Event Planning - Event Management Checklist (Part II)
- Alex Genadinik
- Jul 15, 2024
- 3 min read
8. Relationships with partners, sponsors, venues, caterers, and vendors
Whenever possible, it is great to have sponsors or companies that will give you good deals on catering, venue, or anything else your event might need. These relationships are not fostered overnight so plan ahead for how you will secure such partners or sponsors and start those relationships early.
9. Marketing plan
This book will spend a lot of time on marketing because that is how your events will grow. You might not be able to execute every strategy mentioned in the upcoming chapter on marketing but choose the ones that apply to you and be sure to do them well.
Have a solid plan for growing attendance and start executing that plan early because your ability to generate attendance for your events will be the lifeline of your event series.
10. Post-event evaluation to determine business success
How do you know if your event is successful? I was ecstatic when my event attendance started to grow significantly and felt that this made my events successful. But that was just one success metric. Other success metrics are event revenue, profit, and perhaps most important of all, attendee happiness and repeat attendance, which means that you have to focus on event quality.
Whatever your event success metrics are, be sure to objectively identify and evaluate whether the event was a success on all measures. Consider sending out a post-event survey to attendees to generate quick feedback. If your event is not successful, you have some problem solving to do to improve the aspects of your events that didn’t go as well as they should have.
11. Post-event evaluation to determine whether the event was successful FOR YOUR ATTENDEES
If your attendees have a great time and get what they are looking for at your events, that will generate repeat attendance, loyalty, and spending. Have a feedback loop to help you understand what the attendee experience was like. This can be as simple as talking to people during the event and getting their feedback about it. Come extra early and leave extra late.
Organize post-event drinks or dinner with attendees. This will make the events more fun and personal. Plus, it will give you more chances to ask them questions or simply hear different perspectives from more attendees. Likewise, keep individual relationships going with a few attendees who are extra engaged. They will have more feedback on how you can improve the events.
You can also ask for feedback by sending out an anonymous survey after the event or even have a suggestion box. Collecting these evaluations will give you ideas for what you can improve for the next event and long-term. In addition, read all comments that use your event’s hashtag on social media. Most comments will be positive, but any negative comments can be used for ideas on what to improve. Think of each event quality improvement as something that leads to more revenue.
12. Additional logistics and budget
Attention to detail will set your event series apart. It will help you make your events as good as they can be and will make your attendees feel that the events are professionally put together.
Make sure all the details of the event are taken care of. These are things like smoothly handling registration, making sure that the attendees clearly understand the event itinerary and what to expect from the event, having good handouts, badges, goody bags, the quality and preparation of the speakers, and many other things.
The details and things you could prepare never end. From the start, identify the budget and total resources that will go into the event. That will inform your decisions of how much you can spend on event staff, logistics, venue, and other resources you can devote to event quality and organization.
In the next section we will take a deeper dive into planning, organizing, and managing your event or event series.
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