How I lost £25,000 running a successful conference

This post isn't meant as a request for pity, or linking to a GoFundMe. The purpose of this post is to show some of the behind the scenes of what it takes to put on a conference and specifically, the financial cost in doing so.

When the tickets for the ServerSide.swift conference went on sale a few weeks ago I got a few comments about the price increases. In truth, the price increases should have happened last year but that's an (expensive) lesson for me to learn. I didn't budget correctly and it left me making a loss of around £25,000 😳!

The iOS world (and for better or worse, the server-side Swift world) is a strange place for conferences. Almost every single conference out there is predominantly based on community, run by community members for community members. No one is getting into running conferences in the iOS world to make money. The result - a huge number of amazing conferences that are a joy to attend! We're so incredibly lucky to have a lot of conferences that are relatively cheap to attend and incredibly welcoming. (The mass of European conferences compared to the rest of the world is an interesting trend which I won't delve into).

Compared to the wider tech world, iOS conferences are definitely an outlier. Most other tech conferences are a lot more expensive, regularly running into 4 figures. Because they're expensive to run! So to demonstrate, here are the rough cost breakdowns for 2024:

Venue

The venue hire was £27.5k for both the days. In our case that thankfully includes security staff to let people in, direct everyone, fire safety, cleaners, everyone it takes to make the venue go smoothly. Also in our case, we have to use suppliers that have a working relationship with the venue. This is primarily to make it easy to coordinate everything and work amongst the venue restrictions that has limited access, certain technical requirements (like an IMAX screen) and is also open to the public usually.

It does however mean the competition is not as deep and we can't just order 200 pizzas from the local pizza joint. The cost also includes things like early access on the first day for load in for the suppliers and the team to ensure we’re ready with breakfast for when doors open.

Catering

The biggest single expense for the conference is catering, which in 2024 cost about £30k, around £100/person/day. £200 of the ticket cost is already eaten up (no pun intended) by the catering cost. And we know to guesstimate numbers 6 weeks in advance so they can ensure they have everything ready. And that's a huge amount of money! But it does include food, chefs, tables and all the staff to serve everything, which is not an insignificant cost.

AV

Finally the third big expense is the AV team who handle cameras, recording, interfacing with the IMAX, microphones, mix desk etc. and all the people required to make sure the tech aspects of the conference run smoothly. The cost for them last year was about £12k.

Misc

And then you have all the expenses you might not consider - T-shirts (£2k), hotels for us and speakers (~£4k), travel for speakers (~£3k), speakers dinner (£500), and then all the little things you forget like site visits, stickers, lanyards and badges (which can get expensive!), tubes to travel around between venue and suppliers, even insurance to cover the conference if someone gets hurt during the conference.

London

Now some of the expense is plainly because we're in London, one of the most expensive cities in the world. We’re lucky having a great venue which is significantly cheaper than some of the other quotes I received, because it’s a public museum.

We could move to another place, but conferences need to be easy to get to usually so people can travel to it and hosting it in London where there are already a lot of companies makes it easier for them to send people. Which means more tickets sold. So it’s a balancing act of where to host the conference. So we could choose an area with cheaper costs but chances are the numbers would take a significant hit.

Total Bill

So the total bill was about £80,000. A blip compared to the likes of Google IO, WWDC or re:Invent but as an individual organising it more than a well-paid job! With tickets ranging from £250-£425 last year, which translated to about £220-£320 of actual income once you factor in VAT and Tito/stripe costs. That’s a lot of tickets to sell to break even. I’m very lucky to have incredibly supportive sponsors but it’s easy to see how you can make a loss on a conference. And remember, I don’t take a penny of income out of the conference, despite the many, many hours of time dedicated to it. If I can break even then it’s a good advertisement for me, which is the business justification for running it. It should in theory drive more consultancy to Broken Hands.

What Can You Do?

So what can you do? Support your community conferences! Buy tickets. Encourage your company to use training budgets to send staff (it’s far cheaper than a recruiter). Consider sponsoring—there are options for every size of business. Whether you’re recruiting locally or promoting a product, it’s one of the most cost-effective ways to support the community you benefit from. We have a lot of really awesome conferences and as someone who’s been to almost all of them, they are all great.

The Rewards

Finally, I should mention the flip side - the rewards of running a conference are immense. The buzz around the conference and seeing your hard work come together and people enjoying something you put on is a great feeling. The connections formed, the friendships, and the knowledge shared are all worth it. Seeing people leave inspired, with new ideas and new friends, is what makes it all worthwhile, which is why me, and many others, keep doing it year after year.