An operator's publication
Run your venue like the spreadsheet it actually is.
Venue Economics is a numbers-first publication for people who own — or want to own — banquet halls, wedding venues, and rentable event spaces in the US and Canada. No hype, no "six-figure secrets." Just the arithmetic of one event, multiplied.
Illustrative worked example · the break-even walkthrough
§ How we write
Your numbers, not "the average"
We publish frameworks with blanks for you to fill in. We do not invent industry averages — if you see a number in a worked example, it's a labeled assumption, not data.
One event at a time
Every venue business is a stack of single events. If you can't write the P&L of one Saturday, the annual projection is fiction with more rows.
Operator's-eye view
Written from the loading dock, not the pitch deck: turnover hours, broken chairs, chargebacks, and the deposit ledger that quietly isn't your money.
Research library
Choose the decision in front of you.
13 briefs organized into 6 sections. Each section has its own complete index.
Starting a venueThe capital fork, the startup ledger, the plans lenders read, and the cash mechanics of year one.
03 briefs
02
Per-event economicsThe P&L of one booking: contribution, pricing structure, labor, discounts, and the anti-revenue lines.
03 briefs
03
The booking calendarDates are the inventory. Scarcity, utilization, pace, lead times, holds, deposits, and the dead season.
02 briefs
04
Operations & turnoverThe machine between events: turnover, crews, cleaning, vendors, admin overhead, and the utility baseline.
01 briefs
05
The assetThe building and everything in it is being consumed: wear, reserves, capex, insurance, and tax mechanics.
02 briefs
06
Growth decisionsSecond rooms, in-house catering, repricing, managers, exits — the decisions that change the whole ledger.
02 briefs
Working tools
Put your figures in.
Three hand-built calculators. The defaults match the illustrative examples; overwrite every field with your own venue.
§ Start here
New to the venue business — or new to treating it like one? Read The Per-Event P&L first; every other article builds on it. Then run your own figures through the break-even calculator to see how many events a month your fixed costs actually demand.