vent planning takes a lot of time, patience and effort, from choosing a venue and liaising with different vendors right through to organising event logistics and marketing. However, all of this careful planning can easily be for nothing if you fail to manage your event properly on the day.
We’ve put together our top tips to ensure that your event runs smoothly and is remembered for all the right reasons. Read on to find out more…
Check-in your attendees efficiently
Firstly, you should put an efficient method in place for registering your attendees and allowing them into the venue. A long queue can immediately give attendees a negative impression, therefore, you want to try to reduce waiting times as much as possible. However, it’s important that the process is carried out properly to avoid allowing people who haven’t got tickets into the venue.
There are a number of ways to streamline how people enter your event with many technologies available to make it even more efficient. Simple ways of making your event entry more efficient include training your onsite staff properly, scanning tickets quickly and having a couple of check-in stations and creating a strong event entry contingency plan. You can find out more about contingency planning below.
Create an event management checklist
Our next tip is to create a list of things you need to do on the day and tick them off as you go. This way, you won’t forget certain aspects of managing your event as they are all written down in front of you. Another benefit of this is that it will help put your mind at ease and reduce stress levels as you know exactly what you need to do and when.
It’s a good idea to prepare your checklist well in advance to allow you to alter and add things to the list as required. Keep your list in order by putting time deadlines next to each task, this will help to keep you on track and reduce the chances of slight delays on the day. Some things will need tackling immediately on the day, whereas others will need doing towards the end, keeping a list will help you arrange your day more efficiently.
Make sure you are well-staffed
No matter how organised you are or how carefully you plan your event, unexpected things can still happen on the day. Making sure you have plenty of staff on the day who know what they are doing is key to ensuring things still run smoothly despite small setbacks.
Minimise the impact of a staff member calling in sick by making sure you have plenty of staff already working on the day. This means that if someone is unable to come to work on the day, the rest of your team will still be able to manage comfortably without them.
It’s also a good idea to make sure your staff are well-trained so that they can quickly and confidently tackle anything unexpected on the day.
Prepare your vendors
From staff members and volunteers to caterers and photographers, the number of people involved in your event is likely to grow the closer you get to your event. Therefore, it is absolutely vital that you maintain good communication with each person to ensure they’re aware of all the details of your event. Plus, establishing a good relationship with your vendors is important for helping you execute your event vision.
Be prepared for potential issues
No matter how well you prepare for your event, there can always be issues on the day. Therefore, it’s a really good idea to put together a contingency plan outlining what to do in case anything goes wrong on the day.
Having a plan for when things go wrong ensures that all members of your team know how to respond and rectify any unforeseen circumstances, helping the event to continue running smoothly. You can find out more creating an event contingency plan here.
