VITRINE.TOOLSexhibition planning tools

Describe the show. Get the budget.

Fourteen questions about your exhibition, and the generator costs the whole thing out across six categories at mid-market rates for your city and your kind of venue. For curators who plan shows without a finance department.

The brief

Six artists. Twenty-four works, eleven of them on loan. Ninety-six days at a non-collecting venue, with projection and sound.

The budget it produced

Fees
15 550,00
Transport & insurance
5 980,00
Installation & technical
16 000,00
Production
15 600,00
Communication & press
4 930,00
Public programme
3 140,00
Total61 200,00

Why this exists

Every exhibition budget starts as a file someone else built, passed between institutions until nobody remembers which cells are formulas and which were typed over.

It breaks quietly: a subtotal that stopped covering the last three rows, an artist fee renamed but never re-linked, Aufbau and Abbau counted once between them. Meanwhile the categories barely change from show to show — fees, transport and insurance, installation, production, communication, public programme — and the same numbers have to survive twice, once in the application and again in the Verwendungsnachweis a year later.

So the tool does not hand you a better empty file. You describe the show once and it costs the whole thing out, because the arithmetic was never the interesting part of your job.

How it works

  1. Describe

    Fourteen questions: venue type and city, dates, how many artists and works, how many of those are loans, what is in the show, crew size, technical needs. No line items — that is what you came here not to write.

  2. Generate

    Six categories come back costed. Loans switch on insurance, courier and registrar; performance adds a fee line; the run length sets AV rental months and how many talks and tours you can hold. Anything you disagree with, type over — changed lines carry a mark.

  3. Download

    Take the .xlsx. Subtotals per category and a total are calculated inside the file, so it goes straight into an application and still makes sense to a Verwaltung reading it a year later.

The generator

Generated from the brief above by the same engine the site runs — not typed by hand and not a screenshot. Correct any line you disagree with; it is your budget, not ours.

EUR, netto

Fees

15 550,00
flat4 950,00
artist5 400,00
flat2 200,00
flat1 200,00
flat1 800,00

Transport & insurance

5 980,00
day1 440,00
shipment1 650,00
work1 650,00
courier1 240,00

Installation & technical

16 000,00
crew-day5 120,00
crew-day2 560,00
flat3 200,00
day840,00
month2 600,00
month1 680,00

Production

15 600,00
work15 600,00

Communication & press

4 930,00
flat1 800,00
flat950,00
flat780,00
flat1 400,00

Public programme

3 140,00
flat1 600,00
talk700,00
tour840,00
23 lines · EUR nettoTotal61 200,00

Changed from what the generator produced

Documents

One document type works today. The rest are being built in this order.

Exhibition budget
ready
Production budget
next
Communication and press budget
next
Public programme budget
next
Timeline and install schedule
later

What it costs

Free

0EUR

Enough to finish a real budget.

  • Unlimited editing
  • Up to 25 line items
  • .xlsx marked “Made with vitrine.tools”
Start for free

Single

9EUR

The budget generator, unlocked.

  • No watermark, no line limit
  • Every budget template category
  • .xlsx export

Full

most complete

29EUR

Everything, including what is not built yet.

  • Everything in Single
  • PDF export
  • Every document type, now and later

Team

79EUR

Full, for a whole office.

  • Everything in Full
  • Six activations instead of two
  • One invoice for the institution

One payment, not a subscription. Prices in EUR; checkout adds the VAT of your country and shows the total before you pay.

Questions

What do I actually download?

An .xlsx file: your line items, a subtotal for each category and a total. It opens in Excel, Numbers and LibreOffice.

Is the free version usable on real projects?

Yes. Today the generator is free in full: unlimited lines and a clean spreadsheet. Once licenses go on sale the free export will be capped at 25 lines and will carry a small “Made with vitrine.tools” note.

Where is my budget stored?

Nowhere. It lives in the browser tab. Save a .json file to keep it, and open that file again to carry on.

What if I disagree with a figure?

Yes. The generated budget is a starting point, not a verdict: every line is editable, you can add or remove lines in any category, and you can change the brief and generate again.

What is the difference between Single and Full?

Single unlocks the budget generator and its spreadsheet. Full adds PDF export and every other document type — production, press, public programme, timelines — including the ones not built yet.