Other sites link to “free fest budget templates” because a student convener will share anything that stops the committee arguing in a circle. This is that document, in the page, so you can copy it into a sheet or a doc. There is no separate file to download and no made-up total at the bottom. A budget that already has someone else’s prices in it is fiction. Yours should be empty until a vendor sends a quote.
The planning calendar around this money is the college fest playbook. The income side, if sponsors are part of the plan, is how to get sponsors.
How to use this
Copy the headings into a sheet. Add three columns: line, quote in rupees, who confirmed it. Do not type a number you heard in a meeting. Type a number that is in a message or a bill.
Add a second block for money in: college grant, ticket sales, stall fees, sponsorship. The fest can spend the lower of “money you have” and “money you have been promised in writing.” A sponsor who has not signed is not income.
Keep one contingency line at 10% of the spend you have already quoted. It is not a slush fund for a better artist. It is rain, a blown speaker, and an extra bus.
Copy this into your sheet
Permissions and campus
- Venue booking (auditorium, ground, labs) — often zero, sometimes a deposit
- Security deposit to the college
- Electricity or generator, if the college does not cover the ground
- Permissions outside campus (music, late hours), if you need them
Stage and production
- Stage, truss, backdrop
- Sound
- Lights
- LED wall, if you are actually using one
- Backup generator and the fuel for it
- Technician days, not just equipment
Artists and judges
- Artist or DJ fee
- Travel and stay
- Local judges’ honorarium
- Prize pool, listed per event so esports and cultural do not share one vague “prizes” number
Guest experience
- Food and water for volunteers
- Food for artists
- First aid
- Wristbands or badges, if you use them on top of QR tickets
- Signage and printing
Promotion
- Posters and flex, if you still print
- Photography and one recap video
- Leave paid ads at zero until someone has approved a number. Organic promotion is a separate plan: Instagram and WhatsApp
Ticketing
- Do not guess a platform fee in this sheet. Read it on the ticket you create. On Tunyt the defaults for a paid ticket are a 2.5% platform fee, a 2.5% payment-gateway fee, and 18% GST on the platform fee only. Free tickets are not charged a platform fee. The comparison notes are in fees compared honestly.
Contingency
- 10% of the quoted spend above
Money in
- College or department grant, only if approved
- Ticket sales: price × a conservative count, not a full house
- Stall or booth fees
- Sponsorship, only amounts in writing
Left over
- Money in, minus spend, minus contingency. If this is negative, cut a line before you announce the artist.
Rules that keep the sheet honest
- One owner. The treasurer edits. Everyone else sends quotes to the treasurer.
- No cash line without a name. “Misc” is where fest budgets go to hide.
- Update the sheet when a quote changes. The version in someone’s head is not the budget.
- Separate a department fest from an inter-college fest. They should not share one template filled with the other one’s artist fee.
- Ticket-sales income is what you have sold, not what you hope to sell. Until tickets are live, put a low count in the sheet.
The playbook’s rough bands — smaller club fests often landing between Rs. 50,000 and Rs. 2,00,000, large fests with a headline act going much higher — are only a sanity check. Your quotes override them.
After the fest
Replace quotes with what you actually paid. That sheet is the first page of next year’s budget, and it is the only reason a new convener does not start from zero. Pair it with the check-in count from the gate. Scans, not rumours: QR code tickets and event check-in.
Ready to put a real ticket line in the sheet?
Create the fest, set the ticket price, and use sales — not a guess — as income.