How to start an event planning business in 2026

Why start an event planning business in the UK?

Whether it's a product launch for 500 people, a wedding in the Cotswolds, or a charity gala in a London townhouse, someone has to make it happen.

That person is increasingly a dedicated professional with specialist experience – and the demand for that expertise is growing.

A market that keeps expanding

The UK event planning industry is currently valued at £2.4 billion, with over 5,500 businesses operating across the country and consistent growth averaging 9.2% per year since 2020.

On the corporate side, the broader business events sector generated £11.5 billion in economic output in 2024. That creates genuine opportunities for new entrants, particularly those willing to specialise and deliver reliably.

You don't need much to get started

The barriers to starting an events company are relatively low.

You don't need premises, heavy equipment, or a degree. Most planners launch from home with a laptop, a phone, and a talent for organisation, project management, and communication. The investment is more about time and reputation than capital.

Liz Taylor is probably the best-known UK example of what that can lead to. She founded the Taylor Lynn Corporation in Manchester with £200 in the bank, after a chance encounter in a hotel lobby landed her first corporate client.

Three decades later, TLC is one of the most recognised event management firms in the country – having planned events for the BBC, royalty, and Coronation Street's 50th anniversary – and Liz went on to appear as Channel 4's "Millionaire Party Planner".

What is event planning, and what are some different business models?

Event planning is the process of organising, coordinating, and delivering events from concept to completion. That covers everything from initial client briefings and budgeting through to venue sourcing, supplier management, logistics, and on-the-day coordination.

The day-to-day work varies depending on the type of events you plan. Most planners spend their time across a mix of client communication, supplier negotiations, timeline management, and creative problem-solving.

It's a role that rewards organisation, attention to detail, and the ability to stay calm when things go sideways – because at some point, they will.

If you're exploring how to become an event planner, it really is a mix of hard and soft skills, with communication and the ability to fulfil a vision at the forefront.

Different types of event planning businesses

Event planning covers a wide range of work, and the type of events you focus on will shape your pricing, your marketing, and the suppliers you work with. Here are the core choices:

• Weddings – full planning, partial planning, and day-of coordination for couples. This is the most common entry point for new planners, with strong demand year-round and particularly between April and October. Multicultural weddings are a fast-growing segment.
• Corporate events – conferences, product launches, away days, awards dinners, and team-building. Contract sizes tend to be larger, but clients often expect demonstrable experience and insurance before booking.
• Private parties – big birthdays, anniversaries, engagement parties, baby showers. These are usually shorter lead-time jobs with smaller budgets, but they build your portfolio quickly and generate word-of-mouth referrals.
• Charity and fundraising events – galas, auctions, fun runs, community events. Budgets can be tight, but the networking opportunities and profile-building value are considerable.
• Festivals and public events – food festivals, markets, outdoor concerts, community celebrations. These involve more complex logistics, licensing, and health and safety planning, but can be highly rewarding once you have the experience to manage them confidently.

In most cases, at the beginning, specialism in one niche is a smart move. Most planners start with one or two types and expand as their network and confidence grow.

How to start an event planning business step by step

The process of setting up an event planning business follows a fairly predictable path. The steps below cover everything from choosing a niche through to scaling up – in roughly the order you'll need to tackle them.

Step 1: Choose your niche and validate your idea

The event planning market in the UK is broad, which is both an opportunity and a challenge. Trying to do everything from day one spreads you thin. Choosing a niche lets you build a reputation faster, develop specialist knowledge, and market yourself more effectively.

Think about what you already know, enjoy, and have access to. If you've worked in hospitality, corporate events may be a natural fit. If you've helped friends plan weddings and loved it, that's a starting point worth exploring.

Where's the demand?

Check which event planners in your area are offering services, what they charge, and where the gaps are. Look at Google reviews, Instagram, and directories like Bark and Hitched to see how competitors position themselves.

Talk to potential clients. Ask friends, family, and local businesses what they'd want from an event planner. The more specific you can be about who you serve and what makes your service different, the easier it becomes to win work.

