How to start an event decor crew with a team

What you need before you open

Every team that opens one of these ends up with the same list. What it adds up to is not a fact about the business — it depends on your city, on what you can find second-hand, and on how much of it somebody in the team already owns. So the useful question is not the total. It is which of these lines you can already cover between you, and that is a question you can answer in an evening.

• Reusable structures — backdrops, frames, arches, plinths

  The core asset. Bought once and installed fifty times; every event after roughly the twelfth is where the margin lives.

• Lighting — uplights, fairy lights, spots, cabling

  Lighting transforms a mediocre setup and is the cheapest thing on this list per rupee of visible effect.

• Artificial florals, drapes and props

  Reusable pieces to carry the base of a setup, so fresh flowers become an accent rather than the entire cost.

• Tools, ladder and transport crates

• Udyam registration and portfolio shoot

And every month after that

• Fresh flowers

  At eight events a month. Sourced from the wholesale flower market at dawn on the day — flowers cannot be bought ahead.

• Consumables — tape, cable ties, balloons, foam

• Vehicle hire for install and strike

  A tempo per event, both directions. Owning one is not worth it below about fifteen events a month.

• Casual labour for large setups

  Two extra hands on anything above 150 guests. Paid per event, never salaried.

Licences and registrations

• Udyam (MSME) registration

  Owned by: Bookings & Sites

  Free and instant on udyamregistration.gov.in. Hotels and banquet halls ask outside vendors for a registration number before permitting equipment on site, and function halls increasingly require it on the vendor form alongside ID copies for every crew member.

• GST registration

  Owned by: Bookings & Sites

  Required once annual turnover crosses the GST threshold for services, which a busy crew reaches in a strong season. Decor is a service, taxed at 18%. Corporate and hotel clients will ask for a GST invoice long before you get near the threshold, so most crews register voluntarily in year one and treat it as the price of being quotable at all.

• Venue vendor permission and damage deposit

  Owned by: Install Lead

  Almost every banquet venue charges outside decorators an entry fee per event and holds a refundable deposit against damage on top of it; in Hyderabad both are standard and neither is negotiable on the day. Some venues have exclusive in-house decor contracts and will not permit you at all — confirm in writing at the recce, before you quote, because discovering it on the morning is a cancelled event.

• Fire and rigging rules for the venue

  Owned by: Install Lead

  Draping, candles and anything suspended overhead are restricted at most venues, and hotels enforce it. Ask what may be rigged, from what, and whether fabric must be fire-retardant. A design that cannot be installed legally is not a design.

Who does what, and what share they hold

Shares are of revenue after costs, agreed in writing before the work starts.

• Design Lead

  Draws the setup, picks the palette, and owns whether it looks like the reference photo.

  28 hrs/week

  32%

• Install Lead

  Builds and strikes on site, owns the rigging, and gets the venue handed back clean.

  30 hrs/week

  26%

• Florals & Props

  Sources flowers each week, maintains the prop inventory, and keeps damage below what the margin can absorb.

  24 hrs/week

  24%

• Bookings & Sites

  Quotes, does the site recce, coordinates with venues, and collects the balance on the day.

  16 hrs/week

  18%

The six-week plan

1. Week 1

   1. Choose the event type you are for

      Three bands, and you cannot serve all of them at once: birthday and home celebrations, haldis and small receptions, or corporate and hotel work. Each one wants different inventory, a different size of install crew, and an entirely different sales conversation — the person booking a birthday and the person booking a hotel launch are not the same buyer and do not respond to the same photographs. Start with the middle band. It pays properly, it does not require a hotel vendor licence, and the pictures from it sell in both directions: upward to receptions, downward to birthdays.

   2. Buy reusable, rent consumable

      This is the whole economics of decor, and it is worth being slow about. Frames, arches, plinths, drapes, lighting and artificial florals are bought once and installed fifty times. Fresh flowers, balloons and foam are bought for one event and are in a bin by midnight. Anything you can move from the second category into the first improves every future job you ever quote, which is why the reusable structures are the most important thing in the whole build — and why buying them second-hand from a crew that has folded is the single best saving available to you.

2. Week 2

   1. Build three signature setups

      Not a catalogue — three. One floral arch, one draped backdrop with lighting, one prop-led theme. Photograph each properly. Clients cannot imagine a setup from a description, and a crew with three excellent photographs books more than one with forty mediocre ones. Every future quote is a variation on these three.

   2. Price on install hours plus consumables plus inventory wear

      A haldi setup is four things, and only one of them is flowers: the fresh flowers and consumables that are gone by midnight, the transport and casual labour on the day, four people giving up a day to install and strike, and a share of the wear on structures the crew bought once and will install fifty more times. Price all four, every time. Crews that quote against consumables alone win the job, underquote it badly, and then cannot afford to replace a frame when it snaps — which it will, in the van, on a Sunday.

