UK PonyCon issues budget breakdown

Usual disclaimer: I am not UK PonyCon staff

The graphic above was issued by UK PonyCon yesterday. I was very pleased to see it, as I've thought for a long time that organisations such as conventions should be as financially transparent as is practical. Given that venues and suppliers tend not to be keen on doing their negotiations in public, expecting a pound-by-pound breakdown is excessive. BronyScot did just that in its earliest days, but that's not at all the norm. A percentage breakdown as published by UKPC seems a good option.

It may be interesting for any readers involved with convention organising to look at the graphic and compare how it stacks up with the cons they know. The thing that stands out immediately to me is that venue costs absolutely dwarf anything else. Audiovisual costs alone are double those incurred by the events team, and venue hire itself accounts for fully half of the entire UKPC budget. This underlines why choosing the right venue for the con is so important, and why it can't be rushed. Much as we all want to know, we do need to wait!

Something that isn't added to the cost is hiring a third-party ticketing provider. UK PonyCon, unlike a lot of similar events, does not charge a booking fee – so a ticket this year with a face value of £37 cost exactly £37 to purchase. Of course, there are still banking and PayPal costs to consider (see the top of the graphic) but I think UKPC's approach has worked well over the years. It's certainly nice from an attendee's point of view not to have 5% or so slapped on top of what you thought you were paying!

This all adds up to a lot of money. Of course, the precise figure isn't in the public domain, but you can get a very, very rough idea by considering ticket prices and attendee numbers and making some semi-educated guesses. At any rate, it's certainly several tens of thousands of pounds. It's widely accepted that BUCK's expenditure ran into six figures, but that con aside UKPC has the biggest budget of any British MLP convention in the fandom's history. That means the con absolutely has to be run carefully by people who know what they're doing. Happily, I feel completely reassured on that score.

Anyway, I congratulate UK PonyCon on producing this graphic; I think it's an excellent balance between transparency and commercial realism. I would like to see this sort of thing become absolutely standard for all cons, all over the world, with a few appropriate tweaks in parts of the globe where conventions are run in a different way. I'd certainly like to see both BronyScot and Griffish Isles issue something similar. Your move, folks.