Step 2: Determine startup costs

One advantage of event planning is that startup costs tend to be low. You're not buying stock, renting premises, or investing in heavy equipment. Most planners start from home and invest as they grow.

Step 3: Conduct market research

Market research doesn't have to be expensive or complicated, but it is fundamental. Before you invest time and money in branding, you need to understand who you're competing with and where your opportunity lies.

Analyse local competitors

Go deeper into your competitors. Read their Google and Trustpilot reviews to understand what clients value and any potential blind spots, negative themes, or areas for improvement.

Check the coverage of your area too. Is it inundated with wedding planners, or are there too few? Do they all seem relatively similar? Is there sufficient diversity?

A crowded space isn't necessarily a red flag. Consider the wedding situation as an example. If your area is well-served by traditional 'white wedding' organisers, might there be room for something more niche?

Use Google Trends

Google Trends can identify demand for certain event planning services nationwide, in your region, or even in an exact town or city.

Try searching a broad term like "event planner" in your region, then look at the related queries section – it shows what people are searching for alongside it.

You might find that a niche you hadn't considered, like "micro wedding planner" or "corporate away day organiser", is pulling consistent or rising interest in your area.

Talk to potential clients

If you're targeting weddings, speak to engaged couples. If you're targeting corporate events, talk to office managers and marketing teams.

Ask what they'd look for in a planner, what they'd pay, and what frustrations they've had with events in the past.

Test your idea

Before going all-in, consider offering to plan an event at cost (or close to it) for someone in your network. The experience, photos, and testimonial you get from that first event become the foundation of your portfolio – and that portfolio is what sells your next one.

Step 4: Create a business plan

A business plan for an event planning startup is less about impressing investors and more about stress-testing your own thinking. Write down the answers to these questions honestly, and you'll have a working document that keeps you grounded as the business takes shape:

Your niche and target market – who are your clients and what problems do you solve for them?

Your services – what do you offer, and what's out of scope?

Pricing – how will you charge, and what do competitors charge for similar work?

Startup costs and financial projections – what do you need to spend to launch, and when do you expect to break even?

Marketing plan – how will you find your first clients, and how will you build a pipeline?

Operational plan – how will you manage bookings, suppliers, timelines, and client communication?

Keep it practical and relevant. The point of a business plan is to force you to think clearly about the business and lay out services, pricing, and other elements. It also plays an important psychological role in consolidating your ideas and signalling commitment.

Step 5: Choose your business structure and register

Before you take on paying clients, you need to register your business. In the UK, there are three main business structures to choose from:

• Sole trader – the simplest structure. You register with HMRC at no cost, report your income through Self Assessment each year, and keep your profits after tax.
• Limited company – involves more paperwork, but separates your personal finances from the business and can become more tax-efficient as turnover increases.
• Partnership – suits planners launching a business with a partner. Both parties register with HMRC and agree on how to split profits and responsibilities.

While self-employment as a sole trader is a logical entry point, several aspects of event planning benefit from a limited company setup. As revenue grows and client contracts get larger – particularly in the corporate space – forming a limited company becomes worth exploring for the liability protection alone.

If a client or supplier pursued a claim against your business, limited company status typically keeps your personal assets legally separate.

Whatever structure you choose, check that your company name is available before committing to branding, contracts, or printed materials.

Step 6: Get insured and meet compliance requirements

There's no specific licence required to start an event planning business in the UK, but there are rules and regulations to follow. Cutting corners here can be costly – financially and reputationally.

The legal requirements depend partly on whether you're only providing planning services or whether you are also acting as the organiser, employer, food operator, alcohol seller, or venue user for the event.

Insurance

• Public liability insurance – covers injury to third parties or damage to property during an event you're planning. Most venues and corporate clients will expect you to have this. Policies start from around £50 per year.
• Professional indemnity insurance – protects you if a client suffers a financial loss because of your advice or recommendations. Worth having from the start, particularly for wedding and corporate work.
• Employer's liability insurance – a legal requirement as soon as you hire staff, even on a temporary or casual basis. Cover must be at least £5 million.

