How to Thrive in the Hustle of Events Planning [+Infographics]
We’ve interviewed 50 event agencies to understand the critical bottlenecks in organising events and to find a unique formula for thriving in this business.
If you have ever organised an event, no matter big or small, you know it can turn out to be pure chaos, especially if you have to deal with a significant number of suppliers, partners, and attendees. You are often faced with things you can’t foresee or have to coordinate complicated setups on ever-changing schedules. Servicing, time, team, tech, stage — everything has to run smoothly from end to end, but that’s only the forefront. Behind the scenes are months of hard work, planning, and dedication for that one red-letter day.
Here is a breakdown of top-5 challenges that according to our survey, every event organiser has to deal with and tips to solve them as well as maximise the effectiveness of your daily preparation to deliver any kind of event.
- Managing multiple events
- Managing multiple stakeholders
- Keeping track of the whole process and task management
- Budgeting and cost tracking
- Managing time and event schedule
Managing multiple events
Streamlined workflow, centralised communication, and a scalable event planning process aren’t just buzzwords. They are the tools you need to maximise your productivity and, ultimately, the success of your event. But what if you have to run multiple events in the same month?
Smart planning is the key here. Make sure you have the main responsible for each event who will be in charge of managing the team and preparation process as well as report to the senior management. Never let one person manage several events! It will exhaust your teammate and eventually won’t allow them to bring 100% focus to each of the occasions.
Let a team leader organise the separate workflow for an event, have their own mission-vision-strategy and the kanban board. The right software can also be the key to smoothly manage multiple events allowing each team to see their individual dashboard, communicate effectively, and manage their stakeholders. (Excel won’t do its best here, I swear).
Managing multiple stakeholders
Communication is the key, right? But how to effectively communicate with and coordinate partners, suppliers, teammates, partners, delegates, and performers? How to plan the production and involve only relevant stakeholders? How not to miss out on communicating the change to only some of them?
Make a separate tab in your planning tool and dedicate it to the communication strategy. Plan everything according to the GTCM model — define the goals, target audience, channels, and messages. This is a usual way for marketing communication and promotion; however, it also works perfectly for internal communication and stakeholder relationships. Set a clear timeline for each message and learn to speak their language.
On a technical note, don’t spread your focus on too many channels because it is very easy to forget some. You may also want to choose a planning tool that will allow you to collaborate with stakeholders on specific projects and grant them different access rights. This is the most effective way to have one single tool for all your tasks, assign them to particular people, monitor the team’s productivity, goal achievement, and avoid miscommunication.
Keeping track of the whole process and task management
40% of the companies we have interviewed mentioned internal task management among the production team one of their most pressing challenges. Probably, because you have to deal with real people here.
When an event is a year or eight months away, it can be very tempting to keep it on the bottom of the priorities list, however, early planning can be the key to deliver your event successfully. We suggest going with the simple tool of backwards planning. As soon as you are assigned to organise an event, define its goal and a vision using the Why-How-What circles. It will help you to see the big picture and downscale the main ambition to your team. This is also the time to assign responsibilities inside the team and make sure you have someone leading each area, e.g., logistics, budgeting, marketing, delegate servicing, etc. Each area should have its MoS that you will later connect all KPIs to.
The next step would be to define the event schedule and start looking for speakers (or performers) and venue as well as prepare the project budget. Also, break your big goal into smaller ones and set the blocks of tasks for each area.
Afterwards, start promoting your events using your purpose and messages set in the first step. And don’t forget to coordinate these messages with your speakers.
Always make regular checkpoints with area responsibles to make sure you stick to your “Why” and their teams are on track with the goals. Set clear KPIs and OKRs for each area and track them weekly.
Make the unique dashboard that will help you see how close you are in achieving your goals and what tasks are left to do this week.
Again, find a smart software that will serve the needs of your company by allowing you to customise the dashboards, tasks backlog, and role assignments. Don’t neglect proper research or investing in your custom system.
Budgeting and cost tracking
Diving into the black hole of a poorly planned event is not something new, just like being in a mad dash a week before the day searching for additional funds. However, even a bigger mistake is the idea to “spend as you go” and not controlling your expenses at all. Such a plan usually leads to overspending and not taking enough responsibility for your initial event budget.
Things indeed may change; that’s why you should always have one centralised and accessible tool for all stakeholders to keep track of all the changes. It does not mean you have to share your cash flow spreadsheet with all clients, but having one repeatable system in place will help your team plan the budget, track the spendings, communicate all changes, and don’t overspend.
Managing time and event schedule
Time management and event scheduling seem to be an issue for about 20% of agencies, especially if you have several activities running simultaneously and have to coordinate the setup by minutes, not hours. To stay on top of the schedule, we suggest dividing the agenda into blocks and placing the activities into them. Then you can go block by block listing all the things you have to do to realise the activity. Assign responsible for each block and task and let someone back them up. If you have different activities within an hour, customise your calendar to have the 5 or 10-minute slots. Making a detailed production schedule with allotments and specific task assignments can save you from lots of headaches during the day. And don’t forget the buffer time for allocating the complicated setup and not losing the peace of mind. Another tip is always to have a free pair of hands to do the firefighting if something unpredicted pops up. (Remember Murphy’s law)
Conclusion: organising or supporting a big event can be rocket science sometimes, but smart planning, good tech, and clear vision can definitely help you thrive in this business, gain loyalty and thousands of happy customers.
What about your company? Do you encounter the same or different problems? How do you manage them? Share with us your formula on organising successful events!
