What Is Event Planning?

Event planning is the process of putting on and managing a variety of

events, from something as small as a meeting to as big as a convention
and everything in between. When event planning you’ll be taking into
account every aspect of that event, whether it’s a birthday party or a
networking event.

That means you’ll be estimating budgets, creating timelines to schedule the

event, reserving the site and any panels or speakers involved, getting
necessary permits, food, transportation and more. If the event has a theme,
you’ll develop that, too. Plus, you’ll be in charge of securing the needed
resources to make the event a success.

What Is an Event Plan?

An event plan defines how an event will be executed. It addresses all the
components of an event such as the start and end dates, budget, venue,
marketing, attendees and more. The scope and complexity of the event
plan vary depending on the size of the event, but the fundamental
challenges remain the same.

Let’s break down the other components of setting up an event. They’re

summarized below:

 Event timeline: First, establish a timeline for your

event. This timeline should include pre-event planning,
event execution and post-event activities.

 Budget: Estimate your event costs and create a budget.

Your available budget will influence many event
management decisions such as your venue, the
marketing and advertising methods, etc.
 Venue: The event has to take place somewhere, and
that involves logistics management, food and beverages
as well as the décor.

 Marketing: Once you’ve selected a venue, you need to

start drawing people to it through a marketing program
that can include a website, social campaign, email and
print work.

 Advertising: Hand in glove with marketing is

advertising. That can include radio, TV, newspaper and
magazine advertisements.

 Volunteers: A big event needs a big crew of people to

get it off the ground and run smoothly. That means
volunteers, which means writing contracts, defining their
roles, setting up meetings and determining schedules.

 Speakers: You must have a keynote speaker or a group

of speakers to attract an audience. This involves
contracts, curators to select the talent, a program, bios
and rehearsals.

 Sponsors: All of this costs money, and a big event’s

budget is supplied by its sponsors. This again involves
contracts, marketing and logistics.

 Production: The production involves creating contracts

as you work on creating an audio-visual recording of the
proceedings, as well as a sound and video broadcast
during the event.

 Stage: The event takes place at a specific venue and on

that venue is a stage on which the event proper will be
presented. That usually incorporates a projector, screen,
microphones, internet connection, batteries, cables and
more.
  Attendees: Don’t forget about the people attending the
event! You’ll need communications to inform them of
event information, payment processes to collect fees,
emails to stay in touch, directions, badges and access
points.

The Event Planning Process: Event Planning

Steps

We covered a lot on event planning, so let’s break down those tips into
concrete steps. These event planning steps will guide you toward success.
Let’s continue with our conference example.

 Step 1. Determine your event goals and objectives

 Step 2. Assemble your team

 Step 3. Establish an event budget

 Step 4. Choose a date & venue

 Step 5. Select the speakers

 Step 6. Event marketing & advertising

 Step 7. Execute your event

8 stages of event planning diagram showing each of the different steps you need to take to make
your event a success.

WHAT IS AN EVENT PLAN?

An event plan is a detailed breakdown of your event. Addressing all elements of your event such
as timings, date, supplier information, set-list, cost, marketing, budget and more.

In short, it is like the holy bible for your event, detailing everything you could possibly need to
know to ensure a smooth and successful event.

Naturally, the scale of your event plan will very much depend on the kind of event you’re
planning. However, it is paramount that your event plan has all of the details about your event on
it, and, is distributed to all the key people who need to know what’s going on at your event.

8 STAGES TO EVENT PLANNING SUCCESS

Below, we have broken down the 8 stages of event planning that we believe are crucial for you to
plan a successful event.
1. DETERMINE YOUR EVENT GOALS AND
OBJECTIVES
Defining your event goals and objectives should be the first step in planning any event.
Everything you do should point towards your goals and objectives, so these should be defined!

The key question is why are you planning this event? What is the purpose of it and what
outcomes do you require from it? What are you hoping to achieve?

Every event you ever plan will always have a reason for being.

Whether you are planning a product launch event to ensure your product is exposed to the right
audience. Or perhaps a corporate end-of-year party to reward and celebrate your team and
make them feel valued, driven and motivated going into the next financial year.

Each of these events will have a goal that will ensure the company or person hosting the event
benefits from it.

These goals and objectives need to be clearly defined at the very start of your event planning.
Additionally, all events will need an ROI, whether that be monetary or through an experience
gained, so when planning your event, be mindful of how your goals and objectives will benefit
your ROI.

When setting goals it is important to be realistic; they need to be achievable within your budget
(which we’ll get to later) and the time you have to plan the event.

Everyone involved in the planning of your event needs to be aware of the goals and objectives
so that everyone’s efforts are pointed towards achieving those goals.

Once your goals and objectives are outlined you can start the base plan of your event
with the following details:
  What kind of event do you want it to be?
 How many attendees?
 Where would like your event to happen?
 What are your dates and timeframes?
 Your target audience / who is attending the event?

With these preliminary details in place, you can move on to stage 2 of your event planning.

2. SET A BUDGET
The next step in your event planning journey is setting a budget. This is an essential early-stage
step you need to get signed off on at the start of your event planning to ensure the success of
your event.

However, please don’t just pluck a number out of thin air. Consider all of the above points when
assessing your objectives and goals and what that looks like for your budget.

For example, if you decided that your event needs to be in the middle of central London, at an
exclusive venue and have key influencers engaging with certain elements of your event you need
to allocate realistic budgets to achieve this.

