ABSTRACT
Financial plan ning for an event is crucial to its success. It is very easy for an event organ iser to find them selves or their company or charity in finan cial diffi culty as a result of a lack of finan cial plan ning. In order to hold a success ful event, it is neces sary to have the same depth of finan cial plan ning in place as expec ted for a busi ness start-up or expan sion plan. A lack of stra tegic plan ning argu ably contrib uted to the down fall of the World Student Games in 1991 hosted in Sheffield (Bramwell, 1997). This event cost the city £658 million and is due to be fully paid off in 2024 (BBC, 2011) after misjudge ments were made in rela tion to infra struc ture devel op ment, event demand and market ing. It is import ant in the events sector that stake hold ers receive a return on invest ment (ROI) for their outlays. According to Bowdin et al. (2011, 298), ‘ROI is the measure of the finan cial return for the invest ment in the event. The ROI will be differ ent for each of the stake hold ers.’ Initial invest ment will only occur if the original event proposal and plan appear invit ing to event stake hold ers and spon sors. As mentioned by Maylor (2010, 189), ‘the rejec tion or defer ral of a project proposal may have nothing to do with its intrinsic merit. The decision will be based on the availab il ity or other wise of the neces sary cash.’ Financial viab il ity is a crucial aspect of dutiful finan cial plan ning and, if managed mean ing fully, can help to foresee and there fore cope with poten tial event chal lenges.
