Planning tournaments on a limited budget

September 13, 2022    Payments, Youth sports

Planning tournaments on a budget

The budget is a crucial part of the planning phase for any tournament. It helps you set your goals and objectives for what you want to accomplish. 

Budgeting for any tournament allows planners to work within a clear set of parameters. There is always going to be a finite amount of money that can be spent on an event and setting realistic budgets helps you plan to get the best possible event without breaking the bank.

Here are some of the first things to figure out when you start planning for your tournament with a limited budget:

  • What’s your starting point? When building your budget, you should determine all possible expenses and revenue that will occur during the event. Start by looking at past events and reviewing those expenses. It will help you determine what’s possible and then ultimately determine your fixed and variable costs.
    • Variable costs are costs that change based on the number of attendees—think revenue from things like concessions, and fixed costs shouldn’t change at all.

Early in the process, though, as you map out these budget line items, it’s important to remember the tournament is all about adding value to the audience that will attend the tournament. So, if operating on a limited budget, you need to be strategic about where you spend your money. 

  • Get buy-in from your board and any stakeholders: When you’re working with a limited budget, you want to make sure that your board of directors, stakeholders and any other admins or club leaders have a buy-in to how you plan to spend those limited funds.
  • Create itemized lists and contact vendors: Determine what items you will need a vendor for, and begin contacting those vendors to see what’s possible with the money you have available. 

Check your budget often

This budget will be broken up into things such as labor costs, vendor expenses, concessions, etc. After you determine your initial starting budget and get the buy-in from your board, then comes the process of working together to make sure you stay on budget. Budgeting doesn’t stop after you create it.

Try to schedule regular meetings with board members and stakeholders to ensure everything is on schedule and remains on budget. If you don’t check the budget once you set it, then there’s likely no chance you’ll stick to it.

A tool to help

Pickle Juice can help you stay on track with your tournament event budget. Our reporting platform is a great tool to help you easily view and manage financial performance across all of your team accounts. We also help you track payments and get detailed revenue reports.
It’s not impossible to host a successful tournament on a limited budget, and keeping these things in mind can help you plan and then make sure your participants are taken care of, and, most importantly, have fun. 

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