Event Planning 101

Why you shouldn’t use that Spreadsheet for Event Planning anymore!

Oh good ol’ spreadsheets!

You are either good at them or dread them. Either way, you’ve used them! Excel, Google Sheets, Apple Numbers, and the list goes on. I remember way back, Windows 95 to be exact — spreadsheets (like Excel), were solely used by ‘numbers’ people (you know, the accounting/finance team) for numbers and only numbers.

Somewhere along the way (2015 and beyond?), that changed. People started realizing the power behind spreadsheets and began using them for anything and everything. Project Management, Calendars, Menus, To Do Lists, CRMs, you name it.

At Gatsby, we often hear: “I used to plan my entire event on multiple spreadsheets”, or “I used a spreadsheet, because I didn’t have anything else”. The famous, “I wish I had one software to do it all”.

We have even heard about clients using a spreadsheet as a master CRM! Imagine 1000's of your most important contacts that power your business, all living in a spreadsheet? This, of course, makes it hard to look up historical data, cross reference guests, track notes, and keep data up to date. Who has what version anyway?

Are you one of the ones who uses spreadsheets because your company purchased it, or just because it’s free and familiar? That’s cool — I like free stuff.

But using spreadsheets for event planning is not cool!

Your most important relationships deserve better than a free spreadsheet.

Don’t get me wrong, spreadsheets are great for organizing large pieces of data, and I’m a huge proponent of them…just not for planning events. Here’s why.

Copying & Pasting -> Tons of Copying & Pasting

To me, this is the easiest reason. Picture it — you have your spreadsheet open and want to copy and paste your existing data into it. CTRL+C/V for those shortcut people! Immediately, you are exposing your data to error. With each ‘copy’ trip, your data loses its fidelity. Data becomes disconnected sources of truth that you simply cannot rely upon.

Collaboration -> Difficult and Uncoordinated

Let’s face it, collaborating with spreadsheets is difficult, as you can’t see who’s making changes and when they’re making them. This results in an uncoordinated effort at best, resulting in multiple tools to make things happen.

Structured & Unstructured -> Clunky CRM vs Sloppy Spreadsheet

Then there are people who think “what if I had a structured CRM to help me plan events?” Structured CRMs (like Salesforce) are hard to set up and often complicated, not to mention expensive. Unstructured CRMs (like Excel spreadsheets) are easy to use and flexible, but are prone to error, go stale and make data loss that much easier.

Multiple tools -> Multiple Subscriptions, Logins and Cost

Having multiple tools becomes a large exhaustive effort of making sure you track responses correctly. Users run the risk of their Guests getting lost or deleted entirely. Users runs the risks of non-integration, multiple logins (hence, multiple passwords), and increased costs.

So, why not use an event management software, like Gatsby? Let’s face it — you are a professional — you should be using purpose-built professional software to plan events.

With Gatsby, there is no more copying and pasting. Gatsby’s powerful CSV importer will upload those lists into one place — with ease. See those most important details in each contact card — and all the events that contact has ever attended — and, check them in the day of the event.

Gatsby has real time collaboration at its finest. Invite your teammates to help plan events or invite that external person who is so important to the execution of the event. Exchange files, leave notes or reminders and keep a historic dialogue of exactly how the event unfolded.

And lastly, but most importantly, multiple tools are gone forever. One login, one dashboard — for everything event and client related.

Gatsby is a modern solution for Event Planning and Relationship management. Built for teams and professionals, it combines the best parts of a CRM with the power of a purpose-built guest list and invitation designer + sender built right in. From planning to post-event followup, Gatsby is all you need. Oh, and of course, it takes notes for you and tracks all of your context and interactions for you.

Try us out. You won’t be disappointed — gatsby.events