We Help Events Run on Realistic Numbers
Since 2019, we've worked with event organizers across Australia who need honest financial planning instead of overly optimistic spreadsheets that fall apart when vendors send their quotes.
How We Got Here
Started by someone who watched too many community events fail because the budget looked great until reality showed up.
2019
The Beginning
Cassidy Thornborough was coordinating a music festival in regional NSW when she realized most budget templates assume everything goes to plan. Spoiler: nothing ever does. She built a different kind of planning tool that accounts for the chaos.
2021
Growth Through Reality
After helping dozens of events survive their actual costs, we formalized our approach. Turns out event organizers appreciate financial planning that doesn't assume vendors will give discounts or that volunteers will cover everything.
2024-2025
Where We Are Now
Working with corporate events, community festivals, and everything between. Our budgets might look less exciting than others, but they tend to match what actually happens when the event day arrives.
What Matters to Us
These aren't corporate values written for a website. They're what we actually do when you're trying to figure out if your event can afford both good catering and decent sound equipment.
Honest Numbers
We won't tell you the budget works when it doesn't. Sometimes the answer is "you need more money" or "this part needs to be smaller." Better to know now than three weeks before the event.
Practical Focus
Every event has different priorities. Some need to look impressive, others need to break even, some are about community impact. We help you spend money on what actually matters for your specific situation.
Clear Communication
Financial planning has too much jargon already. We explain things in normal language and show you exactly where the money goes, so you can make informed decisions instead of just trusting our spreadsheet.
Our Process
How We Build Budgets That Survive Contact with Reality
Most event budgets are optimistic fiction. We build ones that account for vendor price increases, last-minute changes, and the fact that "roughly" in event planning usually means "more expensive than you thought."
- Start with what you actually need, not what would be nice to have
- Get real quotes from vendors before finalizing numbers
- Build in contingency for the things that always come up
- Create scenarios so you can make decisions when costs change
- Track actual spending against the plan throughout
The People Behind the Spreadsheets
Small team. We've all organized events ourselves, which means we know the difference between budget line items and what actually happens when you're setting up at six in the morning.
Cassidy Thornborough
Founder & Lead Planner
Spent five years coordinating regional festivals before realizing the budget templates everyone used were fundamentally broken. Built something better. Still occasionally has nightmares about catering quotes arriving three days before an event.
Declan Rafferty
Event Finance Specialist
Former accountant who got tired of reconciling event budgets after they'd already gone wrong. Joined in 2022 to help prevent disasters instead of documenting them. Believes contingency funds should be mandatory, not optional.
Let's Talk About Your Event Numbers
Whether you're planning your first community event or your twentieth corporate function, we can help you build a budget that actually works. No sales pitch, just honest conversation about whether we're a good fit for what you need.