How To Plan Your First Event And Avoid Newbie Mistakes

Congratulations! As you’re reading this, you’ve made your first good decision as a new event organizer. You’re here because you want your event to be successful and you don’t want to be caught out like I was.

I am here to share my experience with you and give you some good tips and advice that will set you on the right path to event success!

If you’re like me, you’ve probably spent hours already searching for venues and technology you think you need to run your event. In your mind you’ve got an idea of what you want to create, but are somehow hoping that you can piece it together in time for your big day.

But stop. Before you jump in with both feet, here are 10 tips to get you started in the right direction.

Tip 1: Write down a plan

Before you do anything else, if you haven’t already, open Word, PowerPoint, or even get a pen and paper and write down your event plan.

Forget about venue, attendee numbers, budget, sponsors etc. They all come later. Right now you need to make sure that your event has a purpose and need within your chosen industry.

This event plan doesn’t need to be detailed at this moment. It’s for you to sanity check what you’re about to embark on is worthwhile and will resonate with your target market.

Break it down, ask yourself the following questions. If you don’t know the answer straight away, then do some market research to help fill the gaps.

1. What industry area is your event covering? – This is the first and most important question to answer. Your event needs a clear focus on an industry.
   
   The answer isn’t “beauty” or “business technology” unless you’re planning a huge industry wide event. More than likely you’re planning an event that concentrates on smaller facets of that industry such as “Hair and make up” or “collaboration technology”.
   
   Work out what part of the industry you’re going to focus on, write it down, and stick to it.
   
2. Who is your ideal attendee? – Conferences and exhibitions are made up of many different people but usually your event will attract people from a prominent demographic.
   
   At this stage you want a high level understanding on where these are going to come from. For example; if your event topic is “Hair and make up conference”, then are you hoping to appeal to consumers, or professionals?
   
3. Why would your idea attendee come to your event? – This is an important question to answer before you go any further. Is there a need for your ideal attendee to come to your event? Are you serving a demand?
   
   Putting on an event just because you think it’s a good idea doesn’t mean that it will work. There needs to be a market and desire for it.
   
   Now is a good time to float your idea within the industry. Talk to industry peers about your idea and take onboard their feedback.
   
   Search online extensively to see if there are any similar events already established in your country. If there are, then this may make it hard for you to attract exhibitors and attendees.
   
   Turn to social media and run a sponsored survey of your ideal attendee demographic to see if there is any interest in your proposed event.
   
   Assuming that the results are positive, write down the reasons why attendees will come to your event, what they want to see, what they want to learn, and where they might travel from.
   
4. Who are you going to approach for sponsorship? – Events aren’t free so they will need to be paid through sponsorship (selling exhibition space or other benefits) to vendors and / or direct ticket sales.
   
   Make a list of the vendors in your event industry you want to approach for sponsorship. You will need 25-40% more than you might have space for as they won’t all say yes to you. Plan for rejection so that you don’t panic later when there’s little room for manoeuvre.
   
   If you have time at this stage, use social media, LinkedIn is a good place to start to search for possible people within each vendor that you need to approach for sponsorship and try and connect with them neutrally.
   
   Alternatively, most vendor websites have contact details for their marketing or press department. If not, sales contacts are a good alternative.
   
5. When are you hoping to run your event? – Bear in mind that your chosen venue when it happens will ultimately govern the exact date of your event. That said, you should have an idea of at least a month in a year when you want your event to take place.
   
   Before you settle on a month, be sure to look around for other events that may be happening within the same month and even quarter in your industry.
   
   They may not be exactly the same, but exhibitors will exhibit at many events in the year and they only have finite budgets.
   
   Sometimes exhibitors won’t sponsor your event simply because they are at too many similar events within 3 months of yours.
   
   Find a place in the calendar when your event has the most chance of success. Be sure to avoid school holidays unless your event is tailored towards children / family.
   
6. Where and how long will your event be? – The answer to this question is really driven from your ideal attendee. If you’re hoping to attract business owners, then running your event at the weekend is a bad idea. No executive will give up their weekend for a trade show.
   
