Quote Originally Posted by McMurdo View Post
...we are financially on the line if we don't get enough turn out and we can't afford a loss.
There's the answer to your question Glen. If you can't afford the loss then you must pull the plug immediately.

I know of what I speak. Last April my wife came up with the idea of having a real kick-butt party for Alexander Keith's Birthday in October. And then she booked Fiddlestix to play. We signed the contract and paid the deposit and over the summer we would go to their shows and pay the band a little more each time. We figured if we could skip things like lunches out and coffee on the road and takeout dinners we could easily come up with the ca$h in dribs and we wouldn't be looking at a huge bill come October that we would have to cover.

In the end it worked out OK, the band was paid in full by early September and the party was great even if only about 1/2 of those invited showed and many of those chipped it to help out. But who cared? The band was already paid and we weren't on the hook for anything. We prepared ahead and we covered our butts. We sacrificed on the luxuries for months and didn't have to worry about not being able to feed our kids if nobody showed up or chipped. We chalked it all up to "family entertainment budget". Some folks go to the casino once a month, we hired a band to play for a party in our house.

The lesson in all of this is, don't do it if you can't afford to lose it. Don't wait for answers because you run the risks that the "yes" becomes a "no" once the event gets closer. The risk is too big