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November 2, 2022

The Ultimate Event Planning Checklist


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Sometimes, when work gets hectic, you tend to finish everything in a hurry and you end up forgetting stuff. The same thing happens when you are an event manager. You have to get things done on time and even if you miss a small detail, you can end up disappointing the attendees. Maintaining an event planning checklist can help you keep track of everything and ensure you don’t leave anything important. 

An event checklist is helpful for you and the entire team and vendors to make all the necessary arrangements and put on a great event. Not only will you get things done, but also be able to tend to minor details. This event planning to-do list will get you organized and ensure that you manage your time well. Without having to think about what else is missing, you can easily check out your event planning tasks to see what is left and make sure that those tasks are done. These checklists are a helping hand for event planners. It makes you get things done without any hassle.

Online events have started to pick up the pace and are almost providing the same feel as in-person events do. When people are unable to attend events in the physical setting, you take virtual events right to them. For example, conducting yoga classes online for people who cannot convene in their yoga studios.

Event and community managers switched over to virtual events as they are stress-free, save you a lot of time, and are flexible, unlike the hassle of in-person events where postponing or canceling the event might burn a hole in your pocket. Online events require smaller teams so you do not have to worry about hiring a lot of people and managing tedious projects. 

Hybrid events on the other hand are when there is an in-person event, but for those who cannot attend it, they can take part online. This is especially helpful when there’s limited space for the event. You can fill the seats and have the rest of the attendees attend online.

Read on below to know more about what to include in your event planning checklist:

Define Goals

With technology in our hands and knowing how to use it, people have become so advanced that everything is online right from shopping, food, meetings, video conferencing, to large events. The most important thing you have to do is to define the goals of your event. Here are some to get you started:

  • What are you trying to achieve? 
  • Who is your target audience? 
  • Which platform will the event be hosted on? 
  • Would it be a fully online event or a hybrid one? 
  • Who will be your sponsors? 
  • What will your audience gain from the event?
  • Will the event be free or paid?
  • Who would be the hosts or speakers?

When you define the goals for your event, you’d have something to look forward to and achieve. Without them, you won’t have a clear picture of your result.

Know your Audience

Your audience is the main reason you host an event. Without an audience, what’s the point of conducting an event in the first place? Getting to know your audience is crucial because you have to keep them interested throughout the event. Sometimes, events can get boring even for the host. To keep them focused, engage them in polls, questionnaires, and other fun activities. Everytale has these user-efficient tools that makes it really easy to create polls, questionnaires and share documents with your attendees before the event starts. Make sure you plan out your content for your polls or questionnaires and add them to your conference planning checklist. Always be attentive towards your audience and make them feel that they’re important by interacting with them and resolving their queries. This will ensure that even if you hold an event in the future, more audiences would take part as a result of great satisfaction from the previous one. 

Content Plan 

When you’re conducting an online event, make note of each session that will take place at a given particular time in your event planning schedule. Building this schedule will help you and your attendees stay organized and end the meeting within the assigned time. Make sure you keep track of time and ensure that each session is completed within the time that you have allotted. You can send the event schedule to all the attendees right after they register or have it on your website for attendees to see. This will inform attendees of what’s in store when they attend your event.

Budget and Expense Management

Managing your expenses according to your budget is not an easy thing. Planning your accounts and keeping track of every penny is the key to successful & profitable virtual events. Before spending any money on anything, it is better to have a budget plan and set your goals. List your expenses right from the start like choosing the right platform to arrange the virtual event. Make sure the platform includes all the necessary features like Everytale has so that it is worth paying for. Building your team also has some expenses because you will need assistance to help you run the event. A big chunk of your money will be accounted for marketing, promotion, sponsors, and other things. Make sure you don’t lose track of any expenses and deal with the budget carefully from the start to the end. 

Sponsorships

Getting event sponsors, especially for virtual events is vital for any event. Approach your sponsors well in advance and whenever you do, make your event look powerful and make them understand that it would be worth it. You need to be able to portray your event in a way that will make them feel that their contribution would help add value else they will hesitate to give you funds. Since your sponsors look forward to building their recognition and making more connections, the main motive has to be connecting your audience and the sponsors. 

