Every brief that lands in June asks the same question: can we still run it in the rain? The honest answer is yes — we have run roadshows through three monsoons — 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 |
Across the roadshows we have run between June and September, that has landed between 18% and 26% over the dry-season version of the same route. Not a contingency percentage — five identifiable lines.
The part that is actually cheaper
One thing improves. Footfall per stop goes up, not down, when you are the only brand still standing in a market where three others cancelled. The cost per person reached on a well-prepared monsoon stop has repeatedly come out below the dry-season average, because the denominator holds and the competition thins out.
That is the case for running it, and it is a real one. But it only works 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 ask for the footfall number, because it will be better than the brief assumes.