Every brief that lands in June asks the same question: can we still run it in the rain? The honest answer is yes — but the budget that works in February does not work in July, and the gap is not a contingency line. It is four specific costs that most sheets leave out entirely.
The four lines nobody budgets
1. Standby days, not standby hours
A wet day is rarely a lost day; it is a moved day. If the plan is eight cities in twelve days, you need fourteen. That is two extra days of crew per diem, two extra days of vehicle hire, and two extra nights of storage for the stock you did not sample.
Booking the crew for the eight days and hoping is the single most expensive decision in a monsoon plan, because a re-booked crew costs more than a retained one and arrives knowing less.
2. Ground, not just cover
A gazebo keeps rain off the product. It does nothing about the 30cm of standing water your queue is meant to form in. Matting, duckboards and a raised platform for anything electrical are the difference between a stop that runs and a stop that is a photograph of a stop.
Budget the ground before the canopy. A dry roof over a flooded floor still ends the activation — it just ends it more slowly.
3. Two sets of print
Vinyl survives. Paper does not, and neither does anything mounted on foam board. If the campaign has leaflets, entry forms or shelf talkers, the monsoon print run is two runs: the one you use and the one that replaces it after the first genuinely wet stop.
4. Power you brought yourself
Mains at a market-side location is unreliable in August in a way it simply is not in January. A generator is not a luxury item on a monsoon roadshow; it is the reason the LED wall is on when the crowd arrives.
What that does to the sheet
Roughly, against a dry-season equivalent of the same route:
| Line | Dry season | Monsoon | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crew days | 12 | 14 | Standby, not overtime |
| Vehicle hire | 12 | 14 | Moves with the crew |
| Site prep | Minimal | Matting + platform | Standing water |
| 1 run | 2 runs | Paper does not survive | |
| Power | Site mains | Generator | Mains is unreliable |
None of that is a contingency percentage. They are five identifiable lines, and they can be quoted line by line before anyone signs — which is the whole argument for pricing them rather than hiding them in a buffer.
We will not put a single percentage on it here. The gap between a dry-season route and the same route in August depends on how much of it is outdoors, how far the stops are apart and how much of the kit is electrical, and a number borrowed from someone else's campaign is worth less than the five lines above priced against yours.
The part that works in your favour
One thing improves, and it is worth putting in the argument. When three brands cancel a wet week and you are the only unit still standing in that market, you are not competing for attention at that stop.
Whether that offsets the extra cost is a question your own numbers answer, not ours — which is why we report cost per person reached on every route we run, wet or dry, and why we would rather hand you a monsoon figure to compare against next February than assert one now. It only works at all if the plan is a monsoon plan from the first draft, rather than a dry-season plan with a contingency line taped to the bottom.
If you are budgeting one now
- Add two days per twelve, in the crew and vehicle lines, not in contingency.
- Price the ground before the canopy.
- Print twice and say so out loud in the approval.
- Own the power.
- Then measure cost per person reached, so the next monsoon brief argues from your route rather than from a rule of thumb.