Appendix B: Quick-Reference Cards
Every number this book uses, in one place.
📜 A warning that applies to all of it. Almost everything here is a Tier 2 planning figure — a starting point for a conversation with a supplier, not a specification. Prices, ratios, and norms vary by country, city, season, and year. The arithmetic transfers completely; the numbers transfer not at all.
And Chapter 39's convention applies to every figure below: write the unit and the assumption next to it.
89is not a number.89 — seated dinner @ 12 sq ftis.
B.1 Guest Count → Everything
| Guests | Rounds of 10 | Chairs | Bar staff | Loos (4–6 hr, alcohol) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50 | 5 | 55 | 1 | 1 |
| 80 | 8 | 88 | 1–2 | 2 |
| 100 | 10 | 110 | 2 | 2 |
| 150 | 15 | 165 | 2–3 | 2 |
| 200 | 20 | 220 | 3 | 3 |
| 300 | 30 | 330 | 4 | 4 |
| 400 | 40 | 440 | 5–6 | 6 |
Chairs at ~110% of guest count — ceremony seating, spares, and a cocktail-hour allowance. Chapter 29's finding: 100 dining seats is not 100 seats.
B.2 Space
| Configuration | sq ft per person |
|---|---|
| Theatre | 6–8 |
| Ceremony, chairs in rows | ~6 |
| Rounds, seated dinner | 12–15 |
| Classroom | 15–18 |
| U-shape | 30+ |
| Standing reception | 6–8 |
| Dance floor | 2–3 per dancing guest (~40% of guests at once) |
Circulation: 36 inches between table edges (Ch.11). A 26-inch gap is invisible on a drawing and is a wall to a wheelchair user.
Doorway: 32 inches clear minimum, 36 comfortable. Turning circle 60 inches. Any step is a barrier. (Ch.29)
Emergency lane: 4 m, unobstructed, nobody's overflow parking. (Ch.34)
B.3 The Money Formulas
All of them, in one place.
| Banquet multiplier | (1 + service) × (1 + tax). At 24% and 9%: 1.3516 |
| Cost of an hour | (take-home + tax + fixed costs) ÷ (hours worked × billable ratio) |
| Billable ratio | 35–50% year one · 55–65% established. Anybody claiming 90% is not counting something |
| Minimum viable fee | required revenue ÷ sellable Saturdays |
| Loss tolerance on a price rise | 1 − 1 ÷ (1 + rise) |
| True hourly cost of an event | (fee − event costs − share of fixed costs) ÷ all hours including pre-engagement |
| Per-client unbillable overhead | 12–18 hours, regardless of fee |
| Cost per acquisition | (cash + hours × your rate) ÷ bookings |
| Attrition damages | (threshold − pickup) × basis |
| Cost per dollar raised | total cost ÷ gross raised |
| Power | Σ loads × 1.25 diversity factor |
| Registration desks | (arrivals × seconds each) ÷ 3,600. 45 sec staffed, ~12 self-serve |
Loss tolerance, tabulated
| Price rise | Clients you can lose and hold revenue |
|---|---|
| +10% | 9.1% |
| +20% | 16.7% |
| +30% | 23.1% |
| +40% | 28.6% |
| +50% | 33.3% |
| +100% | 50.0% |
B.4 Timing Rules of Thumb
| Ceremony | 20–35 min. The failure is always addition (Ch.20) |
| Cocktail hour | 60–90 min. 90 needs somewhere to sit |
| Dinner, plated, 3 courses | 75–105 min |
| Dinner, family style | 60–90 min |
| Speeches | 4 min each, and they will be 7 |
| Everything complete | 45 min before guests arrive (Ch.13) |
| Conference session, one mode | 50–60 min ceiling (Ch.31) |
| 400 people between rooms | 12–15 min; 20 with one corridor |
| Conference break | 20 min minimum, 30 with a queue. A 15-minute break starts the next session late |
| Photography, family combinations | 3–4 min each (Ch.23) |
| Golden hour | the 60 min before sunset |
B.5 Production and Build
| 53-ft trailer, at a dock | 4 crew, 45–90 min |
| 53-ft trailer, tail-lift, no dock | 4 crew, 2–4 hours |
| Strike | 40–60% of build time. Everybody plans 25% |
| Minimum crew call | ~4 hours |
| Turnaround between calls | 8–10 hours |
| Meal rule | within ~5 hrs of call; penalty per half-hour per person |
| 400 chairs set | 2 crew, 60–75 min |
| 40 rounds set and dressed | 4 crew, 2–3 hours |
| Breakout room, standard AV | 2 crew, 45 min per room |
| AV, 400-person 3-day event | $93,000–175,000 |
| Overnight reset, multi-day | 90–180 min, fresh crew |
B.6 Consumption
Bar, per person, over a 4–5 hour event (Ch.15 — and Chapter 15 states plainly that this model has no published evidence base)
| First hour | Each hour after | |
|---|---|---|
| Drinks per drinking guest | 2 | 1 |
| Not drinking | 15–25% of any room | |
| Ice | 1.5 lb per guest, more in heat | |
| Wine | 5 glasses per 750 ml bottle |
Catering: over-preparation of 10–20% is standard and is both a cost and a waste stream (Ch.14, 35).