   Will your event be 1 day or many days? If its multiple days, will your ideal attendee be able to afford overnight accommodation and sustenance? or even afford to take days out of their working calendar for your event?
   
   Are there any common travel habits that could sway attendance? For example in the United Kingdom it is common for people to travel towards London, but uncommon for people to travel out of London to an event hosted in another city.
   
   Is there a place close to most of your target audience that would suit most needs?
   
7. How will your event be structured? – Are you organizing a trade show only, conference, or expo? Will there be seminars and exhibition floors? How many seminars do you think your attendee’s would want to see? Will your exhibitors want private rooms to book in quality meetings?
   
8. How are you going to attract attendees? – Unless you have a very large network already, how are you going to announce your event to your attendee demographic?
   
   What tactics and mediums are you going to employ? How much do you think you will need to spend on attendee acquisition?
   
9. What help are you going to need? – Running an event isn’t a one person rodeo. You’re going to need help and lots of it. Help to organize and help to run on the day.
   
   Think about each of the roles from supplier management, exhibitor management, attendee, marketing, technology etc. and what tasks and responsibilities they will need to have at high level. This will help you come to an understanding of how much help you need.
   
   Typically for every 100 attendees you’re going to need at least 5 members in your team to help on the day with various queries and tasks.
   
10. Plan Your Event Timeline – You can’t just turn up on the day and figure it out. Get yourself a calendar and work back from the chosen month your event should take place and mark deadline dates for goals to be achieved.
    
    For example; event funded to minimum amount no later than 12 weeks before event day. AV requirements booked and scheduled no later than 6 weeks before event day etc.
    
    These should be loose goals that allow a small degree of variance. Never plan to the last possible date.

Now that you have your event plan written down, does it make sense? Have you identified a need and purpose and ready to continue? Great.

Tip 2: Find a venue and suppliers

You might be thinking why isn’t this step about budget? It’s simple, you can’t set a budget until you know costs. So this step is all about finding your suppliers and getting quotes.

The biggest item on your list is finding a suitable venue to host your event in the configuration you need.

If you’re running an exhibition only with no seminars, then you’ll need a venue with a large space that can accommodate all your exhibitors. If you’re running an exhibition with seminars, you’ll need a venue that has multiple spaces that can be used as seminar rooms and exhibition.

Depending on your configuration, you might find that your only choice are event specific venues such as exhibition centers.

Find at least 3 possible venues because your preferred one may not have availability. Remember never compromise your event’s position on the calendar for a venue. You can make your event fit into other venues but finding space on a busy event calendar can be near impossible.

If choosing event specific venues like exhibition centers, be sure to get a detailed quote. Many have hidden costs that were ‘missed’ off the original proposal. These can lead into tens of thousands of dollars in unexpected costs.

Watch out for:

• Expo centers charge by the square foot / meter with a minimum area. When building your floor plan be sure to account for social areas, storage areas, transit areas as well as the space you need for stands. It is worth involving health and safety too to ensure your floor plan and proposed meterage fits within the venue’s H&S guidelines for your size of event.
  
• Power. Expo centers will charge you for power by the amp. You’ll need to have an idea of what items your exhibitors are going to bring and their power consumption. Most exhibitors will require only 2-5 amps per stand. Any more, they can pay extra!
  
• Internet. Connectivity won’t be free and expo centers can charges extortionate fees for internet connectivity. I have seen quotes for $600 for a 10mbps connection before!
  
• Be on the lookout for mandatory fixtures and fittings. Expo centers are generally blank canvas venues. This includes the floor and they may mandate as part of their terms and conditions that you will carpet the floor at your own additional expense. Conference carpet costs roughly $10 a square meter. In a 20,000 square meter venue, that can add up very fast!
  
• Security costs. These exhibition venues will probably have other shows running in different halls alongside yours. You may not want their attendees or members of the public entering your event and you will need to pay for venue security staff to police your event entrance.
  
