What has Planning your Arts Event got to do with business? Well, arts and businesses share a lot in common. There are differences, but also common ground between artists and private businesses. nevertheless.

Artists are full of creativity and energy, delivering inspiring work for their audiences This is no different for your business, except you may use the term customers, and not audiences

In this week’s podcast episode of ‘l Hate Numbers’ I share 4 tips into how arts businesses plan their events. Lots of parallels and takeaways for your business.

Planning

Planning in the arts is crucial, lessons to learn from the world of business and vice versa. Success in the arts and the business world is down to planning.

Planning in the arts is like planning for any type of business. What's the first thing you've got to do? You have got to

✅Set yourself a goal

✅Get your house in order

✅Figure out where you're going and how you are going to get there.

Create the event story

When planning an arts event, get the story straight. Think about the type and shape of the event. What do you want your audience to experience? No numbers at this stage, just the story says from the here to the eventual event happening.

Resources

Make a shopping list of what you need to plan, rehearse, and deliver your event. Include artists, venue, marketing assets, people, skills. Think of the event in stages, the beginning, the middle and the end.

Work backwards from the actual event. There are several weeks, several months’ worth of activity, energy and enthusiasm going into making it happen.

Cash and finances

Let us get down to the actual money side of things. One key and critical document is cash flow. Produce this as quickly and as early as you can. What does that require in terms of money going out in cash terms? Not just the amounts, but when it happens, timing s everything

Revisit and read your cash story. What does it show? Now is your time to make some powerful decisions with your powerful insights. Remember, at this stage, you're not reducing their ambition. You are not modifying your story yet. You are waiting to see what the cash flow story looks like.

Collaboration

Artist or otherwise, you cannot do it on your own. Collaborate, delegate, outsource. Find the experts in the field that will help you deliver an excellent event. And typically plan, think about the execution, but do not lose the passion and the actual event itself. That's what is driving you forward.

What Next

Grab a coffee, make yourself comfortable, sit back and listen to this episode on Planning your Arts Event.

I love doing this podcast and sharing my love of Numbers with you. Check out the link to subscribe and do not miss an episode, contact me for help with Number love in your business.

In This Episode

• Learn what we can apply from Planning your Arts Event
• Appreciate the benefit of creating an event story
• How the events story helps write the financial story
• Collaboration and co-operation Developing your own Numbers confidence and decisions
• Take more control of your numbers to help make you money, survive and thrive

Links

https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/proactiveresolutionss-podcast/id1500471288

https://play.google.com/music/m/I3pvpztpjvjw6yrw2kctmtyckam?t=I_Hate_Numbers

https://open.spotify.com/show/5lKjqgbYaxnIAoTeK0zins

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/proactiveresolutionss-podcast

https://tunein.com/podcasts/Business–Economics-Podcasts/I-Hate-Numbers-p1298505/

You are listening to the I Hate Numbers Podcast with Mahmood Reza. The I Hate Numbers podcast mission is to help your business survive and thrive by you better understanding and connecting with your numbers. Number love and care is what it's about. Tune in every week. Now, here's your host, Mahmood Reza.

Ooh. Hi, folks. Welcome to episode 23 of I Hate Numbers. My topic today, arts and business, more specifically, planning your arts event. My name is Mahmood. I'm an accountant and educator by profession, pride, and experience. Numbers and business are in my DNA and my life's mission is getting you business owners out there to experience and share some of that number love.

Getting on friendlier terms with your numbers will certainly project and help your business survive, thrive, and make money. So, what's not to love? Now, more about today's episode, today's show. You might be thinking at the beginning we talked about arts. What's that got to do with business? Well, arts and businesses share a lot in common, and in my opinion, arts are businesses.

They might have a different outlook. They might do things differently to private businesses, but they’re businesses nevertheless. Now, arts organisations. Artists are creative. Their organisations are full of creative and energised people who ultimately want to deliver inspiring work for their audiences. Whether they're a theater company, a dance company, they want to deliver the best impact for their audiences.

