Event Planning From The Onset

While many organizations continue to plan and organize their own events, conferences, meetings and conventions, an increasing number in recent years have decided to hire professional event planners/ organizers. While each organization must decide for itself whether it is better off planning and organizing its events in-house (either through use of paid staff, paid staff and volunteers combined, or volunteer only) or using outside professional assistance, once an organization hires an event professional, it is essential to perform certain basic steps to optimize the possibility for success.

1. The organization's event chair person or committee must begin the process by interviewing possible candidates to hire for the event. The candidates should be asked what they would do differently, and why it would be advantageous to hire them rather than doing everything in- house. These individuals must explain how they would save monies, including everything from negotiations to other ideas, as well as what they might to manage and enhance the events revenue flow.

2. Once the event professional is hired, he must sit down with the organization and get specifics from the organization. What are some of the mandated events or parts of events that must be maintained? What has been well received in the past, and what has not? Does the organization have a budget prepared for this event? Are there any budgets from previous year's events? What known and/ or mandated events, "freebies" or "comps," etc. should you know about? An event professional should not proceed any further in this process until everything is spelled out in detail, a workable budget is outlined and agreed to, agreement is made as to who makes which decisions, etc.

3. The event professional should handle all negotiations from the onset. Many events success or failure is almost predetermined by how well or poorly negotiations are handled, and how complete and detailed negotiations are.

4. The organization must provide a comprehensive list of volunteers for the event. The event planner must meet early on with these people, and motivate them to his vision for what would make this event successful and great.

5. There must be a clear cut chain of command that is agreed to. Exactly what items the event planner will and will not have final say regarding must be mutually agreed to. Specifically, which individual or individuals will have authority of specific areas must be understood, and honored by both the organization and the planner.

6. The event planner must create early on, a detailed flow sheet, with specifications and assignments. In the best scenario, the event planner should be the "point" person on all Food and Beverage discussions, and should have just one person from the organization as the "go to" person, in order to streamline and optimize the process.

7. The methodology to assure clear cut communications must be "ironed out" from the onset. It is essential that everyone is "on the same page."

A quality, professional event planner should save an organization time, hassle, expense, and discomfort, as well as enhance the quality of the event, assure all details are well coordinated, and "pay for himself" with the savings, suggestions, etc. he makes. An organization must do its due diligence from the onset to assure they go with the event professional best suited for their needs.