3 Event Planning Tips for The Busy Upcoming Event Season

In 1995, I decided to take the plunge, trust my instincts and work expertise and become an entrepreneur by starting my own event planning company. In essence I possess close to 40 years experience executing, managing and promoting events. With the busy event season coming up with holiday parties to plan and corporate events to create in the new year and I wanted to share 3 brief top event planning tips to get you started on your way.

Use Events as a PR Tool for your Company:

There are a lot of ways to market or promote your company. Events are a fun way to do that. All PR efforts either take time, money or a combination of both. Events can be fun, time consuming and beneficial especially if you have a mission for the event. If you don’t want to do an event on your own, consider creating an event with another company or two to share expenses, marketing outreach and work. There are a lot of complementary businesses that can benefit from hosting and cross promoting events. I suggest you think about what type of events you want to plan by December or into 2014. If you are planning a small event, you might only need 1-2 months to plan and host the event; but if you are planning a larger event, I suggest you give yourself 3-6 months to plan and promote it depending on the size and scope of the event.

Create Event Planning Timelines

There are different types of event planners – I’m not the kind who can come in a room and say “purple taffeta needs to go on that wall and bring in some swans while you are at it to make the setting just perfect”. I have always been known for my exceptional organizational and logistics skills along with my event marketing expertise. So my favorite event planning tool is a detailed event timeline.

Create a timeline to help you be organized. List any details about the event and type it up with dates so you in essence create a detailed “to do list” which can be revised as the planning progresses.

Most importantly an event timeline takes the stress of all the details out of your mind and puts them someplace where you have access to them – making the event much more manageable and dropping your stress level.

You could Google search event timelines on line or take a wedding timeline for example and use the format to create your own event timeline.

Create Events with this key thing in mind

When planning events, I believe you should always start by thinking about what your guests will feel like when they leave it. Envision what your guests will say, what they saw, what they experienced – and then plan your event backward from that perspective.