BSides Belfast is a Voluntarily operated Community Interest Company, and while we have statutory requirements to file accounts with Companies House each year, the board feels it’s important to provide the Community a (hopefully) Interesting view into the running of the Company and the Conference.
This is not a statutory report like a charities commission statement, but a practical and pragmatic view at what it costs to run BSides Belfast, where that money comes from and where it goes.
There may be rounding or categorical ‘adjustments’ that might not stand up to actuarial scrutiny and might not match the numbers on companies house exactly (we have accountants for that), but this is how the board thinks about the conference from day to day
The Summary
BSides 2024 cost £45k to operate, raised £46k from Sponsors (£41k) and Ticket Revenue (£5.5k), and paid £2k tax on retained revenue from the previous year.
Those 15 sponsors consisted of 1 ‘Diamond’ (£5k), 5 ‘Platinum’ (£3k), 5 ‘Gold’ (£2k) and 4 ‘Silver’ (£1k). No sponsors stepped forward for the (then) new add-ons for Accessibility / Childcare sponsorships (£2k ea), nor for the After Party sponsorship (£5k). (Even though we still operated these facilities/events)
There were 648 tickets issued; of those were:
- 530 Attendees
- 73 Exhibitors/Sponsors
- 21 Speakers
- 8 Organisers
- 8 Volunteers
- 8 Tickets gifted to various community groups for prizes not operated by BSides Belfast
On a ‘per attendee’ basis, the most expensive line item Costs were
- Coffee Breaks (£16/head),
- Lunchtime Catering (£10.83/head),
- Venue hire (£10/head).
On a ‘per attendee’ basis, Revenue from
- Ticket Sales was £9.10/head;
- Sponsorship was £68.33/head.
The Numbers
Below is the ‘highlights’ of our accounts for Conference-to-conference costs (i.e. not our financial reporting years)
| Revenue | FY 23 | Cost Per Attendee | FY24 | Cost Per Attendee | |
| Sponsorship | £41,000.00 | £82.00 | £41,000.00 | £68.33 | |
| Tickets | £3,520.00 | £7.04 | £5,460.00 | £9.10 | |
| Total | £44,520.00 | £89.04 | £46,460.00 | £77.43 | |
Costs
| Ticket Handling | Ticket Refunds | -£10.00 | -£0.02 | -£150.00 | -£0.25 |
| Payment Fees | -£119.46 | -£0.24 | -£176.41 | -£0.29 | |
| Ticket Handling Fees | -£87.68 | -£0.18 | -£136.87 | -£0.23 | |
| CFP/Scheduling | -£101.82 | -£0.20 | -£97.98 | -£0.16 | |
| Xero Fees | -£201.60 | -£0.40 | -£217.20 | -£0.36 |
| Merchandise | Speaker/Org Hoodies | -£1,707.00 | -£3.41 | -£1,024.20 | -£1.71 |
| Crew Tees | -£271.32 | -£0.54 | -£266.88 | -£0.44 | |
| Attendee Tees | -£3,150.00 | -£6.30 | -£4,284.00 | -£7.14 | |
| Lanyards | -£691.50 | -£1.38 | -£612.00 | -£1.02 | |
| Bags | -£660.00 | -£1.32 | -£1,980.00 | -£3.30 | |
| Challenge Coins | -£813.60 | -£1.63 | -£915.30 | -£1.53 | |
| Pop-up banners / Lectern | -£984.00 | -£1.97 | -£542.40 | -£0.90 | |
| Brochure & badges | -£1,781.74 | -£3.56 | -£3,032.40 | -£5.05 |
| Venue Costs | Hire | -£2,600.00 | -£5.20 | -£6,000.00 | -£10.00 |
| Coffee Breaks | -£5,000.00 | -£10.00 | -£9,600.00 | -£16.00 | |
| Main Meal | -£10,000.00 | -£20.00 | -£6,500.00 | -£10.83 |
| Speaker Costs | Speaker/Org Hotels | -£1,488.00 | -£2.98 | -£1,621.68 | -£2.70 |
| After Party Costs | Hire | -£200.00 | -£0.40 | -£1,200.00 | -£2.00 |
| Bar Tab | -£2,000.00 | -£4.00 | -£3,000.00 | -£5.00 | |
| Wristbands | -£15.00 | -£0.03 | -£15.00 | -£0.03 |
| Admin | Insurance | -£178.00 | -£0.36 | -£178.00 | -£0.30 |
| Tax | -£1,000.00 | -£2.00 | -£2,059.03 | -£3.43 | |
| Accountant | -£1,000.00 | -£2.00 | -£1,200.00 | -£2.00 | |
| Hosting | -£200.00 | -£0.40 | -£200.00 | -£0.33 |
| Total | -£36,260.72 | -£72.52 | -£45,009.35 | -£75.02 | |
| Net Income | |||||
| Income | £44,520.00 | £89.04 | £46,460.00 | £77.43 | |
| Costs of Business | -£36,260.72 | -£72.52 | -£45,009.35 | -£75.02 | |
| Balance | £8,259.28 | £16.52 | £1,450.65 | £2.42 | |
| Attendees | 500 | 600 | ||
2024 -> 2025
While the sponsorship window has not yet closed in 2025; we’re observing a significant downturn in sponsor contributions, from an estimate of ~£40k down to a current total of £24k.
We maintained the sponsor levels but updated the names for consistency, so we have 5 “Giga” (£3k), 3 “Mega” (£2k) and 1 “Kilo” (£1k?) sponsor. No-one has so far stepped up to the “Tera” (£5k), AfterParty (£5k), or Childcare (£2k) sponsorships.
As such it’s very likely that we’ll have to look at reducing costs from big ticket items like the number of coffee breaks and reduction in provision for lunch, as these have been the largest costs.
We also eliminated Bags/Lanyards from sponsorship, as due to increased supplier costs they were revenue-negative from a sponsorship perspective, as well as being very wasteful, leaving us with boxes of branded lanyards and bags that could never be reused due to being tied to one ‘brand’ that may or may not continue their commitment to us in following years.
Additionally, we made the General Admission tickets ‘Donation Suggested’ with a base lifted from the Early Bird’s £10/head to £20/head. This continues our obligation and commitment to making sure the barrier to entry for participating in the conference is as open as possible, without compromising the quality of the conference overall.
Thanks to revenue retention from previous years, the board is comfortable with the financial position of the company and we’re already looking forward to 2026 (once we’re done with 2025!)
Next Steps
This is our first bash at this kind of ‘financial transparency report’, and for next year, we plan to put this kind of short report out with the results of the next conference retrospective meeting, probably in November. Let us know what you liked, didn’t like, or missed from this report and we’ll factor it in for next time!
Cheers
Andrew Bolster
Treasurer