Whether it’s a seminar for fifty delegates or a major conference or awards ceremony with 1,000 attendees good planning and organisation is key.
For a successful and smooth running event our top tips include:
- Ensure you have clear objectives and know who you want to target – it is crucial to outline why the event is taking place and what you want it to achieve. Is it to raise awareness of your company, thank your stakeholders or celebrate people’s achievements?
- Have a realistic timescale for event delivery – organising any event requires a large amount of planning in advance so its best to think about realistic timescales
- Have a plan! – as soon as you are clear about your objectives and timescales draft a plan to schedule what activities need to be achieved in the time frame
- Check out other events – make sure that your event does not clash with another one on the same day; research other possible events to avoid embarrassment and low attendance
- Give people clear responsibilities – make sure that team members are clear about their roles and what deadlines they have to meet.
- Communicate, communicate, communicate – regular updates and communications between the event’s team and any third parties mean any issues can resolved quickly and ensure your event stays on course
- Be budget conscious – when you take all event management costs into consideration (marketing, catering, staging, AV requirements, programme content and format, database management, attracting sponsorship etc) events can soon run over budget. Calculate the cost of the event at the outset and always set aside a contingency budget. Then keep to it.
- Keep calm – as with most events there are particularly busy periods which can be stressful, so its important to keep calm and have contingencies in place in case they are needed
- Evaluate – when an event is over take time to evaluate it to ensure it has met its objectives. This helps if you need to feedback to your colleagues and is crucial if the event is held again so you learn what you did well and what you could do better.