Where possible, do your research on every part of your event that needs budget allocating to it. If
you have planned an event previously, then look at the historic spending on these areas. If you
do not have historic events to reference then make sure to get costs from multiple suppliers.

We advise working down from your largest budget items, such as catering and venue, to your
lower priority budget items. However, bear in mind these item priorities and budget allocations
will differ depending on your event’s goals and outcomes.

By doing thorough research, and planning out your budget in the early stages of your event, you
are able to keep an eye on spend and ensure you don’t go over budget for an unaccounted area.

3. ASSEMBLE A TEAM
We can not emphasise enough how important having a good team behind you is, especially if
you’re planning a large-scale or high-calibre event.

According to Eventbrite, 12% of events have teams of ten or more people with 45% of events
having between 2 to 5 employees. Therefore, more often than not the team you have helping you
plan the event will be wearing multiple different hats.

Regardless of whether you have 10+ team members or just 3, you need to know that your team
can fully support your event planning needs. You also want to make sure that you fully trust any
external parties you’re bringing in to assist you.

We would argue that your team can make or break your event. As an event management
company, we have fine-tuned our team, working with reliable professionals who we have worked
with for years and trust with even the most complicated event.

Some of the team roles you may want to consider for your event are:
  Project Manager / Lead
 Creative Concept Designer
 Build Lead
 Marketing and Communications Manager
 Floor Staff
 Running Order Manager

4. CHOOSE DATE(S) AND VENUE(S)

When event planning, choosing the right date for your event and venue space are two crucial
elements to consider early on in the planning process.

These two factors will have a major impact on all of the details of your event, so it is important to
get these locked in as soon as you can.

When venue finding for our clients, the first thing we do is look for a venue. Due to the nature of
event planning, event spaces get booked up FAST, therefore we would suggest enquiring early,
and if possible, having some flexibility on your dates.

This means that you stand the best chance of getting the venue space you want.

Be wary about the time of year you’re trying to book for. November and December event spaces
have to be booked really far in advance due to getting booked up for the festive season.

Likewise, if you’re organising a conference event, be mindful that January and February, and
September and October, are prime times for conferences so you’ll need to contact your venue
spaces with plenty of notice.

5. SELECT EXTERNAL SUPPLIERS

Once you have got your venue space and date secured you want to start reaching out to the
various suppliers you will need to bring your event together.

If you have specific suppliers in mind, it is important to contact them early on to ensure they are
available for your date. Be mindful of costs that seem to be too good to be true or suppliers with
very little proofing of their services.

Some of the suppliers you may want to consider booking for your event could include:

 Catering
 Staging, Lighting and AV
 Venue Styling
 Entertainment
 Bespoke Builds/ Branded Signage etc
 Guest Speakers
 Event Theming & Prop Hire

6. PLAN EVENT MARKETING

Marketing your event to reach your intended audience is crucial if you are trying to attract
external people to attend.
You want to build a buzz around your event and get people excited about attending, therefore
you want to consider a marketing strategy both for the build-up to your event and on the day of
your event as well.

The build-up marketing strategy is in place to entice the right kind of audience to the event and
make as many people aware of your event as possible.

The on-the-day marketing needs to shout about how good the event is. Encourage attendees to
post on social media by advertising the use of certain hashtags and re-sharing people’s posts
and stories.

This is especially important if your event is a multi-day event as it will then build anticipation for
guests who may be attending on another day.

When planning out your marketing strategy you need to consider these different tools:

 Email marketing
 Social media marketing
 Bill board marketing for large public events
 Getting featured in relevant newsletters and press
 Influencer marketing

7. EXECUTE YOUR EVENT

After all of your event planning, the day of your event has finally arrived and you’ll be able to see
all your hard work and planning pay off.

To ensure success on the day of your event make sure you have a minute-by-minute breakdown
of the running order of the day.

Ensure you know who is turning up and when and allow extra time just in case something doesn’t
quite go to plan.

If you have a team make sure you go through a thorough brief with them in the morning and re-
emphasise people’s key responsibilities and the expectations of their role.

Additionally, make sure, there is plenty of time allocated for any set builds, technology testing
and entertainment rehearsals.

If running a large-scale event make sure all members of your team are in constant
communication with one another and are aware of key people at your event they may need to get
hold of such as the cleaners, first aiders and so on.

8. CONDUCT POST EVENT ANALYSIS

So your event has finished and all your event planning is done. However, now is the time to
really dig into your event data to see how successful your event really was.

On the surface, your event may seem a success. However, it is always important to run a post-
event analysis to understand exactly how your event performed against your goals, expectations
and ROIs.
You can look into key areas such as attendance, social engagement and how much food and
drink was consumed. Depending on the technology you’ve implemented in your event you could
potentially pull in data to understand whether QR codes have been scanned, whether traffic has
been driven to your website and how long attendees stayed at your event or in certain areas of
your event for.

Furthermore, by attending the event you can also gauge whether the entertainment, band or
speaker you booked was engaging and whether you would consider booking them again.

Taking the time out to fully audit and assess your event is just as important as the event
planning. It means that you can see any gaps you might want to address for your next event. It
also allows you to understand what was successful and what actions you’d like to repeat.

As mentioned before, there is always a reason for having an event and you want to ensure that
the goals and ROIs were met in your event and continue to be met in your subsequent events.