Licensing

If any of your events involve the sale of alcohol, regulated entertainment, or the serving of hot food between 11pm and 5am, you'll need a Temporary Event Notice (TEN) from your local council. As of 2025/2026, the fee is £21 per notice, and you must apply at least 10 clear working days before the event.

There are annual limits – a maximum of 5 TENs per person (or 50 if you hold a personal licence), and no more than 15 per premises per year. Events with more than 499 attendees require a full premises licence instead.

Health and safety

As the event planner, you may be responsible for conducting risk assessments, particularly for outdoor events or activities involving temporary structures, stages, or catering. HSE guidance says event organisers are responsible for ensuring, so far as reasonably practicable, that people setting up, breaking down, and attending are not exposed to health and safety risks. For larger events, local councils may require you to submit an event management plan in advance.

Food safety

If you or your business will handle, prepare, store, or serve food, food safety and hygiene rules may apply, and you may need to register as a food business with the local authority – generally at least 28 days before trading. If you use third-party caterers, check that they are properly registered and compliant.

Data protection

If you process personal information – names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers – and are not exempt, you may need to pay the ICO data protection fee. Use the ICO's self-assessment tool to confirm whether you must register and what fee applies. Failing to register when required can result in a fine.

DBS checks

A DBS check is not automatically required for event planners. Whether one is appropriate depends on the nature of the role, the setting, and the level of contact with children.

Working from home

Many event planners start from home, but you may need permission from your landlord, mortgage provider, or local council, depending on your setup.

Step 7: Set your pricing

Pricing in event planning varies more than in most service industries, and there are several models and conventions to be aware of. Most UK event planners use one of three pricing structures – or a combination of them:

• Flat fee or package pricing – you quote a fixed price for a defined scope of work. This is the most common model in the UK, particularly for weddings and private parties. It gives clients cost certainty upfront. Many planners offer tiered packages – for example, a full-planning package, a partial-planning package, and a day-of coordination package – each at a different price point, with extras quoted separately on top.
• Percentage of budget – you charge a set percentage of the total event spend, typically 10–15% for weddings and 15–20% for corporate events. This model suits larger, more complex events where the scope is harder to define in advance. The trade-off is that some clients find it uncomfortable, because your fee rises if they spend more.
• Hourly rate – you charge per hour worked. In the UK, rates typically range from £25 to £75 for newer planners, rising to £100+ for those with established portfolios. Hourly pricing works well for smaller engagements, but it's less common for full-service planning because the total can be hard for clients to predict.

In practice, many planners combine these. A flat-fee base package with hourly add-ons for extras – such as additional supplier sourcing, design work, or post-event wrap-up – is increasingly common and gives both sides flexibility.

What UK planners charge

Pricing varies by region, experience, and service level, but these ranges offer a useful starting point:

Calculating your rate

Your rate needs to cover two things: the time you put into each event and the costs you incur while doing it. Work through it methodically:

• Time – estimate the total hours you'll spend on the event from the first client call to the final wrap-up. A full wedding might take 80–150 hours across several months. A day-of coordination booking might take 20–40 hours, including prep. Track your hours on your first few events to build realistic benchmarks.
• Direct costs – travel to and from venues, parking, printing, any materials you supply, and meals during site visits.
• Subcontractors and staff – if the event needs a day-of assistant, freelance coordinator, or specialist supplier you're paying directly, those costs sit with you, not the client's budget. Even occasional support adds up across a year.
• Overheads – your share of insurance, software subscriptions, phone, broadband, and accounting costs, spread across your expected number of events per year.
• Your pay – decide what you need to take home per hour worked, not per event-day hour. If you want to earn £30 per hour and a wedding takes 120 hours of your time, that's £3,600 in labour alone.

Add these together, and you have your cost base. Then add your margin – typically 20–30% on top – to cover the unexpected, build a buffer, and generate profit rather than just a wage.