• Be sure to ask about access for setup and deliveries. If venues have restrictions on when contractors can be on site this may affect your event build and setup, meaning you might have to hire the venue for more days than you anticipated.

At other venues as well as event specific ones the following hidden costs are commonplace:

• You must use their event catering service and commit to a minimum spend. Even if you’re expecting your attendees to pay for their own food, should the minimum turnover not be reached by the end of the event, you will become liable for the shortfall.
  
• AV installation buy out clauses. Most venues have approved AV installers on their books. They have intimate knowledge of the venue layout and have passed all site certifications. You should use them wherever possible. However, if you’re adamant you want to use your own AV company, be prepared for a buyout fee. This can be $500 or $15,000 or more depending on the venue’s terms and conditions.
  
• Delivery fees. Not that popular but some venues will charge a fee to access their logistics yard for unloading / loading. Be sure to ask!
  
• Later or earlier opening fees. If you require the venue to be open longer than their standard opening hours you will be expected to pay an extended hours charge for the number of additional hours you need.

Be sure to ask lots of questions to the venue events manager and never take anything for granted. “Oh you can use the venue digital signage”, sounds great! But watch out for the fee that will be lurking after you agree.

Once you have settled with your venue, ask to be put in touch with their AV supplier. Invite them to an onsite meeting and go through your desired needs.

Most AV firms can supply furniture, posters, signage as well as lights and microphones. They may not be the cheapest on these but remember, you want to create a budget. Ask them for an estimate.

Now think about your exhibition, will the exhibitors bring their own stands? Will you supply modular booths, shell schemes, digital printing, booth furniture like chairs and tables? Find your supplier and get a quote.

Once you have these 3 items covered you can start to formulate a budget. Add a buffer of at least 30% to these quotes to account for any deviances.

For the rest of your event, think about the following:

• Event software, how much do you need to spend to enable your attendees to register?
• Onsite check-in – who is going to check people in? How much is that going to cost?
• What equipment will you need to buy?
• Marketing, how much do you need to spend on advertising and marketing?
• Staffing, if you need agency staff, these cost around $30 per hour including expenses per person
• Insurances – $1,000+
• Admin systems including accountant, invoicing, tax compliance etc
• Storage costs for any equipment you’ll need to buy
• Software subscriptions to marketing platforms, website, socials etc.

When you arrive at this number, add 35% to it because I guarantee that you’ll need it.

Bonus Tip: Never start selling your exhibition packages until you have a budget figure as once you do, you have very little room for miscalculations.

Tip 3: Create your event brand and online assets

Now that you have a date, a venue, and a plan for your event it is time to make some basic brand assets and get your event name out into the marketplace.

This is an important step before selling your event space to exhibitors because no one is going to buy exhibition packages from a brand or event that doesn’t exist online.

You may already have a great name for your event and brand and that’s awesome. You’ll want to make sure that you do however cover off a few basics:

• When naming your event, make sure that nothing else sounds similar or could be confused with your name.
  
• Avoid ‘funky’ spelling of your event e.g. Mowhawx Conference rather than Mowhawks Conference. Yes the domain might be free and cheap, and it might look cool, but when you’re telling people to ‘search Google’ for Mowhawx, they’re going to type in “Mowhawks” and this will make them land on something entirely different, or worse, a competitor.
  
• Make sure that the name you choose is free from any trademark. Search your trademark directories to make sure you’re not impeaching other people’s property.
  
• You’ll want to buy all the main domain TLDs for your chosen name. You don’t want a rival event snapping up a .com or .it or .de or wherever of your name and redirecting to their event!

Got your name? now you need a logo and brand identity. You may be tempted to do this yourself, or find someone on fiverr.com who can knock up a random logo and pick a random Google font and ship it to you for $30. But do you really want to start your venture on the back of such a thing?

I’ve used both these before and thought I had a great deal. However, you’ll soon find that down the line when you need to send your logo off to the print works, that it isn’t created correctly and they can’t print it, or it comes out a completely different color than what you’re expecting.

Then you end up spending more dollars fixing it.

