Convention Budgeting

~ Cheryl

FantasyCon 2009 has published its budget. You can see it here (PDF).

It is a relatively small event – maybe 300 people, but the numbers are still instructive. Here’s what I noticed.

Just like a Worldcon, their major expense was hotel function space.

You can lose money on a banquet if you don’t sell enough seats (though thankfully their loss was quite small).

The cost of your program book can be covered by selling advertising (though it isn’t clear where all of ad sales appeared).

Insurance is Very Expensive (but essential).

And no, I don’t understand why sale of books is only an expense, not a source of income.

7 thoughts on “Convention Budgeting”

  1. The line item actually reads “Sale of Books (less commission)” which leads me to believe that the con sold books on behalf of publishers (or authors or _someone_) and the income for that is buried in the “Other Revenue (Advertising, Sales etc)” line item.

    Also, I suspect insurance was not as expensive as that as equipment rental is also included in that amount — what equipment I don’t know

    In any case, it’s nice to know they did not lose money 🙂

  2. Rene:

    It depends on whether the A/V came as part of the facilities rental or not. There wasn’t much in the way of tech beyond microphones.

  4. I have not seen a hotel contract yet that included a/v equipment other than pre-existing screens in rooms or perhaps one mike per room. There’s too much profit in renting it separately.

  5. Rich:

    Not instantaneously, but there will be one eventually. Remember, Cheryl and I are directors of WFC2009’s parent non-profit corporation. The WFC2009 committee has submitted regular financial statements to the SFSFC Board, and I see no reason why they won’t continue to do so. Indeed, if you want to see older ones, go look through the SFSFC board minutes.

    For that matter, SFSFC is required, as a 501(c)(3) corporation, to file regular financial statements with the state and federal governments, and those statements are public records. Admittedly, you won’t get a whole lot of WFC2009 information from the returns currently posted because we haven’t yet completed our FY2008-09 filings, but we’ll post them eventually, never fear.

  6. Rich:

    What Kevin said. As you probably know, some people associated with the World Fantasy Board have been accusing this year’s operating committee of outrageous profiteering, with the implication that we have been lining our own pockets at the expense of convention members. How we can be doing such a thing when all of the money is going through a 501(c)(3) non-profit is a mystery to me, but there you go. Consequently I’ll be very keen to see the final accounts and get them published. We could also publish the accounts of the Monterey World Fantasy, of which SFSFC was also a parent, for comparison.

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