Feasibility Study for an Events, Conferences and Exhibitions Company in Egypt

How a conferences and exhibitions company makes money, and where it loses it

A small events company in Egypt works in one of two models, and most combine them. In the agency model it runs a conference, a product launch or an annual meeting for a corporate client in return for a fee. It carries no attendance risk, but it pays the venue, sound and lighting and production before the client settles the rest of the invoice. In the organiser model it runs its own exhibition or conference: it rents the venue, sells booths to exhibitors, sponsorships to companies and tickets to attendees, and carries alone the risk of not selling enough.

So an events, conferences and exhibitions company feasibility study does not start with the margin per event. It starts with two questions. In the organiser model: what share of the space must be sold to break even, and when does exhibitor and sponsor money arrive compared with the venue's payment dates? In the agency model: how much of your own money do you put in, and for how many months, before the client pays? The big losses in this business rarely come from one supplier's price. They come from a main sponsor who pulls out, an exhibition that sells half its space, or a client who cancels after you have paid the advances.

Licences and tax before the first contract

• Exhibitions: Law No. 323 of 1956 treats as an exhibition any event whose main purpose is to display samples or models of goods, machinery or products in order to promote or market them (Article 1), and provides that an exhibition or market may not be held in Egypt, or taken part in or advertised, without a special licence from the Minister of Commerce (Article 2)¹. In May 2024 the Egyptian Expo & Convention Authority stated that exhibition organising companies must obtain licences from it before organising any event inside or outside Egypt, and said it would take legal action against companies that break these rules². The sources do not give the licence fee or processing time, so ask the authority and build the lead time into your schedule before you sell booths.
• Conferences: we found no official source setting out a general licence for them, and the approvals depend on the type of event and its venue. If your conference includes a paid exhibition area for sponsors, ask the authority whether it falls under the definition of an exhibition.
• Travel and accommodation for participants: organising tourist trips according to set programmes, with the related transport and accommodation, and selling travel tickets are activities listed in Article 1 of Law 38 of 1977, and companies other than tourism companies may not carry on any of them without a licence from the Minister of Tourism (Article 8)³. The article does not list organising conferences as such. The suspension on accepting applications for new tourism companies was extended for another year in April 2026⁴, so the practical route is usually to contract a licensed tourism company for this part. See a travel agency feasibility study.
• VAT: the general rate is 14%, and anyone whose sales reach the registration threshold must register within 30 days of reaching it⁵; the threshold is EGP 500,000⁶. In the example below, the booths booked in the first sales month alone are worth EGP 504,000, so plan to register before you start selling. A booth priced at EGP 72,000 is invoiced at EGP 82,080, and the difference is not your income.
• Withholding tax: according to PwC's tax summary (reviewed August 2026), the withholding rate on all types of services is 3% for local payments above EGP 300⁷. It is credited against your income tax later, but it reduces what you receive from the client now.

Maher Consulting Firm can handle the company formation and tax registration.

Illustrative example: a two-day B2B exhibition with 80 booths

These figures are assumptions to explain the method, not market prices, and all are before VAT. A new company runs its first specialised exhibition; month 0 is the exhibition month:

• Space: 80 booths of 12 square metres, or 960 square metres of net sellable space, at EGP 6,000 per square metre including a standard shell-scheme booth, or EGP 72,000 per booth. Base case: 85% sold, or 68 booths.
• Bookings and collection: about 10% of the booths sold are booked each month from eight months before the exhibition to three months before, about 15% in each of the last two months before it, and about 10% in the exhibition month (in the base case: 7, then 10, then 6 booths). Exhibitors pay 30% on booking and 70% one month before the exhibition; those who book one month before or in the exhibition month pay in full.
• Sponsorships: a main sponsor at EGP 1 million signing six months before, two sponsors at EGP 400,000 each (signing five and four months before) and four at EGP 150,000 each (two signing three months before and two at two months), EGP 2,400,000 in total, 50% on signing and 50% one month before. Plus 200 seminar passes at EGP 1,500, or EGP 300,000.
• Venue: EGP 1,800,000 for four days (two build-up and breakdown days, two show days): 30% on signing nine months before, 40% three months before and 30% one month before.
• Production and suppliers: booth construction at EGP 1,000 per square metre for sold booths only (EGP 12,000 per booth) and general production (entrance, aisles, signage, registration) of EGP 600,000, half of each paid one month before and the rest one month after. Stage, sound and screens for the seminar hall EGP 350,000 (half in advance, half in the exhibition month), hospitality EGP 250,000, security, cleaning, insurance and approvals EGP 200,000, visitor marketing EGP 600,000 over the last seven months, rising as the exhibition approaches, and a 5% sales commission on money collected from exhibitors and sponsors.
• Team: a project manager on EGP 25,000 and three staff on EGP 15,000 each, all above the private-sector minimum wage of EGP 7,000 from 1 March 2025⁸, plus the employer's social-insurance share of 18.75%⁹ of an insurable wage capped at EGP 16,700 from January 2026¹⁰, or EGP 11,568.75, and office and other costs of EGP 25,000. That is EGP 106,568.75 a month for 12 months, all carried by this one exhibition. Start-up costs are EGP 150,000.

