Make sure you understand what your event is all about
The first step to planning an event is to define what you hope to achieve. To begin with, ask yourself what the purpose is and what you hope to gain from the event. After identifying your goals and expectations, you can determine what kind of event will resonate with your intended audience. ‘What is the event’s objective?’ should be the first question you ask when arranging a corporate event. Having a clear understanding of what key stakeholders want to achieve will allow you to plan more effectively. In addition, it will enable you to communicate your ideas in a language your audience will understand.
Establish a realistic budget
To determine what kind of event you can put on, you need to know how much money you have available. From the choice of venue and speakers to catering, entertainment, technology, and staffing, the budget available can influence every aspect of corporate event planning. To get a clear picture of how much certain suppliers will charge, cost breakdowns from past budgets are helpful. You can use these to ensure you’re not being overcharged when you reach out to suppliers for an initial quote.
However, every budget must be flexible. It is common for unexpected expenditures to occur, and suppliers provide estimated prices. Therefore, the corporate event budget should manage a budget accordingly, and a contingency fund should be established. Furthermore, you must select the most suitable deal and maximise the budget allocated for the event.
Select a theme and location
Once you have defined objectives and defined your audience, choosing a theme or topic for the event is the next step. This move will enable you to determine the appropriate format for presenting it to your guests. It’s time to select a venue that will allow you to create the type of event you envision. Sometimes it’s tempting to book a venue you’ve heard positive things about or know is an up-and-coming hot spot, even if you haven’t yet chosen your mission.
The purpose of the event may also influence the choice of venue. In addition to budget, capacity, location, and availability, your venue choice will also be affected by logistics. In the event of a place being unavailable during your scheduled event, consider alternative locations at the earliest possible opportunity. The cost of renting a venue may be less during specific times if the venue offers seasonal pricing. Find out what your chosen venue will cost on the date of your choice. Your preferred venue may offer a better deal if your dates are flexible.
Take the time to organise the day
You need to book prominent speakers and presenters, such as experts and influencers, who can best convey the ideas you want to circulate. All the necessary event specialists must be identified, vetted, and contracted to ensure that the event is a success. A few examples include caterers, audiovisual technicians, printers, decorators, photographers, florists, and security personnel.
Establish a timeline for the event so that everything proceeds according to plan. Each team member should be aware of the aspects of the day they are in charge of.
Be careful not to overfill the schedule. Unexpected events should be accounted for in the itinerary. Aside from that, attendees need time on their own to reflect on what they are learning, recharge and connect with other attendees.
Celebrate and evaluate your event planning success
Congratulations if your event came off without a hitch! But you aren’t finished yet. Make sure you wrap up any loose ends, such as paying vendors, reconciling your finances and holding a post-event team debrief.
The most significant thing is to gather guest feedback. If you are using an event-planning app that has a feedback option, you can use it to ask attendees questions. You can use this data to determine whether the event met your original goals and if it had any impact on attendees. Once this information has been gathered, it can then be shared with management to arrange a follow-up. You can learn from the lessons you learn and refine how you plan for future events.