sponsorships by sending clear and strong benefits to potential branding donors.
Charlotte, that's a great point. By doing this, you are not only allowing your students to get experience working with other people, but you are engaging your community members. Keep up the great work.
Dr. Jean Norris
We are a beauty school and we've found the best way to keep cost down during an event is to offer free services. It gives the students an opportunity to gain hands on training out side of the salon.
Thanks for sharing. It sounds like you are able to shop around a bit and get the best price for the service you are looking for. This is great! Keep it up.
Setting a budget cap with vendors for services rendered e.g. caterers. This leads to creativity in order to deliver a similar effect/service as seen in preceding years.
I have a pet grooming academy, so I invited potential students for wine and cheese at the academy. This way I could show them the school
and answer questions in an informal setting.
Response was good!
Hi Patricia,
It sounds like you've created a "win-win" situation for all parties involved. Thanks for sharing your decision process in the forum.
The initial factor was that we were not planning on going to the conference at all this year, or in a limited roll due to budget constraints. However, we do have several of our instructors, along with our President, speaking and we were also asked to please reconsider our attendance in the vendor area. We have many synergies with this particular partner and thought it would make sense to both share "space" too.
Hi Patricia,
What a great way to use your budget efficiently and reach out to prospective clients as well. I'm curious, what factors influenced your decision to share the booth and host the party with your partner most?
Great idea and best of luck at the conference.
We have a national conference that we attend each year. This year, we are sharing a booth with a partner (sharing conference costs), as well as hosting a party together one evening (sharing party costs) and thus also sharing communications and both reaching potential clients of each other too.