If the price feels high compared to competitors', resist the temptation to slash it. Underpricing is one of the most common mistakes new planners make, and it's harder to raise rates later than to start at a sustainable level and justify the value.

Always take a deposit before work begins – 20% to 50% of the total fee is standard in the UK. This protects your time if a client cancels, and it signals commitment from both sides. Make it a condition in your contract.

Step 8: Market your business and find clients

There are several ways to build a client pipeline for an event planning business, and most planners use a mix of online presence, social media, referral partnerships, and direct outreach.

Build an online presence

Set up a Google Business Profile – it costs nothing and makes you visible on Google Maps and local search results. Pair it with an Instagram account showcasing your work (even if your early events are small) and a simple website with your services, area, and contact details.

Leverage social media

Post behind-the-scenes content, before-and-after setups, supplier shout-outs, and short videos. The event planning industry is inherently visual – use that to your advantage. TikTok and Instagram Reels are particularly effective for reaching local audiences.

Build referral partnerships

Reach out to complementary businesses – venues, caterers, florists, photographers, DJs – and build referral relationships. Many of your best leads will come from suppliers who recommend you to their own clients. The relationship works both ways.

Ask for reviews and referrals

After every event, ask your client for a Google review and whether they'd refer you. A small referral incentive – a discount on a future booking, for example – can accelerate this quickly.

Step 9: Build your supplier network

Event planning is a relationship-driven business. The quality of your suppliers directly affects the quality of your events, and building a trusted network takes time but pays off with every booking.

Start by attending industry events, wedding fairs, and local networking groups. Introduce yourself to venue managers, caterers, AV technicians, florists, and entertainment providers. Many planners visit potential venues in person before recommending them to clients – it builds your knowledge and shows suppliers you're serious.

Keep a supplier database from day one. Record contact details, pricing, reliability, and any notes from past events. Over time, this becomes one of your most valuable business assets – the planners who deliver consistently are the ones with suppliers they trust and who trust them back.

Negotiate where you can. As your volume grows, suppliers may offer preferential rates or priority availability. You can then pass these savings on to clients or use them to protect your margins.

Step 10: Scale and grow your event planning company

Once your diary is consistently full and your reputation is building, scaling becomes the next step. There are several ways to grow without having to do every event yourself.

Hiring your first team member

Bringing on a freelance coordinator, assistant, or casual event-day helper can help you take on more bookings without having to handle every detail yourself. Many planners start with on-site support for event days, then expand as demand grows.

If they are an employee or worker, you may need to run payroll, notify HMRC, provide the required written statement (a contract), arrange employers’ liability insurance, and meet workplace pension duties where auto-enrolment applies.

If they are freelance, those duties may not apply in the same way, but you should still use a written agreement that covers the scope of work, pay, and expectations.

Expanding your services

Once you've built a reputation in one area, adding complementary services can increase your revenue per client and open up new markets.

The key is to test any new offering with existing clients before marketing it more widely – their feedback will tell you whether there's genuine demand or just a nice idea.

Converting from sole trader to limited company

If your event planning business is generating consistent income and you're signing larger contracts, it may be worth converting to a limited company for the liability protection and potential tax advantages.

It's a common step for anyone figuring out how to start an event planning company that can take on larger clients and more complex work.

Beyond liability, there are several practical advantages:

• Your company pays Corporation Tax on its profits, which can be lower than personal Income Tax rates as earnings grow
• You gain more flexibility over how you pay yourself – typically a mix of salary and dividends
• Your company name is legally protected at Companies House, so no one else can register it
• It's easier to bring on a business partner or investor down the line
• Many corporate clients prefer contracting with limited companies as a matter of procurement policy

Once you're incorporated, there are some post-registration steps to complete – from registering for Corporation Tax to setting up a business bank account.

If you're ready to make the move, 1st Formations can handle your company formation the same day. That means you can start contracting, invoicing, and operating under your new structure without delay.