Are you planning a corporate event such as a holiday party, a conference, or a full on convention, and you won’t stand for anything but a successful, memorable event?
Corporate events can be hard to pull off well, but when done right it’s a great way to cement your brand in people’s minds, generate leads and create long-term connections.
Planning a successful and memorable corporate event doesn’t have to be a stressful task. Below are tips for stress-free event planning:
Check the calendar
Few things can be more disappointing than realizing that your event will occur close to holidays or popular vacation times or that it matches another important event that your target attendees might be going to.
In order to avoid having to do rearrangements, check the calendar first and do some research on when industry events are throughout the year.
Make a thorough to-do list
This is probably the most important task you’ll work on at the beginning. Take your time to work on a thorough and detailed to-do list. It is advisable that you don’t just include the major things such as “arrange catering” or “book venue” but also break each one into smaller sub-tasks such as “ask for catering budget,” “catering sample trials,” “check venue availability,” and “venue décor.”
Having a clear idea of the smaller and larger tasks you’ll have to tackle before the event will help you work on your schedule to make sure that everything gets done right in time.
Create your own timeline
Not every single task has the same priority nor they can be done as we wish. By organising them into a schedule it will make it easier for you to know which of them needs to be accomplished first, which ones can be handled simultaneously, which ones depend just on you to get done and for which ones you’ll need help. Delegation is key.
It is highly advisable that you create a quite flexible schedule, allowing a couple of extra days to get tasks accomplished. Even if you’re planning a corporate event for a small business, many a time decisions involve more than one people, unexpected delays can occur and it’s easier to know beforehand that you have a couple of extra days available.
Just as a quick guide, make sure you send the invitation as early as possible so that you can start making the phone calls to confirm who of your guests are coming and who are not.
What’s your budget?
Before you can start crossing off tasks in your to-do-list, you need to know how much money you have to spend. Either your boss will provide you with a set budget to play with or you may need to gather quotes from the different providers, evaluate the best ones, create a detailed budget yourself and send it over for approval.
It is very likely that your venue, the catering service, the event staff and any special speaker you may want to participate in your event are going to be the most expensive items in your budget. That said, make sure you get the most accurate figures possible as it will help you have a better idea of the overall cost of your corporate celebration.
Coming next, we’ll jump head first into planning your corporate event!
Stephen Pearce, Marketing Manager, Adelaide Hills Convention Centre
