Executive Summary: EventCo Budget vs Actual & Rolling Forecast
Three stories dominate the variances over the 30 months under review: a EUR2.08 million cost overrun on a single client project, an unfavorable currency swing on an international contract, and a cost-savings programme that ran ahead of plan. Of the twenty variances large enough to warrant comment, four are corroborated by documented business notes, fourteen carry the FP&A analyst's own commentary after follow-up, and two remain open. The rolling forecast points to continued top-line growth into the third quarter of 2026, with the group margin holding at 47.9% over the forecast period.
Variance Highlights (documented in the business notes log)
Brand Events COGS, April to June 2025: EUR2.08 million over budget (+26.6%). The largest variance in the period, tied to the Falcon product-launch event in Riyadh. The client requested a major on-site scope expansion during the build week, and the resulting overtime crews, additional staging and expedited freight were all booked at premium rates. A change order was signed with the client, but it recovered only part of the overrun, and the margin impact has been flagged to group controlling.
Digital/Influence revenue, September 2025: roughly EUR197,000 under budget (-9.3%). This is a currency effect, not a shortfall in delivery. The NovaTech roadshow contract is invoiced in USD, and the euro strengthened sharply against the dollar during the month, translating the same contracted revenue into fewer euros. Delivered scope and client commitment were unchanged, and the associated delivery costs are euro-denominated and unaffected.
Corporate Events opex, April 2025 to February 2026: EUR81,464 under budget (-16.4%), favorable. Media buying and content creation moved in-house from July 2025, ending two external agency retainers, and the business unit controller confirmed in September that the savings were tracking ahead of plan. One caveat on the dates: the reported window is the full run of consecutive under-budget months grouped by the episode test, and it starts three months before the programme did. This is the only favorable variance in the period with a documented cause in the notes log.
Government & Institutions IT opex, November 2024: EUR24,116 over budget (+158.1%). The on-site registration and AV control systems failed during a ministry summit engagement, requiring expedited replacement hardware and vendor licenses outside the normal purchasing cycle. A one-off cost with an insurance claim filed against it, not the start of a trend.
Analyst Commentary (manual input after follow-up)
Fourteen further material variances had no corroborating note in the business log, so they went to the FP&A analyst as follow-up items. The explanations below were entered manually by the analyst after investigating with the business units, and the variance report labels each one as analyst input rather than documented evidence. The largest:
Brand Events, April 2026. COGS ran roughly EUR407,000 over budget (+15.7%) while revenue ran roughly EUR389,000 above budget (+8.3%). Per the analyst's review, both trace to the same event: a client project won in late March and delivered inside April, with external production booked at short-notice premium rates. The net margin impact is slightly negative, and change-order discipline has been flagged to the project director.
Digital/Influence revenue, January 2025: roughly EUR225,000 under budget (-14.8%). The analyst attributes this to two platform go-lives slipping into February on client-side content delays; revenue is recognized on delivery, and both projects were invoiced in February.
Corporate Events, October 2024. Revenue came in roughly EUR216,000 above budget (+10.5%) with costs roughly EUR126,000 over (+17.4%): a brand activation sold for early 2025 was pulled into October at the client's request, carrying its production costs with it.
The remaining analyst-explained items are mostly timing shifts between months and delivery-mix effects, each documented row by row in the variance report.
Items Still Open
Two material variances have no documented driver and no analyst input yet: Corporate Events COGS in December 2025 (roughly EUR71,000 over budget, +10.3%) and Digital/Influence COGS in March 2025 (EUR66,500 over budget, +11.3%). Both remain unexplained and stay on the follow-up list with the relevant BU controllers rather than being assigned a cause here.
Separately, a data entry issue was identified in Brand Events' November 2025 revenue figure and has been excluded from this analysis pending correction at source.
Rolling Forecast
For July to September 2026, the group is forecast to generate roughly EUR22.6 million in revenue against roughly EUR11.78 million in costs, for a net result of about EUR10.83 million, a 47.9% margin. Revenue growth versus the same quarter last year varies by business unit: Government & Institutions +6.4%, Brand Events +6.1%, Corporate Events +5.1%, and Digital/Influence +4.6%.
The forecast is built from each business unit's own results in the same quarter last year, adjusted for its typical year-over-year growth rate, rather than from budget. One-off events, including the Falcon cost overrun and the Government & Institutions IT incident above, are deliberately excluded from that base so they are not projected forward as if they were normal, recurring activity. The Corporate Events savings programme is treated the same way: it had already concluded before the forecast cutoff of June 2026, the last closed month, so its effect is not carried into the outlook.
No cost-saving or overrun programme was still running at the June 2026 cutoff, so this quarter's outlook reflects normal seasonal business growth with no special adjustment carried forward. The two still-open variances above are the main follow-up going into the next close.