Event Planning Guidelines

          o Event planning is not easy but can be very rewarding
          o Start planning your event very early
          o What should my event look like?
          o How soon should I start sending my invitations?
          o How much can I charge for my event?
          o Ideas on how to choose I venue
          o International audience and translation services
          o How can I motivate people to attent my event?
          o Some easy ways to promote your event
          o How often should I contact my guests?
          o How can I make sure everyone shows up?

Event planning is not easy but can be very rewarding

Our Event Planning Guidelines can give you some ideas on how to improve the results of your workshop, seminar or conference.

We know that organizing an event for yourself, for your company or for a third party is an exhausting process filled with all sorts of details. For this reason we are giving you some basic advice that hopefully will make your task easier and successful.

Please note that although this article has been written mainly for business event planners, with a little creativity most of our guidelines also apply to social event planning, such as weddings, high-school reunions, family or office celebrations, etc.

Start planning your event very early

If you are planning an event for one company department, timing should not be much of a problem, even less if your boss "helps" by forcing everyone to attend.

However, when the event you are planning is targeted at a less familiar audience, then you face new and different challenges. Besides the normal planning details of an internal event you will probably need to deal with some type of marketing and advertising. Try to start planning approximately 6 to 4 months in advance depending on whether your event will last several days or guests are expected to pay. Take into consideration that paid events or longer sessions will require more planning on behalf of your attendants too.

However, if your event will take place overseas, whether or not you are familiar with the country of choice, and additionally, if you plan to sell seats in your conference... then you need to be very patient and realistic and should start working at least 6 months, and preferably a whole year in advance.

What should my event look like?

Successful event planning, in which your attendants will be amazed and will enjoy not only the content but also the organization, should be planned more like a show than a conference.

Go ahead, dare to think out of the box! It really doesn't matter if your event is about finance, customer service or a motivational speech, you can WOW your audience with your extraordinary event planning. And as an event planner that should be your goal... WOW!!!

There are as many types of events as there are companies and people, and your event planning should adapt accordingly. Just remember that the easiest way to have your attendants walking around the conference center or busy talking on their mobile phones while the sessions are in progress is to squeeze 10 formal presentations with power points in an 9-to-5 day. You can do much better than that!

So start your event planning by writing a "script" of what you would like to offer. Think of a general theme, figure out how much time you will need to welcome your guests, warm up the audience, deliver the key messages for each session and provide participants with enough time to share and exchange opinions and ideas prompted by your message.

Don't be shy when it comes to decoration, banners, advertising and handout materials. Give out materials worth saving! They will continue selling for you for a long time.

No matter what is the composition of your audience (a company department or a random group of attendants) in your event planning include some bonding activities, ice-breakers, team-work exercises and others. You will be amazed to see how much people enjoy these activities and how soon a group of strangers begins to share their ideas.

Bring out the children in your audience! Have a music consultant organize an improvised percussion piece with the help of the audience, warm up the room with a nice music show, teach your audience stretch exercises to start the morning, there must be something special and suitable for your group that you can do!

Or you can go ahead and be bold... get rid of all the keynote speeches, yes, all of them, and set up a talk show with different sessions and different participants moderated by a subject matter expert... talk about having fun and learning at the same time!

Just like you can tell in the first five minutes whether a movie is about horror or romance, your audience can also tell in five minutes whether your event will be a lasting and pleasant memory or just one more of the bunch... and will certainly give back to you accordingly!

How soon should I start sending my invitations?

As soon as possible is when you should start sending invitations for your event. In general, your event planning should consider at least two months to start sending the first formal communication if your audience is local, or up to six months or more if planning your event includes gathering an international group.

To break the ice start telling everyone about your event as early as possible -- even if informally -- so you can start catching people's interest and having them wanting more information. Not having a definite date is no excuse for not taking advantage of the grapevine. Prepare some enticing materials and create expectation.

