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.

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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 […]

Learn to Relax—You’ll Have Better Events

Event management is pretty hard work – any event planner worth their salt is well aware of that fact. It’s a profession given to long, irregular hours, and one which requires deep passion coupled with a seemingly endless reserve of energy.  Plenty of event planners speak of working almost constantly, with nary a moment to rest. If you’re a novice event planner, you might be tempted to believe that this is the best road to success; that the best way to rise to the top of your profession is to toss aside everything not related to it. Unfortunately, you’d be […]

Common Hurdles Event Planners Face

No industry is perfect. Particularly in a field as fast-paced and fast-growing as event management, there are bound to be a few pitfalls, roadblocks, and growing pains scattered along one’s path. What separates the good event planners from the great ones is how they address these problems; how they meet – and overcome – the challenges thrown their way. Here are some issues that you may run into, and how to successfully overcome them: Keeping Your Clients Happy One of the most enduring problems in event planning is that many clients simply don’t have any idea of how the profession […]

The Event Manager’s Guide To Search Engine Marketing

What exactly does search engine marketing have to do with event planning?

Alright, so this is probably something of a strange topic for an event management blog. A lot of you are probably confused as to why I’m writing on it, but the answer is actually “more than you’d think.”

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Five Things To Consider When Selecting Your Conference Venue

As I’m certain you’ve heard on more than one occasion (you’re likely growing tired of hearing it by now), location is everything when planning an event – especially a corporate conference. Generally, the people attending these events are going to be discussing some fairly important stuff – a bad venue can leave a dark cloud hanging over the entire affair, something which can, in the worst case scenario, effectively derail the entire gathering. You want to do whatever it takes to ensure this doesn’t happen. Here are just a few of the things you’ll need to take into account when […]

Six Example Venue Amenities Every Venue Should Provide

We’ve talked a great deal previously on our blog about what event planners should do, what they should look for, what they should provide, how they should approach clients, and more. What we haven’t really touched on is venues. Today, we’re going to go over some example venue amenities that should always be included, since the amenities provided to you is what separates the great venues from the good, and the good from the mediocre venues.

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The Three Most Common Hazards At A Winter Festival

As I’m certain I’ve mentioned on at least one occasion before, winter’s a pretty incredible season from an event management perspective. Although it’s admittedly a little less inviting than the warmer seasons of the year, all that snow – and the holiday cheer that everyone experiences around Christmas – can make for some pretty incredible festivals, in the hands of a skilled event planner.  There’s practically a limitless list of Winter-themed activities you can throw at your guests to keep them entertained, to say nothing of how much fun guests at such events tend to have. Of course, there are […]

Why Passion Is Important For Event Management

I’m sure you’ve heard the old cliché more times than you’d care to remember – in any industry, passion is one of the most important traits you can possibly have. Without it, nothing else really matters. No matter how talented you are; no matter how skilled and adept you happen to be at what you do, if you lack passion, it’s going to be noticeable in pretty much everything you do. You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this. After all, informing someone that they just “need to be passionate” is one of the emptiest niceties one can possibly spout. […]

The Three Biggest Problems You’ll Encounter Running A Charity Event

Charity events are pretty awesome. Not only can you feel like a great person for serving a noble cause, a well-run event can be one of the most enjoyable experiences in the world. That said, they can also be even more stressful than a traditional conference or show.  See, like any other affair, charity events come packaged with their own unique set of roadblocks. It’s important that you make yourself aware of the challenges you’re going to face. After all, it’s better to mitigate your problems before your event kicks off, rather than addressing them during. Engaging People In Your […]

Why Every Event Planner Should Study Sociology

Today, we’re going to discuss a topic which might –at first glance – seem rather out of place on an event management blog: sociology. In one of my first pieces for Tweetwall, I made reference to Marshall McLuhan; one of the most brilliant sociologists of the 20th century. McLuhan’s insights about a concept known as the ‘global village’ were years ahead of their time, and he managed to predict the strange new society created by social media several decades before it came to pass. Sadly, he never lived to see his theories come to life – he died in 1980, […]

Is it Possible to Run an Event without a Physical Venue?

It seems like an undeniable truth: if you don’t have a venue in which to run your event, there is no event.  After all, you need a place for your keynotes. You need booths for your vendors, caterers for your guests, a green room for your volunteers, and… Honestly? I’m not certain any of that is even necessary. All you really need is the right software. I should explain. See, we’re living in a society that’s increasingly virtualized. Thanks to improvements in networking technology, what might have been impossible fifteen years ago is completely plausible today. I’m talking about more […]

Top 5 Event Management Tips for Perfect Weddings

A wedding can be one of the most beautiful events known to man. Here are two individuals ready to swear their life to each other; two people who are ready to devote themselves entirely to one another. Attending one of these events, it’s hard not to shed a tear or two. Of course, for every wedding that’s an awe-inspiring testament to love, there’s also one that’s a complete and utter disaster. Those ones are memorable for entirely different reasons. If you’ve been hired to plan someone’s wedding, you need to do everything in your power to ensure that it falls […]

5 Tips for Planning the Perfect Press Conference

As a corporate event manager, you may eventually be asked to plan a press conference. More so than any other event, a properly executed press conference can be one of the best things to happen to a brand. Similarly, a terrible press conference can severely damage a brand. You want to make sure any conference you plan falls into the former category, rather than the latter. Here are a few words of wisdom to planning the perfect event: Make Sure Your Speakers Are Naturals I’ve watched some painfully bad press conferences, and most of them had one thing in common: the speakers […]