event planning

We are a bespoke event planning company, so whatever figure you give us is what we build the event to cost. 

Most standard event planning companies have relationships with certain vendors where they get a commission, so they only want to use those vendors, (instead of looking for vendors that are more suited and tailored to the event). These types of event planning companies would contact their vendors and ask them for a quote and then they would tell you how much what you want is going to cost. These companies usually make you sign a contract to say that they can only guarantee that they will be within 25% of whatever your figure is.

Our process is:

1. First draft of the budget showing the client how much we have allocated to each area and talking them through what level of quality they can expect of this

2. We rebalance the budget together based on the client's feedback, which produces the second draft of the budget

3. We then go out to specialist vendors, (some we may already know, some we may secure only for this event) and get quotes to create the 4th draft of the budget. For big spend items, (e.g. catering, AV, etc.) we usually provide the client with three quotes to pick their favorite 

4. We rebalance the budget together based on the client's feedback, which produces the 5th draft of the budget

5. We then start purchasing things! If something unexpected happens and a cost is higher than we anticipated, (e.g. it transpires there will be a heatwave and we need to rent AC etc.) we would ask the client if they wanted to a.) not do it, b.) go over budget, or c.) take budget from another area. The point is you would never go over budget without knowing in advance and agreeing to it

Overview

We charge 15% percent of the total event budget with a minimum spend.

Why do you have 2 aspects to your fee?

The purpose of charging a minimum + percentage is that if your budget drops to zero, our time is still covered. And if your budget doubles, we don’t have to keep renegotiating the fee as the event changes and evolves.

How do you work out the minimum spend?

The minimum spend is determined by doing an exploratory call with you and us asking questions that allow us to determine roughly how many hours we think it will take us to plan your event.

We will then present you with 3 levels for the minimum spend in terms of what they include.

Talk me through an example

For simple maths if your budget is $115,000 including our fee and our percentage is 15% and the minimum spend is $10,000 - then you would pay us the minimum spend of $10,000 plus the difference in terms of the percentage. 15% of $100,000 is $15,000, minus the $10,000 minimum spend is $5,000 - so you would pay an additional $5,000 after the event.

Now let’s say your budget is $115,000 including our fee and our percentage is 15% and the minimum spend is $16,000 the you would only pay the minimum spend and no more - as the minimum spend is higher than 15% of the budget.

I’m worried I don’t know how much I’m going to end up paying Shift + Alt Events

Basically we know the minimum, but we don't know the maximum as it depends on what you decide to do.

However we're a relationships business, so we'll never charge you more than the minimum without warning you first and asking you how you would like to proceed. You will have the following example options:

1. Don't spend more on the event than would take you over our minimum spend 15%

2. Pay the 15%

3. You take on some tasks so we keep it at the minimum spend even if the budget goes up

Is it possible to negotiate that some line items in the budget don’t count toward the Shift + Alt Events fee?

The percentage of the total budget isn’t a charge for each line item, it’s a general guide on what to charge for producing the event. You know intuitively that if you were asked to plan a dinner party for $1,000 and one for $100,000 that the latter will be more work.

There are also a lot of line items that aren’t included in a budget, but on aggregate it all works out E.g.:

• Guest communications

• Budgeting 

• Payment processing

• Speaker management

• Guest flow planning

• Volunteer management

• Production schedules

• Setup checklists

• Floor plans

That being said, there are always edge case scenarios, so we’re open to discussing it.

We work with a huge range event budgets from $20,000 to $20,000,000.

Our minimum engagement fee, no matter the size of the event is $5,000 and can range to millions of dollars.

No problem. Part of what we do is help you shape that vision. We’ll guide you through the process—asking the right questions, understanding your goals, and suggesting creative directions. You don’t need all the answers before we begin.

Not at all. While we’re fully equipped to run large conferences and summits with thousands of attendees, we also plan smaller, high-touch events like private dinners, executive retreats, and intimate gatherings. We tailor our approach to the size, scope, and goals of your event—big or small.

We plan events internationally and are comfortable working across time zones, languages, and logistics. Whether your event is in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, or somewhere remote, we can manage the complexity.

We’re flexible. If you already have vendors you love, we’re happy to work with them. If you’d rather we source and manage everything, we can bring in trusted suppliers from our network. Often, it’s a mix of both.

We manage the volunteers that the client provides, but we don’t source them. This is because the kind of networks volunteers come from are specific to the client, (e.g. a neuroscience event might have neuroscience grads. As Event Planners, we’re not in these networks).

We can invite them to volunteer on your behalf if you provide emails though!