When your event planning involves international travel, you should definitely think about sending your invitations with lots of anticipation. People will unlikely drop everything to travel around the world with just a few weeks notice. For international events you should allow at least 4 months for the audiece to make up their minds and get ready. Six months or more should never be considered too soon.

Also when your event will require a financial investment from the attendants, you should allow enough time for them to allocate the funds or request them from different persons or departments in their companies. So 4 to six months would also be a good guideline.

Another important aspect to take into consideration is how much time do you expect your audience to dedicate to your event. It will be much easier for people to find time to attend a 5-8pm conference or workshop, than to register for a one-week bootcamp. So, again, allow at least 4 months time for people to arrange their agendas.

How much can I charge for my event?

Plan to do some market research. Look at what the competition is doing, how much are they charging? How much are your potential customers used to paying?

Is their price something you can live with or do you need to charge more, or maybe you can do with less?

If you are new in the business you may wish to charge less in order to attract a larger crowd. However, you should be careful as to how you select your price, because too low can also send a signal to your guests in the sense that your event might not be so good. Another caveat is that in the future it may be harder for you to justify raising your price to meet your competitors.

Also if price is the only reason for your guests to choose you instead of your competition, a well-established competitor can easily lower its price and put you out of the market.

A quality event is worth a price, no matter if it is your first or your hundredth! So, put all your effort in offering good materials and presenting them in a pleasant and amusing manner and your price will work itself out.

Experts tell us that some good ways to demonstrate the quality of your event are:

   Use case studies and testimonies to demonstrate the type of results you are offering.

   Leverage upon your expertise to convice your prospects that you are THE expert in the field.

   Guarantee your results. Although it may sound very risky, for many reasons these should be the way to go. It may help you attract groups that might have never taken a chance with you in the first place.

   Bring a guest speaker that is better recognized in the market than you are.

Ideas on How to Choose a Venue

Choosing the place to celebrate your event is a very important decision.

First of all, it should be conveniently located for your guests. If you are thinking about an exotic destination, you should then consider transportation and/or lodging options for the attendants.


The place you choose should also adapt well to your budget and the type of event you are offering. A very fancy and expensive venue could force you to charge a very high price or allocate a very high budget for an event that may not justify the investment. There are always nice places where you can offer a great event for a reasonable price and with all the conveniences.

However there are always important things to be considered. The place should be large enough for your planned audience, maybe even bigger than necessary in case you can book additional attendants.

Make sure there is enough parking space for all your guests or consider valet parking if the parking lot is not conveniently located in relation to the conference room.

The place should provide a pleasant atmosphere, not too old, not too outdated, should smell good and look nice and relaxed.

You should avoid very noisy or busy places. Your audience deserves a peaceful environment in which to work and learn.

If you plan to include meals, you should make sure the food is good and served in adecuate amounts, you don't want your audience to starve during your event or to run around the premises looking for snacks to make up for skimpy meals. However, you should not stuff your attendants either, because you risk that they might fall asleep during the sessions.

Basically you should use your common sense. Visit your possible venues in advance and think... would I like to spend several hours in this place? Would I be willing to pay x amount of money for being here? Trust your instincts and if something tells you that a venue is not the right one, take the time and keep looking.

International audience and translation services

Whenever your event involves people from different countries or nationalities, you should keep in mind the possibility of requiring simultaneous translation or communication assistance services.

Whether your event is a big conference or a small business meeting, interview or training course, if your keynote speaker speaks a language different from what most of the audience speaks or understands, you will definitely require simultaneous translation services.

It is very frustrating for the audience to attend an event in which they are assumed to speak or understand a language that is not their own. Sometimes, even when you provide simultaneous translation assistance, an important part of the audience will refrain from participating or asking questions. For this reason it is essential that you organize interaction activities to break the ice and help the audience realize that what they say in one language will be successfully translated to the rest of the participants.

Hiring simultaneous translation services will imply renting simultaneous translation equipment and probably a translation booth. You will definitely also need sound amplification equipment, although if your event is large enough, you probably have already included this service.