I recommend that you select a reputable graphic designer who will spend their time learning about your brand vision and will come up with a brand mood board. Following consultation with you, they will move towards a select few mockups for consideration before finalizing with you the chosen design and brand scheme.

Can’t find one? Don’t worry, we can help with exactly this type of problem.

Now you have your domains and brand, it is time to start building your event website and snapping up your social media handles.

Your website doesn’t need to be overly detailed or in depth at this stage. Start with a well crafted homepage that outlines the following information:

1. Your event name
2. When and where your event will take place
3. Short section on what your event offers to attendees and the industry
4. How exhibitors can inquire about particpating
5. When tickets will go on sale and how much they will be
6. Who you are as an organizing team

Then start building your social presence. Make sure your social accounts are branded and setup properly. Incomplete profiles will not convince attendees and show a lack of due care and attention to detail.

Invest in right sized for the platform social banners for your event pages.

Start posting information about who you are and what your event is about. Building an online presence organically takes time, patience, and consistency.

You can’t rush this. You can encourage it though by getting involved in topics and conversations your ideal attendees are engaged in. This will make them take notice and win you a follow that you can leverage later.

This will also help you get noticed by potential exhibitors who might want to participate in your event. When I started my event, over 50% of my exhibitor interest came from being noticed on social media.

Tip 4: Make your exhibition pack and practice your sales pitch

Now you have a venue and budget written down that is achievable you can start the process of selling your event space to prospective exhibitors.

Before you pick up the virtual phone, lets break down what your exhibition pack should contain.

1. Introduction section – This is the first section of your pack. This is your opening pitch. Clearly state what your event is, where it is, when it is, and most importantly why a company should consider exhibiting at your event.
   
   This is a multi-pronged attack on their fear of missing out. You’ll need to tell them the types of people you’re bringing to the event, how your event is different to the rest, and what they will get out of exhibiting at your event (attendee list for example).
   
2. About You As Organizers – Most of your exhibitors won’t know you and your event has no history to build upon. To an exhibitor your first event is a step into the unknown for them too.
   
   The only credibility you have as an event is your own personal brand, reputation, and convincing belief in what you’re trying to achieve. Exhibitors in your first event will buy into you and not the event.
   
3. Lay out your exhibition packages – Now you have a budget and floor plan, you can divide that between different exhibition packages. Typically an event is divided into Headline / Platinum which come with the most benefits such as larger stand etc. Gold, Silver, Bronze etc. with varied degrees of benefits.
   
   Each package has an appropriate cost based on the benefits. They way I work mine out is by maximizing the total number of stands I can get into my floor plan. This usually means less top level slots and more entry level stands because for every Gold stand I could put into the exhibtion I can replace that with 2 Silver ones and earn more money out of the same amount of space.
   
   This helps keep the costs down for everyone too. The more you can get out of your floor space, the cheaper and more enticing your exhibition packages will become. Remember, your event is funded more by the lowest paying exhibitors versus the highest, simply because there are more of them.
   
   Be sure to be very clear on what is and isn’t included in your packages.
   
4. Optional Extras – Be sure to list optional extras an exhibitor could take up in addition to their chosen package. This could be additional furniture, power, connectivity, or passes to your event. List their prices and be sure to include any exclusions (e.g. not available to X category).
   
5. How to contact you and order – Finally if they have made it this far into your pack, they are interested. Be sure to tell them how they can contact you for more information and how they can order their package.

Tip: At this stage you won’t have any imagery to use of previous events. Whatever you do, don’t use stock images or images from other events as yours. Pictures set an expectation and these will essentially be a lie to your prospects at this stage.

Just make sure that your pack is branded and in your color scheme. Include photos of the venue and yourselves for visual proofing only.

Be prepared to answer a lot of questions from exhibitors. Not many will just sign up immediately after reading your pack as this is your first event. You’re going to have to work hard to convince them.

