When you attend an event, you just see the finished product. All the pieces just come together and one activity flows to the next. Most events have something that goes wrong, but very few are visible to attendees.
What you may not think of is the details behind the scenes. You know there are meals, speakers, AV, exhibits, etc., but you don’t know how it all comes together. Unless you have planned events you don’t understand that sequencing is critical. If something doesn’t happen on time, things can go downhill fast.
The seeds of event failure are sown months before the event. It is almost impossible to have a great event if there is a failure early-on. The enemy is time. Often volunteers will underestimate the importance of advance planning. If you are busy, it is easy to rationalize waiting a week or two later to begin. The event is months away after all. Trust your management to develop a timeline, then help them adhere to it.
To announce a date, there must be agreement on what that date will be. The date must work for key people, including leadership and management. If you have a speaker(s) in mind, it also must work for them. Schedule around religious holidays and other events that may impact your attendees. Once you know when and where, then you can send out a “Save the Date” notice.
Before you can do any serious promotion, you need to have all the details posted on the website. All links to various forms should be tested, including attendee and sponsor registration, hotel discount block, parking details. Food and beverage, AV and agenda finalization can come later in accordance with the contract.
By far the biggest problem we see is delays early-on. An event with a slow start is likely to have serious problems. Launch delays cause trickle down potential challenges like venue scarcity, bumped up rates, losing out on the best speakers, inability to get CME and reduced sponsor and exhibit revenue, staffing conflicts and poor attendance.
Allow enough time to do it right! Management will do the heavy lifting, but volunteers need to do certain things like select the date, give venue input and speaker suggestions. If you don’t have time to work with management on these basics, you should not take the lead for an event.
Sometimes, leaders find themselves in the position of not having the basics for a planned event in place. Maybe they have some parts and not others. The pressure from management and some members is mounting. At that point, someone will usually suggest moving an event by a month or two or to the next season. These are not great options, but they beat having a failed event. Know that when you push an announced event forward, you let your members down. Members lose out on value and may not renew.