Promotion

A major part of your audience will come to know about your event through promotions. One of the best ways to do this is by inbound marketing. With Everytale’s inbound marketing features, your event can get found by your attendees easily without having to burn a hole in your pocket on marketing. This saves a huge amount of money, unlike mass marketing which is costlier and risky too. With the audience finding your event early, you can learn to engage with them by listening to their queries and requests and figure out ways to incorporate them and make your event even better. These inbound marketing features available on Everytale convert visitors to leads, leads to customers, and finally to promoters which is exactly what you need.

Backup Digital Files 

Events are for sharing information with people. It’s impossible to convey everything during the event and this is why sharing documents would be a great way to keep the audience on track. Whether they’re guides, activity sheets, workbooks, or anything else, you can share these documents with your audience during the event. The best way to do this is to make use of platforms like Google Drive or Dropbox. You can upload files that you want to share on those platforms and share the link for download with all the attendees during the event.

Prepare Materials

Be it online or offline, whenever you are conducting an event, time management is crucial. You can achieve this by ensuring that there’s no communication gap between the speakers and attendees. Make sure the attendees know who will be speaking at what time. Set time slots for speakers so that they don’t take up more time than they’re supposed to. You can always allot more time to speakers who are working on their business speaking skills. Note down all the communications, materials, and reminders that you’re supposed to take care of on the event planning checklist. Ensure that all the communication materials like social media posts, event flyers, captions, and promotional emails are taken care of well in advance to make it hassle-free before the event. Gather all the materials required for the event and make sure they’re backed up on platforms for easy access. You can send reminder emails to attendees before the event.

Have a Plan B 

Sometimes things do not go as planned and it’s best to have Plan B for when Plan A fails. In case of a virtual event, you can retain a pre-recorded session. This will ensure that the show goes on without any interruptions. In case of a speaker cancelling at the last minute, be sure to provide your attendees something of value such as exclusive access, materials, or discounts to keep them delighted. This is the same for when there’s an event downtime on account of tech or wifi interruptions, give something to the audience to keep them occupied without shifting their focus. This will help keep them on track and be patient until things go back to normal.

Run of Show

Just like you go on test drives before you buy a car, test runs are important to see how well your event will turn out. Even if you have years of experience in planning events, there will always be room for improvement. That is why test running before the big day is very important. Check the wifi and see if there is any trouble with it. Plan a mock event and have the speakers know their sequence. Since you’d have a plan B drafted up, run your speakers through the backup plan so that they know what to do when something unforeseeable happens during the live event. Always have a backup host too so that if the main host runs into any technical issues, the backup host can take over in minutes. 

Test Out Everything 

Good lighting, mics, speakers, and cameras are all important factors for a successful event and should be worth noting down on your event planning checklist. Checking your microphone and camera before the event is vital because you do not want to face any problems when it’s your turn to speak or share your thoughts. Good lighting is crucial and it’s always best to make use of natural lighting or artificial ones. Make sure you find an environment that’s free from any disturbance or distractions so that you won’t be interrupted in the middle of your event.

Post-Event Communication Plan & Marketing Plan

Post-event promotions are just as crucial as pre-event ones. After an effective event, there is a higher chance that post-event promotions leave a long-lasting impact on the attendees. Taking feedback from participants, sponsors and stakeholders is extremely important. Take hold of their critiques and opinions and work on them to make the next event even better.

Staying in touch with the audience after the event is the key to better growth and recognition of your events. Staying in touch is not the problem but figuring out how to keep in touch is. Come up with wonderful ideas to retain your past attendees and foster the relationship. You can give them special offers and exclusive event updates and access to keep them interested in your future events as well.

All in all, hosting an event is not an easy task but with the right platforms and people to guide you, running an event would be a breeze. If you’re looking for the right start, consider Everytale. It connects creators from all over the world and has mind-blowing features that you wouldn’t want to miss trying out. We hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as we enjoyed writing it and we hope your event is a hit!