You should be able to answer the following questions:

1. Why you decided to organize this event
2. What your vision is for the event and how you see it developing in the future
3. What you hope to achieve from your first event
4. How you plan to achieve these objectives
5. Why you believe your event is going to be the event they should be at

Some exhibitors may push you for a discount as they will see this as a way of sharing the risk to a degree. Personally I stay strong and say no to this and concentrate more on convincing them that its an opportunity missed if they don’t sign up.

You may choose to offer a discount, but remember you’re budget doesn’t discount, so you need to be sure you have baked in negotiation room into your RRPs otherwise you’re going to fall short.

Tip 5: Promote your new sponsors immediately

Some events wait until a pre-determined time to announce all their exhibitors at once. As it’s your first event, you cannot afford to do this. In any case I strongly believe that this tactic is several opportunities wasted.

As soon as they’ve signed up, start promoting them, even if they haven’t paid yet.

Doing so does 3 things for you immediately:

1. Gives you something to celebrate socially that will attract attendee attention.
   
2. Act as a catalyst for the sponsor’s competition who will be following them to discover you and want to get involved because their competition is at your show.
   
3. Reduces the temptation or risk of the newly acquired sponsor from withdrawing because once you start promoting them, to rescind from that will leave them with egg on their face.

You’ll need an event platform at this stage to capitalize on your attention and start converting interested people into registered attendees.

There is no point or value shouting about your event and who is exhibiting if your event tickets are ‘coming soon’. You have one shot to capture your attendee and you’ve worked hard to this point to grab their attention. So have a way they can register for your event.

Tip 6: Get your event platform

Rolling nicely into this tip from the previous it is important for you to select your event platform to run the event.

The choice is very important because as soon as you start registering your first attendees and issuing them their ticket, changing a platform because of a software limitation becomes more and more impossible and could leave you in dire straits as you get close to your event.

When choosing your event platform it is important that you choose the right one for your event configuration.

If your event is small, for example 100 attendees and you’re running one seminar room with a single session at a time, then you could quite easily using something like RSVPify to register your attendees and then use your normal WordPress website to publish your agenda.

If your even is large with exhibition with multiple simultaneous seminars, 10’s of sponsors, and 100’s of attendees, then you probably need something a bit more comprehensive, like Just Attend.

With Just Attend you’re able to manage all aspects of your event:

1. Ticket sales and attendee registration
2. Seminars
3. Agenda building
4. Exhibitor management
5. Speaker onboarding and management
6. Event and seminar feedback
7. Lead generation
8. Event check-in and badge printing
9. Attendee mobile app and engagement
10. Detailed event reporting and analytics

Perhaps take a look at our entire feature list to see if we’re the sensible choice for your event.

Selfless plug over, there are other things to consider from charging for attendee tickets to actually paying for the event platform subscription itself.

When I was looking for an event platform, I couldn’t find one system that could do everything I needed. I found several systems that could solve individual problems and they all came with 2 common issues:

1. Integration between them all was lacking or non existent meaning I would have to spend a lot of time exporting and importing data between systems to keep them ‘in-sync’.
   
2. Individually they weren’t that expensive, but combined the overall cost exceeded what I thought was reasonable for the return and effort in making sure issue 1 doesn’t work against me.

Then there is the matter of paying for them all. Every event platform I came across wanted full payment for the maximum event size I was planning for upfront before I had event proved interest in my event or actually had sufficient funds raised and available.

The process started by visiting their website and being interested enough to request a demo. A sales person would reach out and a 30 minute demo would be shown to me with a well polished pitch.

This would be followed with a quote and then a demand for payment should I want to access the system, even if I just wanted to validate whether it will do what I want.

The problem with that is you feel pressured in to paying with money you may not have for a solution you’re not sure of.

You know you need something because without it, people can’t register for your event. Yet without them registering and potentially paying for their ticket, you have no revenue to pay for the software in the first place.

So what are your options?

There are some platforms available that instead of charging a license fee they will charge you a commission on every ticket you sell instead. These platforms allow you to access their solution free of charge and help you get going, but are almost all dependent on you charging an entrance fee to your attendees.

If your event is free to attend, then you’re really back to square one.