An important thing to do when you have decided to hire simultaneous translation services is to let everyone know. Include a note in your marketing materials and mailings, make sure everyone realizes that the conference will be translated into their language. This will help you attract a whole segment of prospects that otherwise would not consider attending your event.

How can I motivate people to attend my event

Advertising is definitely the best way to attract prospects, whether internal or the general public. For this reason, in your event planning you should provide sufficient notice to increase the chances of filling your seats.


During your event planning there are things you can combine with your advertising to motivate your prospects to commit to your event. For instance, you can establish a deadline for registration, and you may offer a discount for registrations received on or before a certain date.

You can also offer gifts in exchange for early registration, such as bonuses, gift certificates, discounts from partner companies, books, etc.

If you are offering simultaneous translation in two or more languages, make sure you advertise in all these languages also, you may be duplicating or triplicating your marketing scope.

Some easy ways to promote your event

The key to event planning, even on a small budget, is to convince others to advertise for you.

If you can manage to have others talking about your event, you will definitely save some marketing money.

So, go ahead and look for colleagues that are already related to your guest list. Ask them to sponsor your event in exchange for advertising, merchandise, a percentage of the registration, a discount for their customers or maybe even just the excuse of staying in touch with their mailing lists. You have no idea how many professionals are running out of news to fill-out their newsletters.

If this is not your first event, ask previous attendants to write a recommendation for you. A good idea is to provide attendants with a feedback form to be returned at the end of the event. In this way you can not only learn what has been good or bad in your event, but you can also request comments or even recommendations of friends or colleagues who might be interested in your future events.

How often should I contact my guests?

As often as your budget permits! Fortunately, today there are many cost-effective ways to advertise anything. The Internet is definitely a great tool to let others know about your event.

First of all, you will need a mailing list... and a good one! Buying a mailing list is a big decision that you should address carefully. Many companies will try to convince you that they have the mailing list you need, when they actually just have a random list of emails and no idea of the profile of the recipients.
Your own list should be the best list. If you have been involved in event planning for a while you probably already have a good list of contacts that you can target with your campaign.

However, if you are rather new and need to buy a list, look for a reputable company that can give you references of customers with businesses similar to yours. Don't be afraid to ask for references from everyone you involve in your event planning, usually it is the only way to go if you are venturing in a new area.

A Website is also a very good way to promote any business project. However, you should be aware that a website needs time to grow and evolve. You cannot expect to have a website ranking high with the search engines with very little content or with just a few weeks on the air.

So, the best way to go is to start your Website as soon as possible. Have a permanent website for your event planning company and add a special page or group of pages for each event you plan.

But make sure you do your homework. Find out what is the best way to design a site and the type of content that you should include in it to get noticed.

Personally, I have relied on a service called "Site Build-It" (or SBI).

I recommend you take a look at what they have to offer. My experience with them has been pretty amazing. For several years, I published my company website without ever obtaining any customers through it. However, after I started working with SBI, in just a few months my site became more popular than I ever thought possible and with much less effort than in the past.

How can I make sure everyone shows up?

You can be almost certain that some of the people who registered for your event, or even people who paid in advance, will fail to show on the day of the event (don't think of this as an error in your event planning).

Why? Well, you can probably think of a hundred reasons, and there may be more. Sickness, unplanned travel, personal problems, a car that won't start, a sick child or spouse, etc.

Many of these reasons are beyond your control during event planning, however, there are a few reasons that you can help prevent with a little extra event planning. Such is the case of attendants that simply forget to attend the event, feel tired or unmotivated at the last minute or get caught in last minute chores at home or the office.

How can you make sure this group of attendants show up at your event? Well, quite simply... keep reminding them.

Don't be afraid to become a nuisance with your reminders. Although do use some imagination and creativity to avoid being repetitive or boring.

Your reminders should provide something interesting to motivate guests to read your messages. Maybe you can slowly disclose hints of key information or secrets that will be revealed during the event. This can help you not only remind those that may forget about the event, but also keep everyone motivated and waiting expectantly.

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