Kirsty Lewis has a meltdown about the numbers for her facilitation festival, despite amazing plans

Well we have made it to March 1st and that date is exactly 100 days until the start of SOFest 2025.

My name is Kirsty Lewis, and in June 2024 I decided to create a festival for facilitators, trainers, coaches and consultants because there isn’t an event where we can come together to connect, learn and restore.  TJ has given me the opportunity to share with you monthly what it takes to create a festival, what the journey is like and how it is going.

Like all mad ideas there are the highs and lows. February had its fair share of both.

In February we launched the Impact Partner Tickets. Excitingly, someone bought a ticket on the launch day. That felt great. 

The Community Partner tickets were launched.  

There are lots of great communities of facilitators and trainers in the UK and they are sharing the love of SOFest.  

• The Trainers Training Company – helping freelance trainers create successful businesses
  
  
• LnD Free Spirits – where the spirit of learning meets the freedom of freelancing
  
  
• The Training Designers Club – real world support for busy L&D professionals
  
  
• Accelerando – break through bottlenecks that are holding back your training business

If you are a part of one of these communities and are thinking of coming to SOFest, go ask for the discount code and you’ll get £100 off the ticket price.

Sitting pretty

Four businesses have asked for conversations to explore sponsorship packages and two sponsors came on board. There is a great low cost sponsorship called View from the Loo. Brands can put a poster on the back of the toilet doors and above the urinals. Thank you for believing – Kim Ellis from LnD Free Spirits and Mark Williams from Giraffe Pad.

We have our final speaker confirmed, Victor Sosanya is joining us to talk about Generation Z. He is a 24 year old facilitator bringing a new way of working to the field. Victor is going to share insights into what Generation Z wants from learning and how to work with them.

One more awesome workshop confirmed. It will be hosted by Remi Baker from The Third Chapter confirmed that she will host a workshop which will invite us to think about what we are planning to do as we ease our way towards the latter part of our careers.  

It’s only 10%, right?

As you have read, lots of really exciting moments happened in February. There were also some tough realisations.

We realised that the catering people had misquoted and missed off the final day lunch! This new cost was added to the spreadsheet. At the same time other costs started to become solidified. And whilst they were within the estimates they were all around 10% more. I was hoping some would come in under.

On Friday 28th February, mid-afternoon I decided to look at our spreadsheet of awesomeness. There is one number I am keeping an eye on and that’s the amount of cash needed to break even. At the start of February that number was around £28,000. With the impact tickets, confirmed sponsorship and additional speakers and workshop hosts I could see the number slowly getting lower. It was around £24,000. That felt good.

Back to Friday 28th… I was looking at the spreadsheet and something felt off. I checked that all the numbers were pulling through… and they weren’t. I fixed it and guess what? The number went back up to £28,500.

FFS. It felt like groundhog day. And then a wall of emotion hit me. I couldn’t see all the great stuff that had happened in February only that there was a £28,500 gap which if left unfilled would require creative accounting from me plus a real possibility of borrowing the money.

If you follow me on Linkedin you may have seen the video where I shared the moment I realised the financial error. I had a melt down.

So this is where we find ourselves, my friends. Everything is looking great with the SOFest program. More amazing speakers and workshop hosts, impact partners are coming forwards as are potential sponsors, and I continue to work on closing the gap.

The Numbers

Speakers confirmed	10
Workshop Hosts confirmed	14
Media Partner	1
Early bird tickets sold	36 (2 people have deferred to 2026)
General sale tickets sold	3
Birthday tickets	2
Impact partners	2
Sponsors	2
Total running costs including contingency	£114,000
Current income	£65,852
Net Profit	-£48,148

Let’s see what March brings!

As ever, thank you for your support, messages, and ideas.

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