Dollars & Events: How to Succeed in the Special Events Business

The first and only book written specifically for aspiring and established special events professionals, Dollars and Events provides all the information you need to start, grow, and manage a special events-related business or career. You'll learn how to develop a vision, a mission, and a strategy; manage your finances; find the capital you need; create a marketing plan; and hire and keep employees that will help your business thrive.

You'll also find:

• Advice and direction from outstanding special events entrepreneurs and intrepreneurs
• Help in adapting proven business concepts such as benchmarking, best practices, and quality teams to your business or career
• End-of-chapter activities to help you learn by doing

In contrast, this book is a lot less useful if you're interested in developing your own public events (e.g. concerts, sporting events). There is minimal or no discussion of essential issues like sponsorship, ticket pricing or recruiting/managing volunteers. The discussion of marketing is limited to attracting clients and does not touch on recruiting an audience. There is, however, considerable overlap in the business issues. Since I haven't found a good coverage of that area elsewhere, I'd still recommend this book for you.


Too much for a beginner   August 11, 2001
16 out of 16 found this review helpful

This book is very technical and goes into a great depth of the "business" end of running your own company. It is not a good book for someone who's just beginning and just wants basic information about the event planning business in general. For my needs Affairs of the Heart by Nancy Gluck was a much more insightful book.


Dollars and Events   June 24, 2001
Linda Zellman (Tacoma, WA United States)
13 out of 13 found this review helpful

This is a good basic text for starting an event planning business. It includes step-by-step instructions for how to get started, manage the finacial end and maintain your edge in the business. There are lots of sample forms for everything from assessing your suitablility for this business to a sample contract. Throughout the book are anecdotes about people who succeeded at the particular element being discussed.

The book is well written and easy to understand. If gives a good idea of what to expect and what is expected. If you are considering a carreer in event planning, this is a good place to start.


Very good advice   October 13, 2000
Laura Aldrich (Troutdale, OR USA)
23 out of 25 found this review helpful

This book was not as I had expected, however once I got into it I realized that its content was very valuable. The authors offer up advice that no one would normally tell you and that you would have to find out on your own as a result of poor planning. Some of the material is technical but important to have a successful event planning business. Event planning is much more than picking floral arrangements and reviewing colors of swatches for table linens. This book allows you to taste the true business aspect of the world of event planning. A bargain at its price as it is less expensive than making future business mistakes!