Five Client-Related Event Management Woes

Not every event management pitfall you’ll encounter is the result of a bad vendor, a shifty partner, failing equipment, or a lazy volunteer. Sometimes, the problem isn’t with you or the event at all – it’s with the person who’s hired you. Everyone is going to deal with a difficult client at some point in their career, and it’s important that you be prepared for some of the issues you may encounter. Here are a few of the biggest client-side problems you’ll run into in the event management field, and how you can deal with them. Make sure you familiarize […]

Everything You Need To Know About Legal Liability At Your Event: Part Two

If something goes wrong at one of your events – which will happen eventually, no matter how skilled a planner you are – you need to make sure that you’ve got your legal bases covered. The first step in doing so is putting together an expansive, exhaustive contract which leaves no doubts as to liability.  That’s only going to take you so far, however. In order to truly protect yourself (and whoever you’ve partnered with for an event), you’re going to have to fully account for both statute liability (the law as written) and tort liability (responsibility in the event […]

Everything You Need To Know About Legal Liability At Your Event: Part One

One of the more irksome sides of event planning involves the sorting out of legal details. If someone gets injured, who foots the bill? If the venue ends up being damaged, who’s responsible for repairing it? None of this stuff is particularly exciting or pleasant, but it needs to be done. Liability – particularly in the case of accident or injury – is something that should be a concern of every event management professional and supplier in the industry. With any event, there are three types of liability with which you’ll have to be concerned. The first of these is […]

Five Questions Every Client Asks Themself Before Hiring An Event Manager

If an organization is looking to run an event on which the reputation of its brand could very well rest, it’s not terribly surprising that they’d want to be as thorough as possible regarding who they hire.  After all, if they make a bad choice, they could see their organization’s reputation dragged through the mud; if their event truly goes south, they might even see people take legal action against them. As an event planner, you should thus be prepared to answer questions as part of the hiring process. Naturally, that process will go a whole lot smoother if you know […]

Advice Every Event Manager Should Follow

In any career, there are certain best practices which you should stick to, and event management is no exception to that rule. The pieces of advice I’m about to impart to you are things many novice event managers wished they knew when first starting out. Maybe you already know everything here, but in the event that you don’t, maybe I’ll have made your life – and your career – just a little bit easier. Establish A “Concrete Date” When Planning An Event And Stick To It At All Costs When you’re planning an event, start by establishing a concrete date […]

The Do’s And Dont’s Of Running A Secret Event

I did a piece awhile back that made reference to a party hosted by Bud Light in Crested Butte, Colorado. It was a secret event for 1,000 lucky fans of the brand; the culmination of one of Bud Light’s most successful marketing campaigns ever. It also made residents of Crested Butte very, very angry. “Most residents in the town itself didn’t know [about the event],” notes adweek. “After word leaked out, many of them were exceedingly perturbed.” The end result of that perturbation was that Bud Light ended up having to pay double what they’d originally agreed upon with the town, […]

The KISS Principle In Event Management

There’s this little thing known as the KISS principle – I’m sure I’ve made reference to it before. It’s an abbreviation for Keep It Simple, Stupid. Today, I’d like to spend a bit of time looking in-depth at how it applies to event planning. Because like it or not, it most definitely does – particularly where event marketing is concerned. That’s where we’re going to start our discussion, by the way. It seems as good a springboard as any, no? So. Simplicity in marketing. Let’s talk about that. The modern world is a pretty chaotic place if you stop to […]

Event Management Tips & Tricks

As you are well aware, there is quite a bit that goes into being a successful event professional. We’ve touched on many of the topics before on our blog, however over the next two weeks we are going to focus on the main event management tips and tricks to help you be successful so that you can continue to throw amazing events that will keep your clients hiring you for more events and recommend your services to all of their event manager friends. This series will hopefully either teach you something new, or be a refresher course to keep you […]

What The Electronic Entertainment Expo Can Teach Us About Event Management

Every year in June, game development studios from all over the world gather for an event known as the Electronic Entertainment Expo. It’s one of the largest conferences of its kind, and people from all over the world tune in every year to watch and listen for the latest and greatest innovations and developments in video games. Suffice it to say, a savvy event manager can learn a great deal from such a successful conference. Here are a few pieces of insight I’ve picked up by watching the annual show: Even The Right Topic Can Be Bust With The Wrong […]

Optimizing the Look and Feel of Your Event

As an event management professional, you know full well that presentation is everything. I’m not just talking about appearance, either. I’m talking about everything from layout to décor to what sort of tech you’re using for audio and video. If you don’t put any work into these things, it shows – and your guests are bound to get bored. Pay close attention to the look and feel of your event. The trick is to draw the eyes of your guests where you want them to look.  Who Are You Running The Event For? The first, most important question you need […]

