What Can You Do If Your Event Goes Over Budget?

Where exceeding your event budget is concerned, the general rule is “don’t.” However, sometimes things happen that are out of your control – maybe a piece of equipment breaks down and you need to replace it in a hurry. Maybe you didn’t sell enough tickets to break even, or maybe the materials and supplies you’re using simply turned out to be more expensive than you expected. Either way, it’s something that needs to be addressed immediately. That’s our topic in today’s piece. What can you do if you end up exceeding your initial budget for the event? How can you […]

All About The Money

Money is a huge factor when planning an event. If you are faced with a small budget, it is often wise to look into sponsorships. As an event planner, you should network constantly to build your list of sponsors that would be available for different events that you plan. This can be a great relief to clients who are looking to get more for less money out of their pocket. There is almost a science to creating the right relationships to get the sponsorships that you will need for events, which is what we will be focusing on in this […]

Five More Incredibly Common Mistakes Made By Novice Event Planners

Nobody’s perfect. I can’t emphasize enough that in a complex, high-stress career like event planning, people are bound to make a mistake or two.  people are bound to make mistakes. This is especially true if they’re new to the job – in many cases, they may not even realize they’ve erred until it’s already too late to fix the problem. Today, we’re going to go over a few more mistakes commonly made by event management rookies. While none of these will necessarily lead to a catastrophe on their own, they can still cause a pretty huge headache for planners, clients, […]

Most Common Health Issues Faced By Event Planners

Your job can be hazardous to your health.

Every profession carries with it a host of hazards one needs to deal with each and every day. Failure to address any of these problems adequately could well lead to something a lot more permanent. Especially in event management – a career in which you’re constantly on the move – that’s something you want to avoid.

Read more →

Dealing With Illness As An Event Planner

As an event manager, you’re generally going to be working with large groups of people on a regular basis.  What that means is that even if you take good care of yourself, you’re exponentially likelier to end up sick. That in turn means your productivity goes straight through the floor. It goes without saying that you don’t want that to happen. So, if you should fall ill as an event planner, what can you do about it? After all, sickness is inevitable, especially in your profession. You need to be certain that you can soldier through your illness without letting […]

Five Mistakes Made By Inexperienced Event Planners

One thing a lot of people tend to forget – particularly in our rather perfectionist society – is that nobody’s perfect. Planning an event is a pursuit that requires a great deal of hard work, strategic planning, and managerial prowess. Particularly as a novice, it’s incredibly easy to slip up. Unfortunately, that’s not really something you can afford to do as an event management professional. If you mess up, you’re potentially destroying two reputations in one – both your own, and that of whatever brand your event is representing. Today, let’s talk about a few of the more common mistakes […]

In Training And Loving It: How You Can Use Employee Training To Create A Better Workplace Culture

Some people thrive on stress. They enjoy working in high-octane environments where success and failure are only a razor’s edge apart. There’s a good chance that the majority of the people in your event management firm don’t possess that taste for pressure. And even if they do, it’s worth mentioning that even stress junkies have their limits – that even people who enjoy fast-paced work still won’t be happy if their work environment is completely toxic. Whether you’re an event management professional with their own firm or simply a key decision maker in your organization, it falls to you to […]

Best Ways to get Employees to Volunteer to Work an Event

Imagine this: you have a big event coming up. The last piece of the puzzle is to hire a knowledgeable, customer service oriented event staff. You have two options: Ask current employees if they are interested in volunteering Hire temporary workers There may be benefits of both, but the first choice is almost always better. Not only are these people volunteering their time (meaning you don’t have to pay them), but they are more familiar with what you are trying to accomplish. This brings us to one very important question: what can you do to get employees to volunteer to […]

How You Can Use Eventbrite To Supercharge Your Events

Today, we’re going to be putting together a tutorial for Eventbrite, one of the most powerful ticketing and registration management applications in the world. By using it, you can essentially make event registration a cakewalk for your guests from beginning to end – in addition to getting an awesome-looking event page and formidable marketing campaign on its feet. Let’s dive right in – how can you use Eventbrite to make your events better than ever? The Setup Process One of the greatest things about Eventbrite – and perhaps the thing that’s made it so popular as an event management tool […]

Managing Your Team When Something Goes Wrong

Your event team – volunteers in particular – are an important element of every event you run. It’s imperative that you properly manage your team to ensure you keep things running smoothly. Unfortunately, that isn’t always going to be possible. Sometimes, in spite of your best efforts, something is going to go wrong.

