An event can take on many characteristics, including being informative, innovative, and fun – but they should always be well planned from the start and executed with precision.
The event may play a key role in your company’s marketing initiatives for the upcoming quarter and its overall business strategy for growth. Needless to say, your event needs to be planned perfectly to ensure success and proper ROI.
Once you’ve strategized on the plan and have a vision in mind of success for your ideal event, it’s time to secure the key elements that will help bring your vision of success to fruition: talent/staff and location. Here are three tips for planning events early.
#1 Secure Your Team
Involving a talented and dedicated event production partner early in the planning process has many financial and operational benefits, including the opportunity to produce a more engaging and creative experience for your attendees.
Meeting with your production team as soon as possible to share your event’s vision will help you to ensure your event’s overall success by fostering excellent communication. An experienced team will help to bring your event to life once the event concept is understood with clarity.
Most High-Quality event production partners fill up their work calendar rather quickly, especially during the year’s busier seasons. Reaching out to your event production team before the heavy planning starts will help to ensure you work with a partner that understands your company and culture, in addition to your workflow.
#2 Secure the Location
Now that the team is in place, it’s time to start scouting locations. Where would your group like to be? A hotel ballroom or convention center? Business headquarters? Or, maybe an outdoor location is excellent for the event?
There may be a specific date that goes well with that plan. In some cities, finding an event location large enough to hold your attendees can be challenging for meeting and event planners and even more of a challenge when you need a specific date for the event.
For these reasons, it is critical to begin the venue search as early as possible and look to secure it as quickly as possible once a decision is made to hold the event.
While you’re looking at potential venues, be sure to speak with the property owners and discuss your specific event needs and requirements (AV, F&B, staging, décor, etc.) to determine what will be provided and what things you will need to secure from an outside vendor.
#3 Get the Best Value for Your Spend
Typically, event and meeting planners look to last year’s budget for keys to what to expect for their upcoming event costs. Waiting to contact vendors may leave you with unexpected and higher costs due to late booking or rush fees, and post-event charges. To take some of the stress (and budget headache) off your shoulders, speak with your event production team early.
The earlier you begin the conversations with your event production partner, the sooner they will start working towards the event’s best value. A good production partner will consult with you while you review your venue contracts before signing them as well.
So, if you want to have a great event with minimal hassle and headache with maximum value, start planning now.
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