How to plan a successful conference and event ?
Designing a conference or corporate event, which seems to be easy on paper, is one of those. One minute you are dealing with a short list of venues to choose, a catering brief, a delegate list that is continually changing, a budget which has been restructured at least three times and a programme which has no confirmed keynote speaker. Sound familiar? It will be to him that hath done it right. It all depends on planning, not budget, not guest lists, and not even the quality of the food, but that surely helps, whether the difference between a conference that people discuss on Monday and one that fades out of memory by Monday is a matter of mere planning. The thinking that goes on during the months leading to the day itself is what makes the difference between the event being successful and a flop.
It is a guide to those who have been entrusted with the task of organizing a corporate conference or event and would like to do so in a manner that not only does it right but also does it well.
Start With a Clear Purpose, Not a Date
The most widespread error in planning an event is the initial planning of the logistics and then not knowing what the event is ultimately attempting to accomplish. Someone has a venue booked, a date locked down and then attempts to reverse engineer a programme that will provide the day with some purpose. That strategy never works out since all of your decisions, who to invite, what format to have, how many sessions to have, what type of a dinner to have after it, all should be based on a clear vision of what would be a successful result.
The first thing you should do before you do anything, is to sit down with whoever owns this event and tell him or her three questions straight. What do we want people to leave knowing, loving, or choosing? Who exactly is supposed to be in the room in order to do that? And how should this occasion feel like it should be strategic and solemn, festive, didactic or all three?
When those questions can be answered with real answers, all the other decisions to be made will be easier to make, and easier to defend to stakeholders who will question your decisions one way or another.
Choosing the Right Venue — and Why It Matters More Than People Think ?
It is in venue-setting that many event planners waste colossal energy on misplaced factors. Of course, room capacity and AV specifications are important, yet the nature of a venue defines the nature of an event in a manner difficult to define and difficult to overlook.
When a conference is held in a characterless hotel ballroom, it conveys something to the attendees even before a word is spoken. According to it, that is normal, it is to be expected, it is ordinary. That is in contrast with a place that has personality of its own, historic buildings, natural environment, areas that are not fungible, and the event begins with a different register.
This is the reason why places such as Browsholme Hall in Lancashire have literally become a favourite to hold corporate conferences and business meetings. The Hall and its different rooms, such as the splendidly refurbished Tithe Barn, have a quality that a chain hotel can never capture: ambience that does some of the work on your behalf. When representatives report to a place that they feel thoughtful and unique, they interact in a different manner. Discussions begin more intuitively. There is a sense of occasion to the day even as people walk in.
In the case of a Corporate Conference Venues, the practical needs must still be fulfilled - good connectivity, versatile room configurations, dependable catering, a place where breakout conversation can occur, not in the primary room. However, when you are able to have all of that with an environment that is truly special, then it is worth giving up a place that meets all the necessary criteria and does no more.
Shortlisting venues: Visit the venues where possible. Pictures do not inform you about how it is to walk in a certain space, whether it is properly acoustically balanced or not, whether the team is responsive to turn up without a call and ask questions.
Building a Programme That Respects People's Attention
The intuition in planning a conference programme is to pack it up to the last minute. The more content, the more valuable. Increased number of speakers implies increased investment. A brochure will be more impressive with more sessions. Practically, this strategy dilutes the efforts of delegates and water downs the effects of all that is on the agenda.
Human beings cannot focus with a lot of duration and the ability reduces significantly following lunch. A programme which lasts between 8:30am and 6:00pm with presentation after presentation, a 30 minutes lunch break and no actual time to talk to each other is a programme that ceases to work well after 2:15pm no matter the quality of the speakers.
Include rest and conversation on the agenda as an intentional component rather than something left unplanned after all other parts are completed. Breaks that are longer, organized networking time, discussion in smaller groups, are not padding. They are where much of the value of an event is actually created, as relationships are formed there, and ideas are put through the stress-test that cannot be done in a presentation to a full room. An easy test: can you clearly define why this or that session is on the agenda, and what should be accomplished? It is likely that you should not be on the agenda.
