Hospitality events serve an extremely important business purpose. They can help you establish your brand, gain clientele, market your products or even raise funds. Were you aware that you can also increase employee morale with well-thought-out events? Unfortunately, most business owners shy away from events because of how costly they can be. Luckily, there are ways to host events without breaking the bank. To host an event, you basically need decor, food, and entertainment. Here’s how you can play around with these three to keep your budget down.
Keeping Catering Costs Down
To host an event, you need lots of food and drink. The core of a positive guest experience is providing lots of quality food and drink options. This is why you need to ensure that they never run out. Wondering how to keep the cost of catering down? Well, for starters, you should keep track of where your catering money is going. Once you have an idea of what your money is covering, there are a few things you can do to keep the costs down:
Make the Food Experiential
This is one of the best ways to ensure that your food doesn’t cost too much. Choose an inexpensive menu where your guests and colleagues will have fun creating their own plates or desserts. For instance, you can have a taco bar, rice bowls, or ice cream sundaes.
Brown Bag Lunch
Want to almost eliminate the cost of food? Why not host a brown bag lunch? That way, the guests will bring their own food, and you will be left with providing a beautiful salad or an elegant dessert.
Negotiate with Vendors
If you host your event every year, you can also keep the costs down by negotiating discounts with vendors. This works especially if you give particular vendors contracts and commit to exclusively using their business. This tactic doesn’t only work for catering. You can do the same with transportation, rental space, and dining establishments. Once you have your contracts in place, make sure you communicate ahead of time so that everyone will be on the same page each time you host an event.
Event Decorations on a Budget
Even if you don’t have the budget for a massive Hollywood gala, you can still get the “wow” factor on a budget. There are various things that you can do to keep your decoration costs down.
Monochromatic Colour Palette
This is a great way to save some money on colourful decor elements. A monochromatic colour palette gives great visuals. If you are struggling to choose the right colours, why not try a crisp, bright white. Even if it’s not white, a saturation of any single colour is always elegant, and it makes a bold visual statement.
Use Lighting to Set the Tone
Lighting is an essential element of any event. Unfortunately, professional lighting can be a bit on the costly side. So how do you get the same effect on a budget? Well, you can simply illuminate the room with flickering candlelight. You can also use strings of big bulb lights to achieve a pleasing visual outcome.
Floral Arrangements
Flowers are great for events, and you don’t really have to part with a lot of money purchasing them. You can even get leftover flowers from other events. Once you have your flowers, ask the caterer to use them for decorations on the buffet table. They can do this at no extra charge if you negotiate well. You can also use fresh fruit or vegetables to decorate. Think of crystal bowls of ripe strawberries or tall glass cylinders with lemons.
Guest Entertainment
So, how do you go about entertaining your guests on a budget? Since you won’t really be able to book a big-name entertainer, you will have to be a bit creative about this one. You can delight your guests if you manage to pull off something unexpected. For instance, you can get a co-worker who plays music to bring their guitar and sing a few songs. Or maybe you can read some poetry, read fortunes, or draw caricatures. All these are great ways to keep your guests entertained without parting with a fortune.
Did you know that you can rent a karaoke machine for as low as £50 for the whole weekend? Karaoke is great for events. Obviously, not all your guests will be confident enough to let everyone hear their shower voices, but there will always be those who are willing to grab the chance to entertain. It’s always fun to watch other guests grabbing the mic.
Having a small budget shouldn’t stop you from hosting an awesome event that your guests will rave about for years to come. All you need is to be creative and thoughtful, and you can host one of the best events in history without breaking the bank.