That is until you use Just Attend. Our platform is totally free to use without feature limitation for your first 50 registrations per event.

This means you get access to trial our system for free and without sales demands so you can be confident our solution is right for your event.

When you’re ready, you can open registration to gather revenue and interest. Once you have registered your 50th attendee, you are then asked for payment. This means that if you never reach 50 registrations our system is totally free for you to use, but also by this time you should have enough ticket or sponsorship revenue to afford to purchase your event plan.

Tip 7: Promote your event hard and involve influencers

At the beginning you’re going to need friends and lots of them. If you’re well connected in your industry use your influence and friendships to promote your event.

My event data shows that the overwhelming majority of first time attendees hear about my event by word of mouth or from other social accounts that aren’t mine.

You’ll want to create good engaging content. If you can get on established podcasts or vodcasts within your industry then do so. Even pay to have a sponsored slot if you must.

Accessing other people’s networks in your industry is the number 1 most impactful thing you can do. It might cost you $5,000 to sponsor a podcast, but if that podcast reaches 50,000 potential attendees and from that episode you attract 500 registrations, then your cost of attendee acquisition is $10.

Could you have acquired those 500 registrations for $10 anywhere else? Most definitely not.

Don’t be afraid to post the same content more than once. Remember, just because you’ve posted it and seen it, doesn’t mean that every potential attendee has.

People fall in and out of social at different times of the day and week. Some will see it, many won’t, so repost, repost, and repost.

Use the analytics available to you for free on social platforms. Platforms like LinkedIn show you when your audience engages the most. Use that to your advantage.

The goal is to be the first post they see on their timeline when they open their favourite social media app.

Lots of people procrastinate and won’t sign up until the very end, so be persistent and consistent and keep your name and brand living in their short term memory as much as possible. Eventually, they will more than likely register.

Don’t be disheartend if you post something that gets no likes or shares, or you see no registrations. Event registrations hockey stick. You’ll get a short burst of registrations when you announce your event, then a long flat period of sporadic sign-ups right until 2 or 3 weeks before your event when it will rapidly increase. This is normal and also happens to established events. Don’t panic, hold your nerve.

You can offer incentives to boost registrations by capitalizing on national events like Mother’s Day or Black Friday etc. offering one time deals that are too good to miss out on.

Plan for these.

Remember, social media is about sharing value and contributing to your community. It isn’t a place for constant adverts that all say the same thing “register now”, just in 100 different ways.

Come up with a content plan to add value to your community, sharing blogs you create to showcase your knowledge of the industry, write about what you’re doing as an event, celebrate your milestones etc.

People respond better and are more likely to sign up if they can get something in return.

This also begs the question, should you pay for social adverts?

The short answer is an inevitable yes. But you need to be very careful in how you construct these as you can waste a lot of money very quickly and get absolutely nothing back from it.

Planning your advert campaign is important and should never be done on a whim. We can help you with that.

Tip 8: Communicate with your stakeholders

Just because you’ve published information on your website, sent out an email with an attachment doesn’t mean that your attendees or exhibitors have taken notice or even read them.

Never assume that they have and always over communicate if you can.

After initial sign up exhibitors won’t care about your event until they have finished with their last event prior to yours. When that happens, you’ll be firmly in their crosshairs and they will come at you with questions you’ve already answered months ago through you event articles and brochures.

Publishing content like your exhibitor build and setup guidelines online gives everyone an easy reference point to consume information ad-hoc. Be sure to constantly remind them where that information is and how they can find it.

Attendees will only start paying attention to your event maybe a week before it. So be sure to send them reminders on how they can build their agenda, where they can find travel information, and where they can find their ticket for entry etc.

One feature Just Attend has that I find very useful is the ability to resend all tickets out to attendee’s inboxes the night before the event. This means that when they open their email the morning of the event, their ticket is right at the top of their unread emails making it easy to find.

Use your email marketing software to drip feed information and calls to action to different cohorts. You’ll want to increase the frequency on the lead up to your event making sure that each communication is targeted and prioritized accordingly.