Revenue at 85% is EGP 7,596,000 (booths 64.5%, sponsorships 31.6%, passes 3.9%), costs EGP 6,259,625 and profit EGP 1,336,375, or 17.6% before tax and start-up costs. Each booth contributes EGP 72,000 − 12,000 − 3,600 = 56,400. Fixed costs are EGP 5,078,825; sponsorships net of commission plus passes cover EGP 2,580,000 of them, and the remaining EGP 2,498,825 needs 44.3 booths, or 55.4% of the space sold, to break even.

The deepest cash need is EGP 796,569 in the first month; then the second venue payment takes the balance from EGP 93,788 positive back to EGP 546,641 negative three months before the exhibition. And 61.8% of everything you collect arrives in the single month before the exhibition. In other words, exhibitor and sponsor advances fund the venue and the marketing; they are not profit you can draw. See cash flow for small businesses.

What if only 60% sells or the main sponsor pulls out?

• Sell-through: 20 fewer booths take EGP 1,128,000 off the profit and the margin falls from 17.6% to 3.4%, because the venue, team and marketing do not shrink with the space.
• The main sponsor: it is 41.7% of sponsorship and 13.2% of revenue, and its net value equals 16.8 booths. If it pulls out with a refund, break-even rises from 55.4% to 76.4% of the space; if its advance is non-refundable, to 65.9%. That one contract clause is worth EGP 475,000 of profit.
• The venue: a 15% increase raises break-even to 61.4%.
• When exhibitors pay: it does not change the profit, but if they pay the balance at move-in you end the month before the exhibition, after the final venue payment and the production advances, at EGP 589,879 negative instead of EGP 2,378,681 positive.
• Both risks together: 60% sold plus the sponsor's exit turns the exhibition into a loss of EGP 741,625. The method is in break-even and working capital.

The agency model: a conference for a client who pays after 60 days

A second illustrative example: a one-day conference for 400 guests for a corporate client. Supplier costs are EGP 1,850,000 (venue and catering 1,200,000, sound and screens 300,000, production and set-up 250,000, print and gifts 100,000) and the management fee is 15% on top, EGP 277,500, so the invoice is EGP 2,127,500 before VAT and the fee is 13% of it. The client pays 30% two months before the event and 70% 60 days after it. You pay half of the venue and sound one month before and the rest in the event month, half of production before and the rest one month after, and print and gifts in full one month before.

• To earn EGP 277,500 you fund EGP 1,211,750, 4.4 times the fee, for three months. A 50% advance cuts the need to EGP 786,250, and payment of the balance on the event day cuts it to EGP 336,750.
• Withholding tax at 3%⁷ on EGP 2,127,500 is EGP 63,825, or 23% of your fee, waiting to be credited against your tax.
• If the client cancels one month before, after you have paid EGP 975,000 to suppliers, the EGP 638,250 advance does not cover it and the gap is EGP 336,750, unless the contract makes the client liable for committed supplier costs.
• The agency carries no sell-through risk, but it needs 4.6 events of this size a year to cover a team costing EGP 1,278,825. Ways to price the fee are in how to price your product.