Water at an outdoor ceremony: a station, from 45 min before, ~$34 for 100. (Ch.29)
B.7 Power
| Approx. draw | |
|---|---|
| Catering hot box | 1,500–2,000 W each |
| Coffee urn | 1,000–1,500 W |
| Commercial fridge | 300–800 W |
| DJ rig | 1,000–2,000 W |
| Festoon, 200 ft LED | 100–250 W |
| Uplighter, LED | 10–30 W each |
| Small PA | 300–600 W |
| LED wall, conference scale | 10,000–30,000 W |
Method: enumerate · sum · × 1.25 · size the supply above it. AV on its own leg (Ch.34). Backup with automatic transfer, or it is eleven minutes of darkness.
B.8 Sustainability
| kg CO₂e | |
|---|---|
| Long-haul return flight, per person | 1,800–3,500 |
| Short-haul return flight, per person | 300–500 |
| Car, 200 km round trip, per vehicle | 34–48 |
| Rail, per passenger-km | ~0.04 |
| Beef main, per serving | 5–7 |
| Chicken main | 1.5–2.5 |
| Vegetarian main | 0.5–1.5 |
| Hotel room-night | 10–30 |
| Disposable plastic fork | 0.01–0.02 |
One transatlantic guest ≈ 400 beef dinners ≈ 150,000 forks.
Sanitation: 1 per 100–120 (≤4 hrs, no alcohol) · 1 per 75 (4–6 hrs with alcohol) · 1 per 50–60 (over 6 hrs or multi-day, plus servicing) · ≥5% accessible.
B.9 Pricing and Business
| Full planning | 10–20% of budget, or a flat fee |
| Enquiry → booking conversion | 20–35% year one |
| Warm venue referral → booking | ~35% |
| Destination guest conversion | ~52% of invited, vs ~87% domestic |
| Payment processing | 2.5–3.5% of everything |
| Runway before leaving employment | 3–6 months of personal + business burn, less contracted work |
| CPA: relationships | ~$278 |
| CPA: past-client referrals | ~$91 |
| CPA: Instagram, with hours costed | ~$4,080 |
Gratuity ranges (US-shaped, and among the most regionally variable figures in this book — check the service charge first, and ask whether it reaches staff): bartenders $20–50 each or 10% of the bar** · delivery crews **$5–20 each · hair and makeup 15–25% · DJ/band $50–150 per person** · officiant **a donation, often $50–150 · photographer and planner: usually not, if they own the business.
B.10 The Fifteen Rules
Everything this book would put on one card.
- Surface it early. The cost of a problem rises with the month it is found in.
- Write the unit next to the number.
89 — seated dinner @ 12 sq ft. - An unassigned task is an unhappened task — and one owner, not two.
- Delay is directional. Ask what is waiting before you react.
- A rain plan is five things, not a sentence.
- Late with no contact is treated as absent. Starting is reversible; waiting is not.
- Ask, do not provide — and never ask anybody to describe themselves.
- Anything announced is also printed.
- The absence of complaints is evidence of nothing.
- A debrief that produces only praise has failed. Go first.
- You are pricing your capacity, not the event.
- You market to the people who get asked, not to couples.
- A finding gets an owner and a due date, or it is not logged.
- A plan is tested by removing something — and the thing most worth removing is you.
- Decide what you will not do.