They want to put on incredible events that will fill people inspired, and have lasting memories, but it doesn't mean they forget the practicalities of what it takes to put on those events. Planning in the arts is absolutely crucial, and there are lots of things that arts can learn from the world of business and vice versa. But it comes down to planning,

planning as much as you can. Now, if you're thinking, how do I know all this? Well, I know this from over 35 years experience of working in that sector as a trustee, as an advisor, as a volunteer, having clients of mine who are artists and arts organisations, and also working in the private-sector space here, I fully understand and embrace those differences, but those similarities.

So, what does it take to be successful in both the arts and the business world? Well, as I said before, it's about planning. Planning in the arts is like planning for any type of business. What's the first thing you've got to do? You've got to set yourself a goal. You've got to get your house in order. Get your head down, make some notes, figure out where you're going and how you're going to get there.

You don't be afraid of pivoting if you need to, but you keep your goals in mind. On previous podcasts we've talked about keeping that Northern Star at the forefront. That's our destination point, and we're planning how to get there. In this particular podcast episode, I'm going to share four tips for you and four insights into how arts businesses plan their events, and there's a lot of takeaway for whatever business that you have.

So, what's the first thing we should start with? Well, an arts business, the first thing they will do is they plan their story. And at this stage, don't even think about numbers. Don't even think about the figures here. It’s think about the event. So, when you are planning a major arts event, again, whether it's an open-air performance, whether it's a theater production, whether it's a dance company, whatever,

the first thing is to get it organised, get the story straight. What are you trying to do? What's the event going to look like? What's the shape? What's the color? You know, what's the experience, the impact the audience are going to experience? What are the things you want people to take away from it? And then you need to think about who the people are going to be involved, who the artists are.

You need to think in terms of the event, where it's going to take place. So, think about all those elements that go into your story. When it happens? How it happens? And remember at this stage, don't even try quantifying it to think, what's it going to cost me? That's going to limit your thought process and it's going to limit the production of your story.

So, the story says from here to the event happening, what's it going to look like? What's it going to take in terms of timings? What's it going to take in terms of people. Effectively, work backwards from the event that you want. Once we've got all that, we know what success looks like, that success will be a super incredible event that's going to be put on,

then effectively we've got the goals, we write them down, and just like in your business, you need to do the same thing. So, what's the next thing we need to do? So, we've got our story. We've planned that ahead. Well, next thing is to think about resources. So, those resources are... Okay. In order to have this spectacular open-air event, in order to have this spectacular dance tour, in order to have this spectacular music event, what's the resources I actually need to actually make it happen?

So, this is figuring out things like, resources would be typically like the artists who need to perform, be things like the venue, the food items, what's the marketing assets, the marketing tools that you need. Do you need flyers to engage with your audience? Do you need a website? What do you need? Do you need somebody to actually project-manage the whole process?

So, think about a shopping list and make a note of that shopping list. What is it that you actually need to get in order to make that event happen? Now, as a heads up here, typically most arts events will not just click a finger and it happens overnight. You're talking several months up to a year before the event takes place in terms of the planning, so any major open-air event, any small events, any theater production, any dance company, whether it's online or offline, the actual event itself,

we have to work backward. There’s a several-weeks, several-months worth of activity, energy, and enthusiasm going into making that happen. So, where are we so far? We've got get your story straight, and in all aspects of planning, you need to have a descriptive, a narrative to describe to somebody from the moment you think of the idea to the execution of that idea, the delivery of that,

what does that look like in terms of timelines, in terms of when it happens? What the final event would look like? And again, my opinion is always think about the end point and then we can track backwards. We talked about the planning, we then think about the resources. What's on the shopping list? Now, number three, and this is where we're going to get down and dirty, is the actual money side of things.

And one document I would certainly recommend that you do right at the outset, once you've got your story, is to translate that story. And it comes back to that old commodity that keeps all businesses, all organisations ticking over is good, old, hard cash. And cash flow really is the key. You've got to produce a cash flow story as early as you possibly can.

Now, we need to figure out from our story, what does that require in terms of money going out? And by money and cash, we're talking the items that you see disappear from your bank account. And we also talk about money coming in. So, the money going out will be typically for things like paying for the venue.