Catering — The Element People Remember Most l,
Ask anyone what they remember about a conference they have attended six months ago and chances are he/she will talk about three things: a speaker that impressed them, a chat that they had with someone that they never met before and food. Oftentimes in such a sequence.
Corporate event catering is never valued in the planning stages and always over-observed by the delegates post event. Poor catering - sandwiches that have been left out too long, warm coffee, a half-hour lunch-break to serve a buffet to a hundred people is real trouble in an event. It influences the mood, energy levels, and how individuals discuss the day when they resume their offices.
Good catering does just the reverse. It generates delight which breaks up the day, maintains the energy at par, and conveys the feeling that the organiser is interested in the experience of being in the place and not merely to push the stuff into the people.
A properly scheduled corporate dinner at the end of the day is one such tool that should be in the toolkit of the event planner in case there is a need to do so. The transformation of a working conference atmosphere into a dinner is a different ball game altogether. Discussions that began as official business in a workshop table take a truer form in the presence of good food and wine. The relationships, which otherwise would have been in the form of business associates, can evolve into something more cooperative and sustainable.
Corporate dinners at a place such as Browsholme Hall are treated with the sort of attention that counts, such as a tailor-made menu made around the group, ancient interiors that impart an authentic ambience, and service that is not transactional. The Tithe Barn in particular, with its original stonework and timber beams, makes an evening setting that could scarcely be replicated in a more traditional events venue.
When the Occasion Calls for Something More Intimate?
Not all corporate meetings are complete conferences. Even some of the biggest business discussions occur in smaller groups - a leadership dinner before a strategic planning day, a client appreciation evening, a board dinner celebrating a big milestone or a decision. Such events require a new type of atmosphere.
Twelve people having a serious dinner just do not fit in a big conference room. In its place is a place that feels truly special, a room that was specifically selected to be used during this event, food and service to be provided that is worthy of such an important event.
Browsholme Hall provides just that with private dinners. Their private dining rooms have the ability to hold as few as a small handful of people or up to a hundred or more, and the ambience, with tailor-made menus, full seclusion, an ambiance that truly has a personality of its own, makes them ideal in situations where the tone must be as solemn as the subject of discussion or celebration. A well-planned, privately-dinner, in the proper environment is more work than nearly any other type of event, when it comes to impressing a client you wish to impress, or a team event that needs to be commemorated in an appropriate manner.
Logistics, Timelines and the Things That Get Forgotten
Despite the correctness of the strategy and the venue that has been selected, it is in the minute of the performance where things either work out or fall apart in reality. Some of the things that are always undervalued are:
Lead time. Best venues during busy periods are booked earlier than the expectation of most individuals. You must be talking to venues as early as January or February but not June, in case you want your date to be in September or October, which is the season of conferences.Communication with delegates. Individuals require clear-cut, straightforward details on where they are going, what they are going to do, and what they are supposed to. Make no assumptions and communicate the fundamentals.
One contact point on the ground. The person who coordinates the event on the venue side must have a name and direct number of a particular person with whom he knows the brief. Not a general enquiries mail. A person. The most prevalent failure at conferences is AV. Preparation: What to do in case of a malfunction in the presentation system during the session. It would seem too much until it occurred at 9:45am when there were two hundred people in the room.
Nothing is wasting time. Each event operates a bit different to the schedule. Schedule buffer: It is important to budget time into the schedule such that should a session take longer or be five minutes away, then the rest of the day will not collapse into a pile.
The Standard Worth Aiming For
An effective conference or business meeting is one that no one wants to miss. Where the discussions went on beyond the allotted time and individuals were still discussing certain incidents on the way home. That is not just an accident and is not just a matter of box-ticking.
It occurs when somebody has deliberated on what the occasion is about, selected a venue that suits the occasion, designed a programme that honours the people present in it and actually listened to the details that make a day feel like a day. Get these things straight and the event will take care of itself. Misjudge them and even last minute repair on the day will not recuperate it completely.
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