The All Inclusive Guide To Perfecting Your Event Budget

As an event management professional, you need to take a ‘master of all trades’ approach to your job. You’ve got to be creative, artistic, and passionate in order to transform your clients ideas from conceptual to concrete; at the same time, you need to be analytical, logical, and disciplined in order to lay the groundwork to bring your events to life. One of the first steps in laying that groundwork – and consequently, one of the greatest challenges in event management – is budgeting. Though we’ve touched a bit on event budgeting in the past, this piece is going to […]

Selecting Your Event Management Niche

In any industry, choosing a niche is a great way to give your business a much-needed boost, establishing your organization as a unique entity. Particularly in the world of event management, it’s important that you differentiate yourself from the competition, and find a demographic to which you can sell yourself directly.  As for how you go about doing so, well…there are a few things to keep in mind. You Need Knowledge First and foremost:  do you have any idea what you’re doing? In order to run a passable event, you need at least a halfway decent knowledge of the industry […]

5 Ways to Leverage a Guest Speaker for Maximum Effect

A good guest speaker can be the most memorable aspect of an event – but only if they’re properly managed. It isn’t enough to simply plop down an orator in front of an audience. There’s a certain art to it, a sort of delicate dance which will require you to juggle your own objectives, your speaker’s desires, and your budget. Mastering that dance is the key to populating your events with effective keynotes. Here are just a few things you can do to ensure you get the most out of your speakers. Draw Up A Decent Contract The first thing […]

Tips For Branding Your Events

One of the more common reasons for a business to hire an event planner is that they’re looking to raise awareness of their brand. They’re looking to get people talking about what they do, and maybe capture some leads in the process. There’s definitely nothing wrong with that – it’s a perfectly valid reason to host an event, after all. The problem is that a lot of people don’t fully grasp is that branding at an event is every bit as complex as it is elsewhere – perhaps even moreso. Do it right, and you’re sitting pretty with a whole […]

Why An Event Planner Needs To Be A People Person

As I’ve said on multiple occasions, event planning is just as much about managing people as it is conferences and shows. Today, I’d like to revisit that topic in a little more detail – we’re going to discuss the importance of networking to your career as an event manager. Trust me, it’s essential. As any businessperson will tell you, business is just as much about whom you know as it is what you can do. You need to be able to connect with the right people – to work your way into the good graces of men and women with […]

Everything You Need To Know About Getting Your Events Going On Facebook

Whether you’re running a trade show or a corporate fundraiser, Facebook is going to play into your events in some fashion. That’s simply the reality of the world we live in. As the largest social network in the world, Facebook gives brands an unprecedented level of access to their audience. This is especially true if those brands are working in event management. “In the event industry, people have always been social by nature,” writes Cvent’s Eric Eden. “It’s an innate part of what we do.” What that means, continues Eden, is that event management professionals can no longer afford to […]

Things To Remember When Creating Your Event Registration

With the Internet, social media, and mobile technology, event registration has evolved in ways I’m certain our forefathers never imagined possible. The unfortunate side to that is that it’s introduced a whole host of challenges they never anticipated, either. See…selling tickets and registering attendees might be easier to do, but it’s also easier to botch. Likely as not, the first thing anyone’s going to see of your event is the registration page. With that in mind, you want to be sure you make a good first impression. Here are a few things to keep in mind when setting up the […]

Five Features Every Conference Needs To Have

I’ve said on several occasions that conferences are fast becoming one of the most valuable tools in any marketing agent’s repertoire. The thing is, not every marketing professional knows exactly what they need to plan an event. While marketing and event management do require very similar skill-sets, the knowledge base required for each tends to be more than a little divergent. Thankfully, while every event is different – and brings different challenges, requirements, and concerns – there are a few starting points you can lay down that’ll make things much, much easier on you as you move forward. Ignore any […]

Why Your Event Needs to Account for Weather

If you think the only time the weather matters is when you’re running an outdoor event, you’d be sadly mistaken. The weather has an impact on virtually every facet of your event, even if it’s not immediately obvious. For this reason, ignoring it entirely is a foolish thing to do.

Today, we’re going to examine how the weather affects your events –and what you can do to account for it.

Read more →

The Top Event Industry Trends Of 2015

A new year is well upon us, hopefully it has been kind to you so far. It’s another huge year of event planning and it’s time to start preparing for what’s coming – it’s time to make yourself ready for the technology, trends, and changes that are bound to happen. 2014 was a pretty big year for the event industry – though admittedly, it was something of a rough one, as well. Faced with the echoes of a global economic recession, many event management professionals were by necessity forced to do more with less (though granted, event planners were hardly alone […]