Planning the a great business event is not as complicated as it may seem. However, many planners never learn the secrets of making the event feel perfect. If you’re on the hook for making sure that a business event goes off without a hitch, then read on.
What’s the Point of this Event?
One major issue that many amateur event planners have with their planning from the start is a lack of a clear reason why. Here’s how to give your event a clear purpose.
Define Your Goal
Knowing your goals might be a simple as taking a step back and asking yourself. Is this a holiday party? Then the goal might be to encourage camaraderie fun among employees. Perhaps it’s a fundraiser. Then the goal should go beyond just raising money. Instead, you’re goal is really tied to the purpose or cause for which you are raising money in the first place.
Define Your Audience
After you know what your goal is for this event, the next step is to completely understand who the attendees will be. Why would they come? What do they like? What would make this event spectacular to them? Make a list of questions like these. The answers to them will guide everything you do in your planning.
Cover All the Details
After you fully understand the point of the event, the next most important thing to do is to be as thorough as possible with planning the details. Not a details type of person? Then enlist someone who is to help. Here’s a quick list of details to think about for your business event.
- Venue
- Catering and Food
- Transportation and Parking
- Date and Possible Conflicts
- Budget and Finance
- Audio Visual Needs
- Registration and Signups
Promoting Your Event
Whether your event hinges on voluntary attendees, or is a mandatory function, promotion is key to a successful event. Promoting your event will serve as a reminder and will set up people’s expectations for the event. It will determine whether people are excited to come or dreading the thought of being there.
Don’t “Give Away The Farm”
The best promotion is to promise something good, but save the best stuff for the event itself. You can accomplish this by focusing on the goal and some of the larger details in your messaging. Plan to include extra pieces that go above and beyond what people expected.
The Event
The biggest thing to remember on the day (or days) of the event is that things will go differently than expected. Be ready to think on your feet and expect changes. Just be sure to arrive early and remember the resources you have available to you. Be ready to use them in unique ways if need be. In addition to that, here are some things that you can make sure happen during the event.
- Make sure lots of photos are taken
- Consider using social media during and after the event
- Check in with guests to see if everything is ok
- Consider doing a post event evaluation
Conclusion
With a clear goal in mind, a detailed plan, and plenty of above and beyond features, it is almost impossible to plan an event that wouldn’t wow your attendees. Events are tough to put together and almost certainly not everything will go right, but going beyond what people expect helps to make any well planned event feel like magic to your guests.
