How to Host a Successful Event

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Planning

Making your event a success starts with coming up with the right plan! You don’t want to commit to hosting an event until you understand all of the things that need to be done to make it successful. Staying organized is key! Making lists will aid in making the event planning smoother. Inadequate planning and promotion is a core reason an event can fail. Focus on your main objectives for the event and develop a complete and thought out operations plan. Marketing and Promotion

The key to any successful event is marketing and promotion. As an event host, it is your responsibility to promote, market and attract people to attend your event. To create a successful event campaign, you need to come up with a strategy that incorporates your different marketing channels, such as email and social media.

Budget

To keep on top of your finances, you should prepare an event budget and monitor your spending. Things to keep in mind for your budget are ticket sales versus expenses, venue cost, catering, staff, and advertising. Decide on one or two specific aspects of the event that are important, and make it a plan to spend the majority of your budget on it.

Follow up

When you are roughly two to three weeks away from the event date, make sure to confirm all of the details with vendors, speakers, caterers and attendees. Following up with everyone will remind your guests and team of the event, along with assuring everything will run as smooth as possible. Another tip for this stage of the event planning process is to have a checklist of things that need to be done the day of, week before, etc.

Post Event

Just when you think you’re done, be sure to add a few more things to the list, such as closing off the final budget and sending thank you letters to staff, speakers and sponsors! It is also a good idea to do an evaluation and debrief your stakeholders and sponsors. If you decide to repeat the event in the future, being able to look back at your notes, feedback and lists could definitely come in handy. Lastly, make sure to post photos of your event online!