Planners of professional events — prepare for a smooth return to work

The end of the sum­mer hol­i­days is approach­ing slow­ly but sure­ly. To approach return­ing to work with opti­mal prepa­ra­tion, what could be bet­ter than a lit­tle read­ing? We have every­thing you need to gen­tly immerse your­self in the organ­i­sa­tion of your pro­fes­sion­al events — whether you organ­ise after­work events, con­fer­ences, fairs, trade shows or exhi­bi­tions. Reflect on the past 12 months, con­sid­er your strengths and weak­ness­es and dis­cov­er what you need to fine-tune them.

Con­tents

1. Sched­ule with great care
2. Set the right price
3. A tidy bud­get
4. Excit­ing speak­ers
5. THE per­fect date
6. Tick­et­ing is your new friend
7. A check­list to organ­ise a trade show

1. Schedule with great care

The ear­li­er you pre­pare your sched­ule, the more you can spread out your tasks over time. This will pre­vent you from end­ing up rush­ing things at the last minute. The impor­tant thing when cre­at­ing your event plan­ning sched­ule is to start from the final dead­line, i.e. the date of the event. Than move back­wards to plan the tasks that need to be done right before the event so that it can run smooth­ly — e.g. brief­ing secu­ri­ty staff for instance. Then keep going until you have reached the first steps of your plan­ning. Ask your­self the fol­low­ing ques­tion: which task must be com­plet­ed before I can com­plete the next one and how long will it take?

At the end of this process, you will have an idea of how long your event plan­ning will take. Opti­mise the time required for each task but remain real­is­tic. Your assess­ment must be close to real­i­ty even if there will inevitably be some sur­pris­es.

Regard­less of the for­mat your event sched­ule takes — Excel spread­sheet, Google Sheets, spe­cial­ist soft­ware — the impor­tant thing is to fol­low this back­wards sched­ul­ing method.

2. Set the right price

What did your par­tic­i­pants think of your tick­et prices last year? Have you kept their com­ments on a doc­u­ment? It’s almost time to get back to work but you still have some time to take a step back and con­sid­er your events’ prices. Ask your­self the fol­low­ing ques­tions: :

• Is my event inter­est­ing enough for me to raise prices?
• If I low­er the prices to attract more peo­ple, won’t they feel that the event is less inter­est­ing than last year?
• Would it make sense to low­er the price of tick­ets to sell more prod­ucts dur­ing the event?

Many aspects have an impact on the price. This arti­cle can help you get a clear­er view: How to set the tick­et price for your event?.

3. A tidy budget

What could be more com­fort­able than to think about your bud­get when you are not yet in a hur­ry due to the time and demands around you? Review your bud­get from last year, analyse your rev­enues and expens­es, and start plan­ning your bud­get for the com­ing year. Read our arti­cle on the basic rules for bud­get­ing your event to make sure you don’t for­get any­thing.

4. Exciting speakers

The peo­ple like­ly to speak at your events are prob­a­bly on hol­i­day or at least in an open and warm state of mind. This is the per­fect time to invite them to speak at your events. If it is not nec­es­sar­i­ly their habit, they may be less famil­iar with the exer­cise, but their expe­ri­ence and sto­ries will be no less excit­ing. They will also be in a bet­ter posi­tion to accept new chal­lenges dur­ing this slow peri­od. Offer them top­ics that are dif­fer­ent from the ordi­nary, that allow them to con­sid­er the start of the school year with new pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al goals.

5. THE perfect date

Choos­ing the per­fect date for your event is always a headache. So, take the time to observe all the oth­er events and exter­nal­i­ties that could dis­rupt your plan­ning depend­ing on the date cho­sen. By chance — or not — we wrote an arti­cle enti­tled How to choose the right date for your event — This is too good an oppor­tu­ni­ty for you to miss.

6. Ticketing is your new friend

Try­ing a new online tick­et­ing solu­tion is eas­i­er when you can take your time. Dis­cov­er each fea­ture, test things, find out about the pos­si­bil­i­ties offered to you. You have plen­ty of time to become a tick­et­ing expert, at your own pace. It’s the hol­i­days, after all!

7. A checklist to organise a trade show

Are you organ­is­ing a trade show? Read our check­list to suc­cess­ful­ly organ­ise a trade show. An essen­tial to keep with you at all times. An over­sight is quick to hap­pen, but it is now a thing of the past..

We could talk to you about organ­is­ing pro­fes­sion­al events for hours, but there comes a time when you have to take action. Dis­cov­er all the fea­tures of our online tick­et­ing and reg­is­tra­tion, access con­trol and cash­less pay­ment solu­tions by click­ing below:

Organ­ise a pro­fes­sion­al event