How to successfully organise a Valentine’s Day event?

Valen­tine’s Day is cel­e­brat­ed on Feb­ru­ary 14 and is a hol­i­day that takes place almost world­wide. To organ­ise a Valen­tine’s Day event, you must con­sid­er sev­er­al steps to offer the best pos­si­ble expe­ri­ence to atten­dees.

It’s the per­fect time to host an event: cou­ples are look­ing for roman­tic ideas and sin­gles want to meet new peo­ple. How­ev­er, to be suc­cess­ful, you must fol­low a num­ber of plan­ning and organ­i­sa­tion rules.

1. The budget

Prepare a budget

First, it is impor­tant to devel­op a detailed bud­get. Mak­ing a list of items to con­sid­er for your Valen­tine’s Day event is real­ly help­ful. Rent a place, the cater­ing, the decor… You have to include every­thing in your bud­get.

If you want to charge admis­sion to your par­ty, you will have to fix a fair price to attract atten­dees and cov­er your expens­es. Using an online tick­et­ing solu­tion will allow you to man­age the num­ber of atten­dees at your event, while obtain­ing data about who they are (their age, where they come from, their inter­ests, etc.). It is essen­tial to pro­vide a mar­gin of secu­ri­ty in your bud­get, to use it in case of con­tin­gen­cies.

Cost management

Your expens­es will be dif­fer­ent depend­ing on the objec­tives of your event. Do you want to increase your sales? Or maybe make your brand bet­ter known? You will have to pri­ori­tise, that is, make a list of the items, from most to least impor­tant.

• The “most impor­tant” expens­es are those essen­tial for the smooth run­ning of your Valen­tine’s Day event, such as hir­ing a venue or hir­ing a cater­ing ser­vice.
• Less impor­tant expens­es are those that add some­thing to your event but are not nec­es­sary, such as gifts for guests or some of the dec­o­ra­tions.

It may be help­ful to find a spon­sor to reduce the cost of your Valentine’s Day event. In return for pub­lic­i­ty and vis­i­bil­i­ty, the spon­sor will pro­vide ser­vices such as food prepa­ra­tion ‑if your spon­sor is a restau­rant- or flo­ral dec­o­ra­tion ‑if you are spon­sored by a florist-.

Keep track

It is essen­tial to keep track your even­t’s var­i­ous expens­es and income. You’ll need to keep an eye on your bud­get and adjust it accord­ing­ly so you don’t exceed the lim­its you set.

2. Services

For a Valentine’s Day event to suc­ceed, it is impor­tant to have qual­i­ty ser­vices. It’s an excit­ing moment for cou­ples, which has to be roman­tic. You can also organ­ise a sin­gles event with speed dat­ing, for exam­ple. Here, too, it will be nec­es­sary to focus on the ser­vice, to ensure that atten­dees feel com­fort­able. There are sev­er­al ele­ments to con­sid­er:

The choice of venue

Choos­ing the venue is one of the most cru­cial aspects of mak­ing your event a suc­cess. The space you choose for your event must match the event you want to organ­ise. Think about the val­ue propo­si­tion of the cho­sen venue: Does it have spec­tac­u­lar views? Is it locat­ed in a priv­i­leged envi­ron­ment? Is it cosy?

Acces­si­bil­i­ty to your Valen­tine’s Day event venue is also an impor­tant aspect you can’t over­look. Check the avail­able trans­port options and col­lect them in a doc­u­ment or on your web­site to inform atten­dees.

Catering service

Depend­ing on the type of Valen­tine’s Day event you are host­ing, you may need to pro­vide food for atten­dees. For a roman­tic din­ner, you can use a full cater­ing ser­vice. For a cock­tail or speed dat­ing, you can opt for snacks.
When you choose what type of cui­sine to offer, go safe and offer vari­ety. It is a good idea to com­mu­ni­cate the menu to atten­dees before the event, espe­cial­ly if it is a full meal.

For drinks, you can hire a bar­tender to cre­ate a menu of alco­holic and non-alco­holic cock­tails. For a full meal, a selec­tion of local wines pre­sent­ed by a spe­cial­ist will delight your guests.

Create a magical atmosphere

The atmos­phere is cru­cial to a Valen­tine’s Day event. Atten­dees need to feel com­fort­able and admire the dec­o­ra­tions. There­fore, include flow­ers, can­dles, etc., in your bud­get.

There is noth­ing like music to cre­ate a roman­tic atmos­phere! A band or DJ will help to trans­port the atten­dees to an unfor­get­table expe­ri­ence.

You can also offer small gifts to atten­dees, such as choco­lates or a glass of wine. They will appre­ci­ate this detail and it will strength­en the rela­tion­ship with your cus­tomers.

Organize relaxing activities

For atten­dees to have a pleas­ant, fun and roman­tic time on this day of cel­e­brat­ing love, you must offer the right activ­i­ties and choose a theme for your event. A ceram­ics or jew­ellery class in which each per­son cre­ates a gift for the oth­er, a danc­ing class, a pho­tog­ra­phy work­shop, etc., are ideas that will make your evening a great time for shar­ing.

If you organ­ise an event for sin­gles, you can also use board games where atten­dees can get to know each oth­er.

3. Communication

Define your target audience

It’s impor­tant to define your tar­get audi­ence, as you’ll com­mu­ni­cate dif­fer­ent­ly if your Valen­tine’s Day event is for cou­ples or sin­gles. You will also need to decide whether the event is open to the gen­er­al pub­lic or reserved for a spe­cif­ic group, such as known cus­tomers.

Next, you’ll need to cre­ate a com­mu­ni­ca­tion plan to define the chan­nels you’ll use to pro­mote your Valen­tine’s Day event, plan the key moments of your com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and decide on the mes­sages you’ll deliv­er.

Use online tools

There are sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools avail­able to pro­mote an event. The first, and per­haps the most obvi­ous, is social media. You need to share your Valen­tine’s Day event with atten­tion-grab­bing posts. You can also cre­ate an event on Face­book: a very use­ful tool for pro­mot­ing your event.

Anoth­er way to make your event known is by send­ing an email to your data­base, of cur­rent and poten­tial cus­tomers. A well-writ­ten email with all the nec­es­sary infor­ma­tion and attrac­tive visu­als, will make all the dif­fer­ence. Using a CRM tool like Weez­tar­get is par­tic­u­lar­ly suit­ed to your needs.

Follow up after the event

Once your event is over, think about your post-event mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy. Don’t for­get to col­lect feed­back from atten­dees by send­ing a thank you email.

You can also cre­ate a mini-site or page on your web­site where you can post pho­tos and videos of the event. Cou­ples will be hap­py to have a reminder of a spe­cial moment. Of course, you can also share the high­lights of your event on social media.

Now you have all the infor­ma­tion you need to make your Valen­tine’s Day event a suc­cess, from bud­get man­age­ment to organ­is­ing ser­vices and estab­lish­ing your com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy.

Weezevent offers solu­tions to sell tick­ets and reg­is­tra­tions online, to per­form access con­trol, an for email­ing to help you orga­nize your Valentine’s Day event more effec­tive­ly.

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