Greetings from Ignite Towers. This is our serious face. We need to talk to you today about an important and sensitive subject. No don’t worry it’s not the birds and the bees, if you want to know about that ask Neil or Adrian, I’m sure they won’t mind. Instead we need to talk about the dirtiest of all subjects when it comes to community events…. money, or more accurately the lack of it. Since it’s inception a few years ago Ignite has grown massively. So have the costs and the work involved. None of the organisers get paid to work on Ignite Liverpool and worse it’s actually costing some of us money just to put it on. That’s not sustainable in the long run and we need to find a solution.
If you’ve ever come along to join us you’ll know just how big the event has become. It’s always packed with people and we love that, we love seeing people enjoy themselves and learn a thing or two. We do have the Patreon income and some other donations but unfortunately it just doesn’t cover the costs of running something on this scale.
I believe it was Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson who once sang “the best things in life are free” but they just aren’t and we prefer to heed the words of local boys The Beatles, who wisely followed up with “you can keep them for the birds and bees, so give me money!”, that is indeed what we want. Why though I hear you ask, what costs money and how much?
Running Costs
When Ignite Liverpool started a few years ago I don’t think any of us could have envisioned how it would explode in popularity. At one time all we needed was a room big enough to hold 30 people and a small projector, there wasn’t much work to do between events and life was rosy. Fast forward to today and it’s become a large production with many people working on it. We have lights, cameras, sound equipment, projectors, screens, laptops, 4G modems and a whole lot more. Not to mention the website, social media, hosting and all the other ongoing costs. So let’s break it down.
Per event:
- Video guy (including editing work post event): £200
- Video tapes: £15
- Sound Engineer from the venue: £80
- Photocopying posters and the like: £50
- Sundries £20
4 events per year equals: £1460
Add to that the annual web development and hosting costs: £125
Grand total £1585 per year.
A couple of the organisers also do 4 days unpaid admin work between each event. This obviously takes away time they could be earning money and adds up to about £3200 donations in kind per year! These might not sound like massive figures but they do have a significant impact.
Taking this into account we’re looking at a minimum of £500 per event.
So What’s The Solution?
Well that’s a good question and one we haven’t been able to definitively answer yet ourselves, despite ongoing discussions. We want to cover the costs but we’d also like to have the means to improve, get better equipment and really take Ignite Liverpool to the next level.
Ignite has always been free to attend – though some people kindly buy donation tickets or chip in with money on the night – and we’d like to avoid paid tickets only if we can. We have considered merchandising, selling advertising space, sponsorship and other solutions but as yet nothing has stuck.
So if you attend Ignite regularly, if you love it, we’d like to ask for your suggestions on how we can get the balance sheet back in the black and also develop further.
Do you know someone who would be interested in sponsoring us? Do you have another idea perhaps? Maybe you’d be willing to volunteer and help us out. It’s all welcome.
Consider supporting us on Patreon if you don’t already and you can spare the cash – https://www.patreon.com/igniteliv
Whatever it is please let us know. Leave comments, get in touch via email or social media and together I’m sure we can find an answer.
Thank you for reading this, please spread the word and we can fix this situation together. We appreciate your support :-)
Team Ignite
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