Assembling your event team
Once an event has been confirmed with an internal committee or an outsource partner, the first thing to put in place is assembling your event planning team.
Quite often the "team" is made up of just the administrative assistant to the CEO, the marketing director, or an in house event coordinator. Whatever the "point person" chosen, he/she should be aware that it will take many more people to get the job done. It is understood that it costs money to either hire other people, to outsource an event company, or to take employees from another department to take on the resposibility as part of the planning team.
When planning an event, consider these roles to have on board:
1) Event manager
2) Vendor procurement manager
3) Financial accountant
4) Audio/visual manager
The above four event planning roles are the essential core of any type of event planning team.
The event manager is responsible for assigning all other event manager’s schedules that includes deadlines. The event manager should be the sounding board to develop the theme of the event as well as the sole purpose of why the event needs to happen in the first place.
New product rollout?
Users educational seminar?
Client appreciation?
Client retention?
Affinity programs?
Employee appreciation?
Managers retreat?
Company wide information rollout?
These are the typical events that recur again and again and require careful thought as to how to present the theme and/or the experience of the attendees. Based on what information and purpose the event concerns itself with, your event can be a simple one or a very complex one.
The vendor procurement manager is responsible for lining up the venue, the printer, the keynote speaker, the collateral material, and any other items or personnel that is required for planning and executing of the event. The vendor procurement manager will work closely with the event manager and the financial accountant.
The financial accountant may not be a certified accountant, rather, the individual who keeps track of the money, going in and out of the client company, based on the budget given to the CEO or decision maker of the company. This person must be good at working with spreadsheets and "what if" scenarios. They must also be realistic on the costs of most elements of the items used for the event.
The audio/visual manager is the "go to" person for everything that is presented on the screens as well as on stage and in all the breakouts. This person usually is the in house IT person, or someone who is very familiar with computers. As you well know, what goes on in the first general sesssion of any event makes a very large impact of the quality of the event as whole.
In conclusion, make sure you have all "roles" covered if not, shared among a limited amount of people. The best way to make your event "shine" and without any flaws is to bring on board an outsource special event company that can handle the details of the event. As you may know, there is always something that gets lost in the cracks. The outsourced special event company can save you literally thousands of dollars in time and actual incurred costs.
In our next posting of tips and tricks, we will go over how to pick the right outsource special event company.
This issue of "tips and tricks" written by Bruce K. Inouye of www.P2 Events.com
(Please contact this author for permission to reprint in any other publication.)