Are You Properly Staffed? Benchmarking Event Teams by Revenue Per FTE

In event leadership, it's easy to ask for more people and harder to prove you actually need them. Or, maybe you’ve been asked to do more with less—and you’re not sure if your lean team is scrappy or dangerously stretched. That’s where one deceptively simple metric can offer clarity: Revenue per FTE.

This post walks through how to use this benchmark, what “good” looks like, and how you can apply it to your own event operation—whether you’re planning member meetings, global conferences, or fundraising galas.

Why Revenue per FTE Matters

Revenue per FTE (full-time equivalent) isn’t just a financial ratio—it’s a lens for understanding staffing efficiency. It tells you, on average, how much event revenue each member of your team is responsible for supporting. It brings objectivity to resource planning, helps surface staffing gaps, and strengthens the business case for strategic hires (or cuts).

The formula is straightforward: Revenue per FTE = Total Annual Event Revenue / Number of Full-Time Event Staff.

What $1M Per FTE Might Mean

Let’s say your event program generates $25 million in annual revenue, and you have 25 people working on it—whether full-time or in significant part. That comes out to $1 million per FTE.

At first glance, this might look efficient. And maybe it is.

But maybe not.

• Are those 25 team members truly 25 FTEs? Or are some contributing part-time?

• Is the $1M being driven by one mega-event that’s supported by dozens of scattered hands?

• Is the team operating at a sustainable pace, or is burnout quietly brewing?

Efficiency without sustainability leads to churn. And effectiveness without strategy leads to missed opportunities.

How to Use This Benchmark in Practice

What Do We Mean by Complexity?

When applying this benchmark, remember that not all event portfolios are created equal. A single annual conference with high production value, global attendees, and sponsor activations carries a very different staffing burden than a steady calendar of local workshops or webinars. Think about complexity in terms of:

• Volume: number of events per year

• Variety: range of formats, audiences, and goals

• Visibility: external-facing vs internal-facing

• Value: revenue generation, brand impact, executive visibility

• Velocity: how fast you’re expected to execute and deliver

How to Score Event Complexity

A team supporting 10 major conferences and 40 webinars will likely need a different staffing model—even with the same revenue—than a team running a single $10M flagship event.

Here’s how to bring this into your own organization:

• Start by calculating your actual FTEs. Use time allocations, not just headcount.

• Compare against your annual event revenue.

• Pair this with event complexity.

• Use this in staffing conversations.

The Full Benchmark Formula

To truly understand whether your event team is properly staffed, you need to combine two dimensions:

• How much revenue your team supports

• How complex the event portfolio is

That’s where the adjusted benchmark formula comes in:

Formula: (Total Annual Event Revenue × Complexity Multiplier) ÷ Total Event FTEs = Adjusted Revenue per FTE

How to Apply It

Step 1: Calculate your Total Annual Event Revenue

Only include revenue directly generated from events (e.g., registration, sponsorship, exhibit sales).

Step 2: Determine your Total Event FTEs

Use true full-time equivalents—not just headcount.

• 2 full-time = 2.0

• 3 staff at 50% = 1.5

• 1 staff at 25% = 0.25

• Total = 3.75 FTE

Step 3: Score your event complexity

Use the 5 factors (Volume, Variety, Visibility, Value, Velocity) on a scale of 1–5 each. Add them together for a total score out of 25.

Step 4: Convert that score into a Complexity Multiplier:

Where the Multipliers Come From

These multipliers reflect the added effort required to support more complex portfolios, even if the revenue is the same.

• Low complexity teams (e.g., one or two events per year, same format, internal audience) can often manage more revenue per person because the lift is lower — so we discount the revenue slightly using a multiplier of 0.8.

• Moderate complexity portfolios serve as the baseline — a variety of formats, some visibility, steady cadence — so we use 1.0.

• High complexity portfolios require more strategic planning, specialized roles, and cross-functional support. We increase the weight using 1.2 to account for that heavier lift.

Example

• Total Event Revenue: $8,000,000

• Total Event FTEs: 10

• Complexity Score: 20 → High Complexity → Multiplier: 1.2

($8,000,000 × 1.2) ÷ 10 = $960,000 Adjusted Revenue per FTE

This gives a more accurate view than a flat revenue-per-head calculation — because it accounts for how hard the team’s job actually is.

It’s Not Just About More People

Sometimes your team doesn’t need more people—it needs the right people in the right roles, better tools, or external support. A high revenue per FTE might mean your team is over-performing. But it could also mean you’re under-resourcing.

Use this benchmark to guide smarter staffing decisions, not just bigger ones.

Want Help Benchmarking Your Team?

At Eventcraft Studios, we help organizations evaluate event staffing models, team structure, and operational efficiency—using data like this alongside your strategic goals. If you're ready to align your event resources with your revenue, let’s talk - todd@eventcraftstudios.com.

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¹ Event Agency Benchmarks 2023 Report, Event Leadership Institute
² ASAE Foundation Operating Ratio Report, 2022 Edition
³ Bureau of Labor Statistics and IBISWorld reports
⁴ Internal benchmarking and consulting observations (e.g., PCMA, MPI forums)