Hosting a high-profile event is stressful and exciting at the same time – and if you’re hosting or facilitating an event at your own property, it’s doubly so. Preparing yourself and your property for such an event takes time, money, and effort, but with the right skeletal framework in place, it all becomes much easier.
What are the most important elements of an event plan for your property?
Goals
Before anything else, you should take a moment and outline your goals. What type of event do you want to host? Why do you want to host it? What is it going to take for your event to be successful, and how are you going to concretely define and measure that success? You may not have all the details at this point.
For example, you may not know how many people may attend, or you may not have all the details fleshed out for the type of event that you want to host. However, the more specific you can get here, the better you’ll be able to plan the other elements of your event.
Target Audience
Next, think about your target audience. Depending on the nature of your event, it may center on a certain person or organization, or it may be held for a broader group of people. Either way, it pays to know who’s going to attend and what their expectations are. What are their values? What similar events have they attended in the past, and how has that shaped their perspectives? Are there any amenities that are practically necessary for them? And what is going to make this event unforgettable for them? If you don’t have all the answers, start doing some market research.
Budget and Resources
Creating an event budget can be difficult, in part because there are so many variables to consider. However, the earlier you start planning for your budget, the better. If you have a tight upper limit for how much you can spend, it’s going to be hard to make the right decisions and sacrifices. Even if you have a more flexible budget, you may not know the right way to allocate it to make your event successful. The best course of action is typically to start early and at the highest possible level, outlining broad categories of expenses and how much you’d like to spend on each.
You may also need to consider the allocation of specific resources. For example, if you have staff members who will be attending this event, how are you going to utilize them?
Timeline
The next phase of the process will have you create a timeline, not only for your event but also your event planning. The night of the event, how will activities flow? In the days and weeks leading up to the event, what are the most important items to tackle? How soon do you need to place reservations and make deposits? What deadlines are you setting for yourself? The more thorough your timeline is, and the more it’s set up as a checklist, the easier your job will be in the future.
Vendors
Chances are, you’ll work with a number of vendors as part of your event planning. You may need caterers, DJs, designers, miscellaneous staff members, and more. The sooner you can lock some of these down, the sooner you’ll start fleshing out the details of your event and the less stress you’re going to face.
Marketing and Promotion
Are you going to advertise or promote your event? If not, how are you going to get the word out about your event? How are you going to incentivize people to attend?
Guest Management and Logistics
Even for relatively minor events, you should also have a plan in place for guest management and logistics. How are you going to issue invites? How are you going to collect and keep track of RSVPs? How are you going to make sure that only invited parties show up to the property for the event?
Event Design
After that, you can focus on the design of the event.
· Theme. There are literally hundreds of theme ideas you can borrow or modify for your own event, if you want a theme in the first place.
· Décor. What kind of decor is going to make the property come alive and stay aligned with the theme?
· Catering. Who is going to cater this, and what types of food are you going to have?
· Entertainment. What type of entertainment is going to keep your audience engaged?
You probably don’t have ideas or answers to every item in this article. But the sooner you start planning your event, and the more organized you are, the more likely you’ll be to host a successful event at your property.
