Organizing a business event is both thrilling and challenging. It’s exciting to have your business in the spotlight, but with so many moving parts, event planning can get chaotic. It’s why careful event management is absolutely vital. So if you’re anxious to make your next business event a roaring success, be mindful of falling into these six common mistakes.
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Your scheduling isn’t tight
It’s easy to come up with a schedule, but hard to come up with a realistic one. Factor in issues like travel arrangements, including late arrivals. It’s often a good idea to visit the venue ahead of time if possible. If the venue is very large and spread out, or you’ll have lots of things happening at once, it’s probably best for the schedule to have more fluid boundaries. Being too rigid with the schedule can mean that one delay can have a knock-on effect throughout the day.
You haven’t confirmed with suppliers
If you’re planning a big event, you might have booked caterers or other suppliers months in advance. With so many things to juggle, you want to make sure you booked the correct date, amount, and so on. Be sure to confirm the booking with them ahead of time to avoid nasty surprises on the day.
You didn’t make a back-up plan
No matter how well you plan, something is bound to go wrong on the day. Plan what you’ll do for little alterations and what you’ll do in work case scenarios. You need to know what your contingency plan is and how you’ll put it into action. Plus, you’ll need to think of how the back-up plan would affect your guests and ways you can mitigate for this.
There aren’t enough hands on deck
If you’re trying to stay within budget, you might be tempted to take shortcuts with hiring people. But having enough staff will be vital to the smooth running of your event. Make sure you hire the right people with the appropriate experiences so they can be of maximum value.
The communication isn’t there
Communication is everything at events. You need strong communication before, during and after if you want the event to be a success. Before the event, you need to get the word out there. Remember, your marketing strategy is a vital part of organizing a highly memorable corporate event. During, you need to communicate often with your team to ensure things run according to plan. Changes are bound to happen, so strong communication is key. Afterward, you’ll want to keep attendees in the loop and continue to engage them for maximum benefit.
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You’ve gone way over budget
With a large event, one thing can lead to another, and suddenly you’re way over budget. Use a budget tracker to keep on top of things and make alterations as you go. That way, you won’t be hit by a shocking figure at the end. Cover all bases with your budget and then take a step back to see where you could make savings if needed.