Elaine

Hi, Elaine

Is this the first ball the Charity has held? If not, the last one is the place to start in building a budget.

If I had a recent budget for an event like this, I'd be dubious about sharing it, because it might mislead - every event is different.

Start off with a simple spreadsheet, and enter all the costs you expect to incur - some will be fixed costs (the band, presumably, will cost the same amount however many people turn up) and others will be dependant on ticket sales.

So - publicity, music, room setting (decorations, balloons etc) food, other known costs go into your spreadsheet. This will give you a cost for the whole event. Divide by the number of people you expect to turn up, and you have the cost base of the tickets. You need to make a respectable profit on each ticket - double the cost would be a starting point.

Then, you can start thinking about sponsorship, corporate hospitality, gifts in kind to reduce costs etc.

Too many variables here for a template to be useful, to my mind, but someone else may have both a template and a different opinion :-)

Cheers

Gerry