[ivfdf-news] Questions from Richard and Steven

[john]

Sorry for the delay in getting back.   Answering so many questions about a festival your actively running can be a little difficult some times, as the picture keeps changing as you write your answers due to the number of people working on festival.

Most the answers here are from Brian our treasurer, with updates from others in each area. 

> 1) Ticket sales.  The figures that you state for weekend sales equate
approximately to ticket prices of £24 and £15  - but not exactly to that, so
I presume that there are other factors involved.
> Have you factored in a lower price for advance sales?  If so, what split have you put for advance sales?  Can you give a bit more detail on your ticket price strategy please?
>
> 2) I can't exactly tell without the more detailed numbers, but your number of
Saturday all day tickets looks rather high in comparison with the evening
numbers.  What seems to have been happening over the past few years is that
more people come in for the evenings and less for the whole day.

Ticket sales are taken from the number of tickets sold last Sheffield IVFDF (for each category).  It is my impression that Sheffield for some reason does sell more weekend tickets that the average IVFDF (perhaps because of the large local folk scene?).  The inaccuracy is due to a 0.75 factor having been applied to reduce the above average 2003 figures to a more standard number (and hopefully leave a margin for error). 

> 3) T-shirts.  Having been to so many IVFDFs where people are desperately
trying to sell off t-shirts at the last minute, it always concerns me to see a
profit in the budget for t-shirts.  I am guessing that you are hoping to sell
approx 200 t-shirts at the festival itself, which in itself seems rather high
(Exeter usually sell 100 - 150).

T-shirt sales are based on 2003 where we sold out our 200 T-Shirts and had people wanting more!  Since T-Shirts will be ordered nearer the time exact order number are likely to be based on advanced sales.  Sheffield has always done well on T-Shirts, largely we think this is down to our excellent graphic designer to tends to produce T-Shirts people want to buy. Lucky for us we have the same graphic designer for 2008, so it would more accurate to assume a modest profit on T-Shirts.

> 4) Craft fair - how do you propose to make a loss?

Because I missed out the estimated profit field entirely when
transcribing the figures!  Will correct.

> 5) RSCDS - this amount looks a bit on the low side.

Good! :-)

> 6) Advertising.  This amount looks slightly on the low side to me, especially
given the fact that the prime advertising opportunity (ie: this year's IVFDF)
was lacking in detail.  There will be a job to be done getting through to all
those who are not attached to university groups and not on IVFDF news. If this
requires putting adverts in the press, then the £300 will disappear very
quickly.

This is the amount spent last time adjusted for inflation - there is room in the budget to increase this and it is the most likely place for additional funds to be allocated but the money is currently 'floating' waiting to be allocated as needed.

> 7) Concert. You have put income in for a concert, but are still negotiating
over the venue cost.  Is that venue confirmed and just the cost being
negotiated, or is the venue not yet confirmed?  When will you know about final
venue cost?  Is there still a risk that the concert might not happen?  I am
assuming that any potential concert artists would be quite well known, which
leads me to wonder why the income for the event is budgeted so low?  Is the
cost of the concert act(s) included in the Bands and callers amount?

We are looking at trying to get Firth Court for the concert, however if this does not work out we will be using St. Andrews which is one of our sleeping venues (is already in the venues budget). If the cost of Firth Court is to high compared the extra revenue due to the increased capacity then we will not be using it.  All the acts we are booking are included in the Bands and callers amount, the projected revenue is on the conservative side due to not all the acts being confirmed while the budget was being produced. 

> 8) Morris Tour.  Small point, but there has often been debate over what
happens to any collection made by the Morris tour.  I think that the usual
process is to give that to charity, unless the festival is in danger of making
a big loss.  In the past the morris teams have been very uncomfortable about
collections going to the festival, so it might be best to remove that from the
budget entirely.

There was/is a debate going on amongst ourselves!  Given the amount of money involved compared to the overall budget I'm happy to remove this.

> That's all for now.  You are obviously on the right path, and the package that you get with the Union definitely makes life easier!  Oh, one more final point, I don't see any provision for insurance or First aid support in the figures. 
Get both, even if just for your own peace of mind!

First aid support is included in the union quote (all security staff are first aid trained and this is probably our main use for them!). My understanding is the insurance is covered between the existing CeilidhSoc insurance and the Universities (but I will confirm).  Our previous insurance quote of the the whole festival (when it was going
to be in the school) was £150 and if necessary we will use that.

As for the point raised by Steven about the Late Night Dancing. The Late Dancing event in the budget does not refer to usual informal events (they will still happen in one of the sleeping venues), but rather a programmed extra late night event.  We ran something very similar in 2003 and it was a great success.  The expect a number of local ticket sales for this one event (similar to 2003), however this time we have the added bonus of the Union promoting this event to local students.