What were your key insights from the class’s production of a preliminary budgetLinks to an external site.Reflect upon the process of producing it as well as the outcomes – does it look comprehensive? Do the costs associated with the various items look realistic? How are you now feeling about mounting a festival?

Although week four was cut short by the protests, we took the opportunity to make a preliminary budget for our festival. This process was conducted firstly in groups and then diverted to a whole class discussion in which we listed in an Excel spreadsheet (Figures 1a and b) possible expenses and how much we would approximately budget for each section. Some of the main expenditures included the venue, food/drink costs and design aspects such as posters and programs. However, many other small expenses popped up, such as domains for websites, training, and team uniforms. Making the budget was tricky as most of us are new to running an event, let alone a festival, and therefore, we needed adequate research on the cost of specific items. The process felt like a guessing game, as people threw out random numbers that didn’t have much study or reasoning behind them. The list of costs is comprehensive, and it covers many areas, some of which may even be unnecessary for our festival, such as the accommodation and flights for VIP guests, as it is unlikely that we will attract celebrities of that calibre to our studio showcase.

Throughout the budgeting process, the prices we listed were repeatedly overestimated. Some of the prices were realistic, such as the food and drink, listed as $5000 and $1000, respectively, as these are things that cafes, breweries, restaurants or specific brands can easily sponsor. However, many items on the list were inaccurate, such as the programs, merch, decorations, etc. The programs, for example, were listed with a $2000 budget. However, this should have considered that we are students at RMIT and, therefore, have access to many free printing services, including the printing of programs. There was little consideration of what we could scrounge from our relationships and access through the university. Another example would be equipment and camera hire, which we listed as $1,500 and $500, respectively; however, this is another resource we can access for free from the university.

Whilst the 50,000-dollar budget should make me stressed and unprepared for the mounting of our festival, I realise that there has been a lack of proper research on these costs and therefore this daunting number is most likely much higher than is required. It also feels possible as we discussed easy sponsorship options such as local breweries and fundraising options such as trivia night, book/bake sales and dodgeball tournaments.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i5O01HQhxXofBRyUDVXZlG9nu1xnMA-JXQpHOhawP5E/edit?usp=sharing

Figure 1a and 1b: Budgeting Excel spreadsheet.