Most fest teams price by looking at what they charged last year and adding a bit. That is not unreasonable, but it hides the two mistakes that actually sink a budget: pricing off the wrong base, and forgetting that the fee comes out of the number on the pass, not off the top of the budget.
Start from the gap, not from last year
Write down three numbers before you write down a price.
- Total cost. Artist fee, sound and light, stage, security, permissions, hospitality, printing, prize money, contingency. Put a real contingency in — ten percent is about right, and it will get used.
- Money that is not ticket money. Sponsorship, college grant, department contributions, stall fees. This is usually the largest single input and the least certain.
- The gap. Cost minus the above. That is what tickets have to cover, and it is the only number pricing should start from.
Then divide the gap by a conservative attendance estimate — not your optimistic one. If you sold six thousand last year, price against five. A fest that hits its optimistic number and breaks even is a fest that loses money in any ordinary year.
The fee comes out of the pass price
This is the arithmetic organisers get wrong most often. If you charge ₹500 and your platform takes 4% plus GST, you do not receive ₹500. You receive roughly ₹476.
Across eight thousand passes that is about ₹1.9 lakh — usually more than the contingency line the team argued about for an hour. So either build the fee into the price from the start, or show it separately at checkout, but do not discover it after you have set the number.
Be careful comparing providers here. A quoted "2%" that sits on top of a separate payment gateway charge of 2% plus GST is more expensive than an all-in 4% plus GST. Ask what the student's ₹500 actually turns into in your account, and compare that one figure.
Split the pass so the price fits the buyer
A single price for everyone is simple and leaves money on the table at both ends. Three tiers covers most fests:
- Internal season pass. Your own students, cheapest. They are subsidising nothing and they already pay a college fee; treat this as close to cost.
- External season pass. Other colleges, higher. They travel for it, they are less price-sensitive, and they are the audience sponsorship decks care about.
- Day pass. Priced so that buying two days costs clearly more than a season pass. If it does not, the season pass has no reason to exist.
The headliner night is the special case. It is what a large share of buyers actually want, and pricing it as just another day pass is the single most common way fests underprice themselves. A separate, higher pro-night price is normal and students expect it.
Keep event registration cheap or free
Competitions and workshops are not a revenue line for most fests; they are the reason the fest has a reputation. Price them to cover materials and to stop no-shows, not to make money. A ₹50 registration cuts casual no-shows dramatically while costing you nothing in participation.
Early bird, done properly
An early price is worth running, but for cash flow rather than for revenue. You need money before you owe the artist, and an early tier gets it to you.
Two rules. Make the discount real — ten percent does not move anybody, twenty-five does. And make it end on a date, not on a quantity, unless you are willing to actually close it when the quantity is hit. An early tier that gets quietly extended twice teaches your students that the deadline is fictional, and next year nobody buys early.
A worked example
Costs ₹28 lakh. Sponsorship and grant ₹16 lakh. The gap is ₹12 lakh. Conservative attendance, five thousand paid passes.
That is ₹240 per pass received, on average. At an all-in 4% plus GST, the average pass has to be priced at about ₹252. Split across tiers, with three-quarters of buyers internal:
- Internal season ₹199
- External season ₹399
- Day pass ₹149, pro night ₹299
Run that mix back through your own attendance split before committing. If the answer only works when external sales are unusually strong, the price is too low.
Publish the things students will ask
Whatever you decide, put three things in writing before sales open: what the pass includes, what it does not, and whether refunds exist. "No refunds, transfers allowed until the day before" is a perfectly good policy. Silence is not, and it will cost you a day of arguments you could have avoided with two sentences.