Noisily Festival - Customer Story

Weeks of reconciling, closed to 95% accuracy in four days.

Noisily's festival director spent four years testing budgeting tools before finding one that stuck. With Eventwise, the team closed each show at 95% profit and loss accuracy within four days of the event ending, on one platform instead of a dozen spreadsheets.

Noisily Festival honeycomb light installation at the entrance arch
Single Platform
Every department's budget lived in one place, not a dozen spreadsheets.
Automated
Suppliers confirmed their own invoice terms, no chasing required.
Real-time
Profit and loss was tracked as the show ran, not pieced together after.
Attendees per show
Around 7,000
Tools tried before Eventwise
4 years, none stuck
Post-show P&L accuracy
95% within 4 days
01
01 - The Challenge

One spreadsheet turned into a dozen, and none of them agreed.

Over its run, Noisily grew into a 7,000-capacity festival in the woods. That growth turned budget management, from ticket sales through to scenario planning, into a full-time job for festival director Will.

Without a dedicated platform, every department built its own spreadsheet, structured however each manager preferred. None of them fed into the master profit and loss statement automatically, so keeping the numbers accurate meant a labour-intensive manual check across every sheet.

The gap showed up as overspending. Departments went over budget simply because nobody could see the full picture until it was too late to do anything about it.

The old way, every year
No shared structure across department spreadsheets
Nothing fed into the master profit and loss automatically
Manual cross-checking just to catch errors
Overspending discovered after the fact, not during

"Festival budget management is rarely simple. After four years of trying various tools, none of them met our needs or lasted beyond a year."

- Will, Festival Director, Noisily
02
02 - How It Worked

One platform, not a dozen spreadsheets.

After four years of searching, Will had started to think simple budget management for a festival this size was a pipe dream, until Noisily found Eventwise. Streamlined budget control across departments, live spending visibility, and the ability to test scenarios made it an easy decision.

A

Suppliers confirmed their own terms

An automatic supplier portal handled PO approvals, letting suppliers tick to confirm terms instead of Will chasing confirmations by hand.

B

Payments updated on their own

Direct integration with Xero pulled real-time payment status through, replacing manual tracking against the bank feed.

C

Profit and loss, visible as the show ran

A live P&L dashboard tracked budget variance in real time, so the team could adjust instantly instead of waiting on a post-event report.

Before Eventwise Using Eventwise
Budget management Multiple spreadsheets Single platform
Real-time visibility Limited Comprehensive
Approval process Manual Automated
Reporting time Weeks to months Hours to days
Decision making Delayed Immediate

"Eventwise has greatly reduced the time I spend going between spreadsheets, giving me an up to date big picture and detailed accuracy at a glance."

- Will, Festival Director, Noisily
03
03 - The Outcome

95% accuracy. Four days. One platform for every department.

Speed

95% P&L accuracy in four days. Eventwise's Xero integration meant Noisily hit 95% final profit and loss accuracy just four days after the show, down from the weeks or months manual reconciliation used to take.

Control

Overspending caught before it happens. Budget limits and team-specific views gave every department full visibility, so spending stayed inside budget instead of surfacing as a surprise afterward.

Time

More time on the festival, less on spreadsheets. With one platform doing the reconciling, Will got back the time that used to go into juggling department sheets by hand.

Track record

Three years, and it only got easier. Across three years on Eventwise, Noisily found it easier to use and more powerful than the spreadsheets it replaced.

7,000

attendees' worth of festival, budgeted and reported across every department on one platform instead of a dozen disconnected sheets.

"I should be their brand ambassador. I've been raving about Eventwise, it's going to keep saving us time and money for years to come."

- Will, Festival Director, Noisily
See It For Your Events

If your festival's budget still lives across a dozen spreadsheets, it doesn't have to.

Eventwise keeps every department's budget, supplier approvals and profit and loss on one live platform, so closing the books is a formality, not a project.

Book a Demo → See It in Action