For VIPs like exhibitors and speakers it is important to obtain proof they have received and actioned tasks you need them to complete. You can do this in Just Attend by assigning them a task list with due dates that will remind them automatically do complete them.

Live pre-event meetings are a great way of communicating with exhibitors and speakers as they provide a forum for questions and answers. However, finding a time slot that works for everyone will be impossible so make sure you record your session and send that out to everyone invited so they have it to reference.

Tip 9: Event dry run

Don’t leave it until the day to run your event for the first time. Once those doors open, there is no turning back and no room for error.

At least a month before make sure that you do a dry run of your event. By this I don’t mean hire the venue and build your stands or run active sessions. What I mean is make sure that everything you’ve planned for up to this time is tested working and everyone involved knows what is expected of them and when.

1. Provide a written plan and order of events to all your suppliers, the venue, AV, stand builders etc.
   
2. Organize a face to face meeting with your venue event manager to walk through the event program from start to finish. Make sure they understand what you want from them and ask to see their event sheets.
   
3. Sit down with your AV manager and go through each room and checking the equipment to be provided meets what you need in that room. Make sure they have a floor plan that marks out where you need things like power sockets supplied to.
   
4. Any tech that you’re using such as streaming software, test this at home or in your office to make sure it is working and you’re confident with its operation. Take it to the venue (or a sample of it) and test it in the venue with their internet to make sure there are no gotchas like firewalls or streaming restrictions.
   
5. Brief your event team and make sure that they know the event plan, where they need to be, when, and what their roles are off by heart and back to front.
   
6. Plan for the unplanned. Twice in a row my event has been hit with a fire alarm and full scale evacuation. This can play havoc with your event plan knocking back proceedings that will force you to pivot on your feet.
   
   Luckily, Just Attend now has a fire alarm feature that allows you to adjust your entire agenda by the number of minutes lost to the evacuation so you can easily update the times on everyone’s mobile app and onsite digital screens.
   
7. Play over your event plan over and over again to make sure that you haven’t forgotten anything. If you need to make changes, make sure everyone knows what they are. Did you plan for onsite check-in and badge printing? Oops…
   
8. Don’t be tempted to give in to panic. As you get closer to the event doubt will set in. Stick to the plan and be confident in execution. Once your event is 2 weeks away you shouldn’t be changing anything.
   
9. Plan to oversell your event. Remember if you want 500 people at your event, then you need to register 850+ if your event is free to attend and around 550 if paid to account for no shows. Most free events experience around 40-50% less people turn up at your door than registered, while paid events experience around 8-10% drop off.
   

Tip 10: Get to your event early

As the organizer you should be the first to arrive and the last to leave your event. Getting to your event early gives you a valuable head start to see off any potential issues.

On build day, getting to the venue before your contractors gives you the chance to survey the venue and ensure that the venue have properly prepared the site for your arrival and setup. I have had it where areas hadn’t been cleared which causes delays that will increase your stress levels and set your entire event back.

Hopefully things are moving to plan and you might be ahead of schedule. Don’t get complacent and take your foot off the gas. Use the time to test, test, and test again your systems. Go through your event briefing with staff, get them to simulate what they’re going to do and how.

Liaise with the venue health and safety team to ensure stand builds and infrastructure are compliant and head off any issues while contractors or exhibitors are still onsite. Once they leave, if H&S aren’t happy with the quality of work they have the power to shut your event down in the worst case.

On the event opening day, even if you’re fully prepared, get there at least 2 hours before doors open. You’ll be surprised how things that were working when you left aren’t when you turn up in the morning.

Usually it is because cleaners have been in the venue and unplugged equipment so they can use the power sockets. Other times its hardware that’s overheated, or for whatever reason internet connectivity has stopped working.

All these can add panic to an already highly stressful time for you. So get there early to give you time to address these. The worst case is you have to sit down and catch a bit more sleep before your event starts.

Well, if you’ve made it this far, then I must’ve done a good job and you think this advice is worthwhile. If you think we can help you with your event, why not reach out to us by completing the form below to get you started?

Good luck with your event!