There may be deposits involved. There may be paying for the actual artist, where we may have to give them a fee up front or pay them on the night. There may be money that we have to spend or cash that we have to spend in terms of advertising, flyers, building a website, perhaps, maybe recruiting people to actually project-manage the whole process.

We have to think about any licenses, any insurances, and we need to know from our resource list what they are. We then translate those into cash. When do we have to actually pay for those items? Unfortunately, typically, a lot of this will have to be paid out before the money comes in, and the money will come in from a variety of sources.

It'll come in from grants, but there'll be a time lag until we get that. There'll be money coming in from donations, maybe a crowdfunding campaign, selling tickets to the events. And what we've got to do is to think to ourselves, okay, in terms of timelines going forward, on a month-by-month basis typically, when does the cash come in?

When does the cash go out? At this stage of the game, don't start pruning. Don't start modifying. Get the story out in cash terms. Grab a coffee or whatever your drink of choice is. Come back and have a look at what the cash story reveals. And that's where you can make some powerful decisions, because you've got powerful insights.

Remember, at this stage, you're not reducing your ambition, you're not modifying your story yet. You're waiting to see what the cash flow story looks like. Don't think, oh, I can't put this in because it's going to cost too much. You don't know yet. Now, when you look at the cash flow, it may be as is typical, you'll see deficits arising.

You'll see perhaps at the beginning, the cash outlay is far in excess of the cash coming in. You may already have cash to begin with. You may have grants that have been provided to you. Look at the story on a month-by-month basis, and then that's where you can go back and think, okay, I'm going to challenge those costs.

I'm going to look at the income, and are there things perhaps I can do to get better prices for my commodities? Is there a better way to advertise? And can I actually shape the story now differently to affect the cash flow in a positive sense without affecting the impact of the event? And you can make different decisions. You can defer, perhaps, some things, cut things down, but it's always challenging

then that narrative, the cash flow narrative, which will impact on the story itself. You may need to go to different audiences, choose different venues, charge different ticket prices, but absolutely critical, having a good cash flow process is absolutely vital to make sure you can deliver those outputs.

You can't plan for something you can't afford. So, let's recap. What have we said so far? We said, plan your story. Absolutely critical. Think about the endpoint, the destination. What is this fantastic event look like? So, think about the choreography, think about the audience. What are they going to take away from this event, and what is this event going to be?

Think about the resources, your shopping list of what you need. Some items will be one-off, some margins will be regularly occurring, like perhaps advertising regularly. A one-off things will might be for licensing, professional fees, venue hire, and so it goes on. Now, the fourth aspect to come back to now having done the cash flow story is the collaboration side of things.

So, many arts organisations, many arts businesses, just like all private businesses, will not be able to do everything themselves. So, they may collaborate with other like-minded groups. It's not unknown for theater companies to collaborate on projects. It may be, there are aspects of the process that can be delegated and outsourced.

Obviously volunteers play a great part in this here, but volunteers still need to be project managed. Now, find the experts in the field that will help you deliver an excellent event and typically plan ahead. Think about the execution, but don't lose the passion and the actual event itself. That's what's driving you forward.

Okay folks, let's just summarise what we said. So, if you are an arts business, those are four tips for insights to take away. Planning your story as a narrative, as a descriptive, figuring out the resources, cash flow story, and who you can work with to actually make it happen, how it's going to be delivered.

If you are a private business thinking, what's this going to do with me? Well, there are parallels in your business. So, if you are a restaurateur and you'll deliver an excellent experience for your customers, well, same thing that's going to be happening. How does it actually happen? What's the timelines? What's the resources that you need to make that magic come to life?

What's the cash flow impact? And in terms of running your restaurant business, what do you actually need to actually have an excellent restaurant business? If you make stuff, widgets, it's the same idea. So, in all walks of life in your businesses, there are always going to be parallels, things that you can actually learn from.

Okay, folks, I hope you got some value from this episode. Obviously, super love it if you could subscribe, add a review, share your comments and feedback. Until next week, this is removed saying, have a brilliant week guys. See you next week. We hope you enjoyed this episode and appreciate you taking the time to listen to the show.

We hope you got some value. If you did, then we'd love it if you shared the episode. We look forward to you joining us next week for another I Hate Numbers episode.