Event Planning?

[peebles]

Hi everyone,

I am thinking of opening an event management company. I have lots of experience of it from previous jobs and it's something I really enjoy doing.

My thoughts were to stick an advert in the yelllow pages and see what happens.

How much should I charge? Was thinking of charging £20 per hour at first to get clients and testimonials, word-of-mouth etc. Was even thinking of putting this in the yell advert.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Many thanks, Peebles.

 

[An Oasis]

Who is your TM? If it's the corporate or business sector then I think you'll find you are wasting your money.

 

[idtheftuk]

private messaged you pebbles

 

[Ashley_Price]

From the sounds of it, you haven't done a great deal of research otherwise you'd know the answers to your questions. Why not see what other firms charge, and you cannot rely on just a Yellow Pages advert.

 

[peebles]

I haven't done a great deal of research about the cost, you're right. My first port of call is to here to get some ideas.

I guess I want to be true to myself, recognise my skills, help people out. It's not all about the money, its about doing something I enjoy that pays the bills.

My target is anyone who is planning an event, whether that be corporate or private. I can arrange corporate events, charity events, private birthday parties for children and adults, christenings or naming ceromonies, funerals even. I have organised so many that I know the things that provide the wow factor, so in that respect I have years of experience, it's only the charges I don't know about as I've never done it in a self-employed role.

Would any of you be prepared to pay £20 per hour for this kind of service?

Thank you for replying everyone.

 

[Ashley_Price]

It's not all about the money, its about doing something I enjoy that pays the bills

Erm, a slight contradiction in terms here. How can it not be about money if you want it to pay the bills.

Not having had too much experience with event management, £20 per hour does actually seem rather cheap to me if you have all the contacts etc., already (which I'm assuming you do if you arranged all these different events in the past).

You must make sure you don't (under) price yourself out of the market. People want someone to take all the worry and stress out of the planning of an event and they will pay for it. If your competitors are charging twice as much then people will wonder why you're so cheap.

You really need to research your market and competitors more thoroughly - they should be your first port of call.

 

[movietub]

Hi everyone,

I am thinking of opening an event management company. I have lots of experience of it from previous jobs and it's something I really enjoy doing.

My thoughts were to stick an advert in the yelllow pages and see what happens.

How much should I charge? Was thinking of charging £20 per hour at first to get clients and testimonials, word-of-mouth etc. Was even thinking of putting this in the yell advert.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Many thanks, Peebles.

For corporate then yellow pages is next to useless these days, all businesses looking for even planners will have computers int heir offices - so naturally google is closer than the yellow pages.

If you are going to focus locally (for example 'event management in the south east') then you should have no problems getting a website to turn up on page one of the serps if you use the right keywords. There will only be so many others based in your area that traget locally as opposed to nationwide.

The other problem with the yell advert is you're stuck with it for a year - so listing cheap prices could initially is actually a long term commitment! Yell.com is probably worth a try though. Truth is no one can really tell you where to advertise, trial and error is required.

I do a lot of major exhibition work (normally the centerpiece of the event ), what sort of thing do you have experience in? I have an up-coming project to launch and I could use some free assistance, in return for giving that person a very, very, very unique USP

 

[skyhi2]

How much did you charge for the previous events you organised ?

Skyhi2.

 

[An Oasis]

Would any of you be prepared to pay £20 per hour for this kind of service?

Corporates and business would ask you to supply a price per project and depending on the complexity of the project your hourly rate will differ massively. Some of our projects take days of preparation others minutes, an hourly rate could/probably would kill some projects.

 

[movietub]

Corporates and business would ask you to supply a price per project and depending on the complexity of the project your hourly rate will differ massively. Some of our projects take days of preparation others minutes, an hourly rate could/probably would kill some projects.

Agree with that, when researching costs all anyone ever wants is an all in figure to pop in a spreadsheet.

 

[vvaannmmaann]

Google gave me 555,000 "Event Organiser" references.Free Local returned 390 headings.
How will you stand out from that lot?

Then there is this in October
http://www.showmans-directory.co.uk/theshow.asp

 

[peebles]

Thank you for your help everyone.

What about personal parties, rather than corporate?

Ashley - you say £20 is cheap, so what would you expect to pay for this service? Would anyone dare to put a figure on an hourly rate? Agreed that everyone wants a full price but I would like to say, 'I charge £x per hour, I think it will take me x hours to do this job, therefore the price is x' I need to start from somewhere and I think by being cheap, yet doing a good job will enable me to increase my price in the future as I get good clients and referrals. Or is this a bad strategy?

Thanks again, Peebles.

 

[peebles]

Google gave me 555,000 "Event Organiser" references.Free Local returned 390 headings.
How will you stand out from that lot?

Then there is this in October
http://www.showmans-directory.co.uk/theshow.asp

I have no idea how I'd stand out, what would you suggest?

 

[vvaannmmaann]

If I knew the answer to that.I'd be very,very rich!