You may remember that Back in June Chancellor George Osborne announced the Budget for 2010. One of the key headlines concerned an increase to the VAT rate.

George Osborne said:

"On 4th January next year, the main rate of VAT will rise from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent. This single tax measure will by the end of this Parliament generate over £13bn a year of extra revenues. That is £13bn we don't have to find from extra spending cuts or income tax rises."

So what does this mean for events managers? Well the first thing to do is to check if any of your current or upcoming events may be affected. If you have an event sign-up period with priced tickets or options that crosses from this year into next you will need to decide if you are going to continue to run VAT at the same rate throughout the event, or if you are going to need it to change at the same time as the rates switch in January.

Either way, if you manage your events in Symphony event management software this isn’t a problem. You can change VAT rates in Symphony on an event by event basis, so you can set the VAT rate on each event to whatever you like, or log back into your event and change your VAT rate whilst the event is in progress. So, even if you do have VAT rates to change on your events come January, with Symphony you can enjoy your New Year celebrations without a worry!

A few years ago, after a great deal of peer group pressure, I entered myself into a 10 kilometre run. A couple of so called “friends”, who had previously done a race or two, informed me that both the training and the run would bring me a tremendous sense of achievement and pride, as well as the obvious benefits to my health and fitness.

Having previously maintained a strict avoidance policy towards anything even vaguely resembling a fitness club, and believing “jogging” to be a cruel and malicious word, I was of course completely unconvinced by these arguments. In fact I flatly refused to take part until one of my friends deviously proclaimed “...but it’s for charity”. To refuse now would confirm that as well as being overweight, lazy and scared, I was so mean, self-centred and stupid that I could refuse to go through a little discomfort which, as well as being of enormous benefit for myself, might also be of some benefit to others less fortunate to.

Cruel, cruel world! I had been skilfully outmanoeuvred by my friends, and now I had to try and manoeuvre my unwilling mind and body to start my horrific training schedule.
I had about four months to the big day to try and get in shape, and of course it was hell. The first couple of times I couldn’t run more than about a 100 metres without virtually being sick (I kid you not), and the thought of having to do 100 more of these 100 metres without stopping, was as painful as it was depressing.

Somehow though I persevered, going a little further each time, until a month before the race I was managing to do about 3.5 km. A couple of weeks later I had managed to double this, and three days before the big day I ran 10k for the first time.

On the day itself it was a synch. In fact I breezed through it. And yes, of course my friends had been spot on - I felt absolutely fantastic! I had never been so fit in my life, I had lost loads of weight, and I felt very proud of myself.

The sad thing was though, I let it all slip. I hardly went running at all for the next couple of years and was soon back to my old lazy ways again. I did try to do another 10k earlier this year but I didn’t train much and I had to walk half of the course. I was so disappointed with this weak effort that I have since entered myself into yet another 10k, and this time thankfully I have been training properly.

So what has any of this got to do with Event Management software? Well, whilst I was out running the other night it occurred to me that managing an event is a lot like preparing for a 10k. You have the big day of course but the real work is done in the preparation. And if you don’t put the work in you will fail, just like I did last time.

The thing is there is no easy way to get fit, whereas Symphony does actually make the build up to your event a whole lot easier. In fact it does half of the work for you. It automatically records all of your attendees’ registration details, closes full workshops and accommodation, and will even e-mail you reports without you having to lift a finger.

If only there was something like Symphony that could do half of my 10k training for me!

The upcoming 10k is in Sheffield in September, and Richard, Jess and Darren from the Symphony team are also taking part – so wish us all luck! We’ll let you know how we get on.