For one reason or another, members of your team may fail to do their jobs properly.  Don’t let it derail your event. By acting quickly and decisively, you can make sure that a minor problem with your volunteers doesn’t transform into an outright catastrophe. 

But what can you do?

Read more →

Five Ways Event Planners Can Recharge Their Creative Juices

Discover the top five ways event planners can recharge their creative juices and overcome creative burnout. Hey there, folks! Today we’re going to talk about creative burnout, and its role in event management. As you well know, creativity is one of the many traits shared by the word’s most successful events professionals – and it’s something you’ll need to have in droves if you’re ever to succeed. But what happens when the well runs dry? It’s bound to happen eventually – and a big part of being a creative thinker lies in recognizing it for what it is, and taking […]

How Much Should You Spend On Event Marketing, Really?

We all know that it’s extremely important to market your events effectively. If you don’t get the word out, you don’t sell tickets. If you don’t sell tickets, you don’t meet your budget projections. And if you don’t meet your projections… Yeah, you get the idea. What I’d like to discuss today – aside from how to market, we’ve already talked extensively about that – is how much of your event budget you should allocate to marketing. This doesn’t just apply to event management, of course. The question of how to know when one’s spending their marketing budget effectively is […]

What Exactly Is A Strategic Meetings Management Program

Strategic Meetings Management may well be one of the most commonly-misunderstood business methodologies in the world. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons meetings are so widely and universally decried as horrendous time-wasters – no one really has a decent understanding of how to tap into them. Let’s see if we can’t change that. Today, we’re going to take a brief look at the precise meaning of strategic meetings management. We’ll go over the reasons a business might use such a program, and examine what SMM is – and isn’t. By the end of the piece, you’ll hopefully have a more […]

Event Staffing Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs

As you begin to plan for an upcoming event, there won’t be a day that goes by when you aren’t making big decisions. Which venue is best? How much do you want to spend? Are you comfortable with the features and amenities of the space?

Read more →

Support Your Team & Avoid Event Burnout

Tell me if this sounds familiar – lately, you’ve been feeling a little out of sorts. You’re stressed. You’re tired. Nothing really seems as exciting as it used to – where once you were energetic and passionate about your career, now it’s a struggle to even drag yourself out of bed every day. My friend, you might be suffering from a case of burnout. For one reason or another, the difficulty of being an event planner – the high-octane life associated with the career – has finally managed to bring you down. It’s time for you to take a step […]

How To Determine The Proper Size For An Event Team

Today, we’re going to take a brief look at the process involved in putting together your ‘dream team’ for running an event. For newer event managers, one of the toughest tasks before them is estimating how large to make their team. Is there such a thing as too many volunteers? How many security guards should there be? What about caterers and engineers? I’m here with a few general rules of thumb which – while they’re by no means set in stone – should help you at least start to estimate how many people you’ll need to keep your show running […]

Marketing Statistics Every Event Manager Could Use

As an event manager, you will have a lot on your plate. From setting and following a budget to selecting guest speakers, there won’t be much time to sit back and relax. Your marketing strategy can make or break the success of your event. Take the right steps upfront and it will continue to pay off well after the event comes to an end. But make too many mistakes along the way, and you could soon find yourself wondering what went wrong. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to guarantee marketing success. A big part of this is tracking […]

The Complete Guide To The Care And Retention Of Volunteers

Volunteers are the core of most any event. Very few trade shows, conferences, and fundraisers can properly function without a dedicated, devoted event team running the show behind the scenes.

In other words, if you don’t have the proper framework in place – if you aren’t doing as much as you could be to attract people to your events team and retain them – then your event’s inevitably going to suffer.

Read more →

Employees: Everything You Need To Know

Employees are the KEY to having a successful event. No matter how successful of an event planner you are, you can’t put your ideas and hard work into action without help. Whether it is full time employees, volunteers, or paid people for an event, it is important to be able to manage them successfully so they are happy, and so are the attendees. Last weekend, we focused on everything that you need to know about location. So now that you know about WHERE we are going to focus on an important WHO for your next client and event. The topics […]

Choosing an Event Venue: Size Matters

When the time comes to schedule, organize, and manage an event, there will be an unlimited number of questions running through your mind. While every question deserves an answer, there is one you have to deal with before the rest: which venue is best for your event? You can’t do much until you answer this question. After all, attendees want to know where the event is taking place, as this may help them decide if they will attend. A variety of details deserve your attention when choosing an event venue. These include: Size of the venue Number of attendees Location Features […]