Events are ever changing and there’s lots to consider when arranging any conference or social events whether for yourself or your company.  They are now hybrid meetings, annual events which need to be bigger and better than the previous year, guest expectations of exciting events and interactive activities to keep them engaged all day.

Whether big or small, all in person or hybrid hopefully these top tips will help with any future events you are planning.

1. Be prepared – Find out and prepare your agenda and also objectives of your event. What you want to achieve from the event and this will determine what venues you will go out to and what kind of space you will need for a successful event.  Have to hand guest numbers and an agenda to go out to venues with so you can get the most out of the proposal they will send over to you.
2. Compare venues – Look at at least 3 different venues to compare rates, availability and location. You want to be able to compare to see what will work for you and your guests best.  Try and physically see the venues too, its always best to get out to view and discuss with the event expert how your event will work at their location.
3. Get organised with an excel – Create a spreadsheet as soon as possible in your planning process. Starting with attendee list, this will then grow as the planning progresses and will start to include number of days attending, dietaries, overnight accommodation, any other requirements for that particular guest.  This will then come in super handy when doing final details of your event with your venue.  This is also good for you to follow costing and budget.
4. Planner aids – Use any planning aids that you can to assist you where needs be. If you are planning a dinner where a pre-order is needed use a pre-order system which you can send over to your guests to fill out directly so you don’t have to chase them for lots of details the system will do it for you.
5. Team building activities – If Team building activities are needed use an external company to arrange and supply these for you if possible, they will attend on the day so you don’t need to worry about hosting the activities it is all taken care of.
6. Multiple day events – For multiple day conferences when scheduling the agenda make sure to schedule in some down time in-between to give your delegates time to process the day. Conferences can be full on and this will help keep your delegates engaged for the full duration of the conference.
7. Suppliers – Ask your venue for any recommended suppliers they might have for AV, entertainment or venue dressing etc. This will make your life so much easier as the venue will already have the good relationship with the supplier and they will be familiar with the venue which will help so much.
8. Dietaries – It is key to get the dietaries from your guests whether you are having a dinner or not. This is good for our operations team to know even for just teas and coffees to make sure we are catering for everyone’s needs.  This is again where the spreadsheet will come in handy to add the details on there and also the pre-order system will allow guests to add their own on themselves.
9. Audio Visual and Hybrid events – lots of events have AV needs and it is good to know what you need, what your venue has as a basic and included in your package rate and also what is available to hire. Due to the higher demand in Hybrid events when some delegates video call in its good to know before confirming your event if this is doable at your venue and how much it is going to cost as an addition if needed.  It is also good to know what is extra to hire in to meet your AV needs, this will prepare you for any extra costs along the way.
10. Final detail communication – I would definitely recommend either a face to face appointment or a teams call to go over final details with your event co-ordinator. A conversation over the phone or face to face is always better to go over all details and have a conversation regarding your event rather than emails back and forth, especially at the later stage of your event planning.

Hopefully some if not all of these tips you can take away and will help you with your event planning.