The levers specific to an events company

• The venue payment schedule: a 15% deposit instead of 30% cuts the exhibition's deepest cash need from EGP 796,569 to EGP 526,569, and moving the 40% instalment to the last month keeps the balance three months before the exhibition at EGP 173,359 positive.
• No move-in without payment: tie handing over the booth to full payment one month before the exhibition.
• The sponsor contract: a non-refundable advance and payment dates before its name is printed, and no single sponsor carrying more than a share of break-even you set in advance.
• Cancelling the exhibition yourself: by the end of the second month before the exhibition you have collected EGP 2,323,200 from exhibitors and sponsors and spent EGP 2,578,710 on the venue, marketing, team and commissions. If you cancel and must refund, the money comes from your capital. Write into the venue and exhibitor contracts what happens on postponement and cancellation.
• Owning or renting equipment: a sound and lighting kit at EGP 900,000, written off over 4 years, with storage, maintenance and a technician at EGP 15,000 a month, costs EGP 405,000 a year; if it saves EGP 45,000 of rental per event, you need 9 events a year before buying is cheaper.

Common mistakes in an events company feasibility study

1. Calculating profit on selling all the space, when break-even in the example is at 55.4%.
2. Treating exhibitor and sponsor advances as profit, when they fund the venue and marketing.
3. Building the study on one main sponsor without a non-refundable advance clause.
4. Ignoring the venue's payment dates, when the 40% instalment pulls the balance down three months before the exhibition.
5. Pricing an agency fee without the financing cost, when 60-day terms mean funding 4.4 times the fee.
6. Selling booths before the exhibition is licensed or before registering for VAT.

Frequently asked questions about an events company feasibility study

Sources

1. Egyptian Gazette, issue 70 bis (Manshurat copy). قرار رئيس الجمهورية بالقانون رقم 323 لسنة 1956 بتنظيم إقامة المعارض والأسواق والاشتراك فيها (المادتان 1 و2) (in Arabic) (1956-09-02). Checked 22 October 2026.
2. Al-Ahram Gate. هيئة المؤتمرات تصدر تعليمات جديدة لشركات تنظيم المعارض المصرية (in Arabic) (2024-05-21) — secondary source; Youm7. هيئة المعارض تُلزم الشركات بالحصول على تراخيص قبل تنظيم الفعاليات (in Arabic) (2024-05-21) — secondary source. Checked 22 October 2026.
3. Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. قانون تنظيم الشركات السياحية (القانون 38 لسنة 1977، الجريدة الرسمية العدد 26 في 30 يونيو 1977، المادتان 1 و8) (in Arabic) (1977-06-30); Alberonsy. قانون رقم 38 لسنة 1977 بتنظيم الشركات السياحية وفقًا لآخر تعديل صادر في 11 يونيو 2008 (in Arabic) (2024-01-20) — secondary source. Checked 22 October 2026.
4. Shorouk News. للعام الـ16 على التوالي.. وقف تراخيص إنشاء شركات سياحية جديدة (in Arabic) (2026-04-18) — secondary source. Checked 22 October 2026.
5. Financial Regulatory Authority. قانون الضريبة على القيمة المضافة رقم 67 لسنة 2016 وفقًا لآخر تعديل (in Arabic). Checked 22 October 2026.
6. Egyptian Tax Authority. ما هو حد التسجيل الإلزامي لضريبة القيمة المضافة، وما هي الأنشطة المعفاة منها؟ (in Arabic). Checked 22 October 2026.
7. PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries. Egypt: Corporate - Withholding taxes (local payments) (2026-08-17) — secondary source. Checked 22 October 2026.
8. Ministry of Planning and Economic Development. الاجتماع الأول للمجلس القومي للأجور: رفع الحد الأدنى لأجور القطاع الخاص إلى 7000 جنيه (in Arabic) (2025-02-09). Checked 22 October 2026.
9. Andersen Egypt. Social insurance in Egypt (contribution rates under Law 148/2019) (2026-06-30) — secondary source. Checked 22 October 2026.
10. National Organization for Social Insurance (NOSI). التأمينات: رفع الحدين الأدنى والأقصى لأجر الاشتراك التأميني بدءًا من أول يناير 2026 (in Arabic) (2025-11-30). Checked 22 October 2026.