3. Week 3

   1. Do the first event at cost

      One real event — a friend's birthday or a family function — at material cost, on the condition that you shoot it properly. It buys you the portfolio and, more importantly, teaches you how long install actually takes. Every crew's first estimate is wrong by about double.

   2. Register and learn the venue rules

      Complete Udyam registration and visit three banquet halls in your area. Ask each: do you allow outside decor, what is the vendor fee, what is the damage deposit, what may be rigged and from what, and what time can we access the hall. Write the answers down. That single afternoon prevents most of the disasters this business produces.

4. Week 4

   1. Always do a site recce before quoting

      Ceiling height, power points, access width, lift or stairs, and how long you get before guests arrive. A quote given from photographs is a guess, and the difference between a two-hour and a five-hour install is entirely a site question. Never skip this, however small the event sounds.

   2. Take 50% advance, balance on the day

      Half on booking to cover flowers and labour, the balance before you strike at the end of the night. Fresh flowers are bought on the morning and cannot be returned, so an advance is not a formality — it is the only thing standing between you and paying for a cancelled event yourself.

5. Week 5

   1. Photograph every setup before guests arrive

      Fifteen minutes with the room empty and the lighting on. This is the only marketing this business needs and the only window in which it can be done, because a room full of guests is not a portfolio photograph. Same discipline every event, no exceptions — it is how a crew builds a book in one season.

   2. Strike properly and get the deposit back

      Everything down the same night, venue handed back clean, damage deposit recovered. Crews lose their margin at 1am through carelessness — a torn drape, a scuffed wall, a lost uplight. Count the inventory back into the crates on site, not the next morning.

6. Week 6

   1. Work the season and the weekday gap

      In most of India events cluster into wedding season and the summer birthday months, and cluster again at weekends. Weekday corporate work — product launches, office celebrations, small conferences — is what fills the gap, pays better per hour, and does not compete for your Saturday.

   2. Close the month and split honestly

      Log every event, advance, flower purchase and replacement, then split on the signed percentages. Set aside a fixed share of every job — 5% is about right — as an inventory replacement fund, before anyone is paid. Structures wear out, and a crew that has not saved for that discovers it in the middle of season with no way to take the booking.

The name comes with the network

Teams that start this blueprint open as Junto Decor, numbered in the order they open — the first as Junto Decor #1, the next as Junto Decor #2, and yours takes whichever number is next the day you start. One name, many small teams, each with its own Pact and its own earnings. Frames, drapes and flowers from network suppliers, and a rental pool the network runs.

• A name that compounds

  You open as Junto, numbered in the order teams open. Customers who trust one team trust the next, and every team that opens adds to what the name is worth.

• Suppliers who take your call

  Procurement contacts the network has already negotiated with. You buy at network prices from day one, not at walk-in prices.

• Shared services at network rates

  A call centre that answers your customers, and the back-office pieces no three-person team should have to build alone — run once for the whole network.

Prefer your own name? Opt out when you start. Everything else — the blueprint, the Pact, the ledger — works exactly the same.

Questions people ask

How much does it cost to start an event decor business?

Four lines, in the order they matter: reusable structures like backdrops, frames and arches; lighting; artificial florals, drapes and props; and then tools, crates, registration and a portfolio shoot. The structures are most of it, and they are also the only part that is genuinely an asset — bought once and installed fifty times. What the whole list adds up to depends on your city and on how much of it you can buy second-hand from a crew that has folded, which is usually a great deal of it. The guide lists the lines so you can see which ones somebody in the team already owns.

What do event decorators charge?

Not by the flowers. Price against four things at once: the consumables that are gone by midnight, the transport and casual labour on the day, the install hours your crew is actually giving up, and the wear on inventory you will have to replace. Birthdays sit at the bottom of the range, haldis and small receptions in the middle, and corporate or hotel work well above both — but the band matters less than the method. Crews that quote against consumables alone win jobs and lose money on them.

Do I need a licence for event decoration?

No specific government licence, though free Udyam (MSME) registration is worth having because hotels and banquet halls ask outside vendors for a registration number before they will let a van through the gate. GST applies at 18% on services once turnover crosses the registration threshold. The permission that really matters is not the government's but the venue's: most halls charge outside decorators an entry fee per event, hold a refundable damage deposit, and some have exclusive in-house contracts that exclude you entirely.

How many events a month does a decor crew need?

Around three to four events a month covers the flowers, the consumables, the transport and the casual labour — that is the point where the crew stops paying to work. A four-person crew starts earning properly at roughly eight events a month, and the constraint is not demand but the calendar: weddings and haldis cluster on the same handful of auspicious weekends. Weekday corporate work is what fills the gaps between the clusters, and it is the reason the middle band is the one worth starting in.

Where do you buy flowers for events?

The city's wholesale flower market, at dawn on the day of the event — fresh flowers cannot be bought ahead and cannot be returned. That is precisely why a 50% advance on booking is not a formality: it covers the flowers and the labour, so a late cancellation does not come out of the crew's own pocket.