Planning any kind of event can be stressful to say the least. Event organisers often end up feeling overwhelmed too, and this is the last thing that you need when you have so much to think about.

Start Early

You have to make sure that you start planning for your event as soon as you can. If you know that your event is going to be large, then it helps to plan 6 months in advance or more. Smaller events on the other hand, need at least one-month worth of planning. Either way, if you do this then you will easily make sure that you have enough time to plan everything out.

It may even be worth investing in a retractable lanyard too, so you can get name tags for everyone in advance.

Be Flexible

Over the course of planning, things are bound to change. For this reason, you have to make sure that you are flexible and that you do everything you can to try and be open to new things. If you aren’t, then this will make it harder for you to run your event effectively.

Some degree of flexibility is always a good thing and it may even make it much easier for you to navigate the process.

Negotiate

It doesn’t matter what vendors tell you because at the end of the day, every expense is negotiable. Every event will have some degree of variance in price so if yours is coming to more than you think then you may want to talk to your vendor about this.

It may be that you can pay 10% less than the figure that has been put forward if you are spending a lot with the company.

Responsibilities

Break up the different elements of your event and assign parts to people. For example, if you are going to be handling registration, transport, catering and more, then it is a good idea for you to have a few people who can be in charge of each category instead. If you don’t then you may find that you are overwhelmed with responsibilities and that you are also not able to account for everything as you normally would.

Shared Document

If you have not even thought about using the cloud before then now is the time for you to change that. If you want to keep everyone on the same page, then an event manual will work wonders. You can also post your vendor contracts, your attendee information and even a floor plan too.

Have a Backup Plan

It’s very rare that an event is pulled off without a hitch. You may find that an item doesn’t turn up or even a very important person is late.

This can be frustrating, but you have to make sure that you have a backup plan in place. If you don’t then you may find that you end up not being able to run it as efficiently as you could, and this is the last thing that you need when you already have so much to manage and keep track of.

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