10 tips for saving time when organising your event

10 tips for saving time when organising your event

Prepar­ing an event is a stress­ful job, as new tasks with tight dead­lines can come your way at any minute. For this rea­son, event organ­is­ers like sav­ing time by work­ing more effi­cient­ly. Although there are no mir­a­cle solu­tions, the fol­low­ing ten tips will help you save time when prepar­ing your next event and will help you achieve suc­cess.

Sum­ma­ry

  1. Start as soon as pos­si­ble
  2. Choose the right tools
  3. Con­cen­trate your efforts on pri­or­i­ties
  4. List EVERY task
  5. Del­e­gate, del­e­gate, del­e­gate
  6. Hire exter­nal­ly
  7. Find vol­un­teers
  8. Say good­bye to man­u­al reports
  9. Com­mu­ni­cate via tar­get­ed mar­ket­ing cam­paigns
  10. Expect the unex­pect­ed

1. Start as soon as possible

As you know, plan­ning an event is a mon­u­men­tal task. The more time you can spend sort­ing out each small detail, the more like­ly it is that your event will be suc­cess­ful. So, start as soon as pos­si­ble. Not only will this reduce stress, it will also ben­e­fit you when you come to search for a loca­tion or per­son­nel, and will give you more room to expect the unex­pect­ed.

2. Choose the right tools

There are an infi­nite num­ber of tools that deserve your atten­tion, such as project man­age­ment appli­ca­tions like Trel­lo, event stream­ing soft­ware like Livestream, and Weezevent’s tick­et­ing, access con­trol and cash­less pay­ment tools.

Numer­ous bril­liant appli­ca­tions will make your life as an event organ­is­er less stress­ful. The key is to find the tools that work for you and are suit­ed to the type of event that you’re prepar­ing. Car­ry out some tests and keep those that work best for your project and which match your bud­get.

3. Concentrate your efforts on priorities

Know­ing how to pri­ori­tise your time and efforts as best as pos­si­ble is an essen­tial foun­da­tion to mas­ter. The more con­cen­trat­ed you are on the right objec­tives, the more suc­cess­ful you will be. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly true when prepar­ing an event.

There are a mil­lion dif­fer­ent things that need to be accom­plished for your event to be con­sid­ered a suc­cess. So, where to start? Under­stand­ing what’s most impor­tant and where your pri­or­i­ties lie will enable you to con­cen­trate on the things that real­ly count.

First of all, define your over­all vision. Then, pri­ori­tise your task list based on impor­tant tasks, not just the urgent ones. Final­ly, tack­le each item on your list one by one. This frame­work will ensure that you man­age your time well when prepar­ing your events.

4. List EVERY task

Start by defin­ing each task to be car­ried out in a list which includes the largest tasks such as book­ing a loca­tion, find­ing ser­vice providers, and work­ing with a design­er or graph­ic design­er.

Once every­thing is in writ­ing, you can start plan­ning each task for spe­cif­ic time peri­ods. Don’t for­get to fix a dead­line for each task and to indi­cate when they’ve been com­plet­ed. This will ensure you remain organ­ised and on the right track.

5. Delegate, delegate, delegate

Prepar­ing an event requires a huge amount of effort, and you shouldn’t try to do every­thing your­self. Del­e­gat­ing is the key to a suc­cess­ful event. This will also moti­vate mem­bers of your team and help them feel more invest­ed in their work.

Do your best to del­e­gate the right tasks to the right employ­ees, pro­vide them with clear guide­lines, and explain your expec­ta­tions. Then, allow them to work inde­pen­dent­ly. Del­e­gat­ing los­es its val­ue when you’re hav­ing to con­stant­ly look over your team­mates’ shoul­ders.

6. Hire externally

Some­times, del­e­gat­ing tasks to your team won’t be enough. You might find that you need to hire exter­nal­ly to help you achieve your goals. How can sub­con­tract­ed work­ers help you? Well, in many ways, includ­ing devel­op­ing web­sites, set­ting up on the day, and event pho­tog­ra­phy.

Com­pen­sate for the skills miss­ing with­in your team by hir­ing tal­ent­ed peo­ple via sites like UpWork and Free­lancer.

7. Find volunteers

It’s entire­ly pos­si­ble to find vol­un­teers for your event, espe­cial­ly if your event’s main goal is to raise aware­ness or funds for a char­i­ta­ble cause. Start by search­ing among your acquain­tances, and once you’ve exhaust­ed your per­son­al con­tacts, turn to oth­er event organ­is­ers to dis­cov­er how they find their vol­un­teers.

Remem­ber that just because you don’t pay vol­un­teers, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be reward­ed for their help. If pos­si­ble, offer them free entry to your event, meals or mer­chan­dis­ing to thank them.

8. Say goodbye to manual reports

Many event organ­is­ers tend to car­ry out their reports man­u­al­ly using spread­sheets. Not only can this take much more time than nec­es­sary, it also gen­er­ates more errors. Instead, opt for an all-in-one solu­tion which can pro­vide you with sta­tis­tics for your tick­et­ing ser­vice, your access con­trol, and even your on-site rev­enue through the cash­less sys­tem.

9. Communicate via targeted marketing campaigns

Cus­tomer rela­tion­ship man­age­ment (CRM) solu­tions are becom­ing increas­ing­ly essen­tial for event organ­is­ers. Your atten­dees want a per­son­alised expe­ri­ence, and it’s vir­tu­al­ly impos­si­ble to offer this with­out hav­ing clear, in-depth knowl­edge of your data­base.

For­tu­nate­ly, events are key touch­points in mar­ket­ing strate­gies. With each tick­et pur­chased, access per­mit scanned and email opened, your rela­tion­ship with your atten­dees grows. All of this must be synced with your CRM tool, then incor­po­rat­ed into your future mar­ket­ing cam­paigns.

10. Expect the unexpected

Final­ly, with so many vari­ables involved in prepar­ing an event, things won’t always go as planned. It’s best to plan with this in mind.

We rec­om­mend that you allow some extra time for last-minute requests, espe­cial­ly in the weeks run­ning up to your event. That way, you won’t be caught off guard and you will have enough time to get every­thing done.

These tips, when used togeth­er, can be used as a sort of event plan­ning mod­el and will help to ensure the suc­cess of your next event. If you’re look­ing for tools for tick­et­ing and reg­is­tra­tion, access con­trol, and cash­less pay­ment, dis­cov­er all of Weezevent’s fea­tures by click­ing on the but­ton below:

Organ­is­ing an event

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