Saturday, February 28, 2015

Event Planning Guide: Event Atmosphere Tips

Being a good event planner involves being able to use a good strategy for your big event. You'll want to be able to get a good mood setup for the event, and the general atmosphere is going to be a major factor in the success of your party. Here are some valuable event atmosphere tips to use.

First, you should look into what you want people to think when you are preparing your event. The mood that is going to be used in the party should be one that visitors will think will be the most appropriate. If your party is well decorated and has festive colors then you will be working to the atmosphere that the people will be expecting.

The details that you will be preparing at the part will be especially important for the atmosphere of the party. Being a good event planner involves assuming that people will notice everything that is at the event. It helps to create a good plan for the decorations that will be used so that everything is set up properly. This can be used to help create an atmosphere that is more comfortable for everyone to be in.

Having a good backup plan is also essential. This is especially if you are going to be getting things for your party that you may not be able to afford or will not have enough of a supply of. Remember, it is better to have a good backup plan than to go and remove any ideas that you have at the last minute.

The supplies that are used in the event will make for the atmosphere as well. The food should be good and be appropriate for the event that you are holding. Also, the music or other entertainment that is used should reflect the mood of the entire event. Having the tone of the party being consistent is an important key.

Decorations should be focused on by a good event planner. Decorations should be affordable for your budget but you should not try and look cheap at your party or else guests will find you to be cheap.
The lighting and sound system at your event are the last things to use for the atmosphere at your event. You should not have anything that is too powerful to the point where people will be bothered by anything. It should be comfortable enough to the point where people can at least see and hear things.

You should remember to use these event atmosphere tips for your next event. Having a consistent mood at the party and focusing on details without looking cheap are essential things to do. Also, having good plans that are not too intense is important. These are all things to use for a good event planner.

Thursday, February 5, 2015

How To Achieve Successful Strategic Event Planning And Execution

Event Planning can be extremely stressful even for the very experienced planners.
What are the tips and tricks to organizing spectacular ones and yet able to be in control of stressful situations? What are the essential requirements for those who wish to be a professional planner?


Here myeventstoreroom.com brings to you12 tips to being a successful corporate and private event planner:

1. Starting Point and Achieve Bottomline Success
Careful corporate budgeting and annual budget forecast will ease you a lot of unnecessary stress especially if you are the person in charge. You will find that your company will have many advantages over an existing competitor or competitors.
You will need to be able to create innovative events and at the same time meet the targeted bottomline ie the return on investments (ROI). This is like balancing on a tight rope, you will need experience and skills accumulated over the years to achieve this.

2. Getting The Budget Approved
Work on the event planning with your team members and produce a detailed and meticulous budget. Have you reviewed and done all your thorough market research on all the projects that your company should participate and your competitors are doing etc?
In your event planning, have you prepared the comprehensive marketing strategies for the next financial year? Have you written a convincing and appealing proposal and done your well researched presentation to your boss or CEO or the Board Members that will likely get the nod? Did you get the stamp of approval for each and every project? Did you get the special budget approved for unexpected projects that you discover that your company MUST participate on an ad hoc basis?
What is the return on investment for each of them? Also do factor in 10-20% inflation rate and unexpected costs in the next financial year budget.
If you have not, you SHOULD. A lot of events went wrong not because it is not successfully executed but it runs against the boss' wishes or the major stakeholders' idea of a "good investment".

3. Great Team Leader, Fantastic Team Work
If you are the Marketing Manager, work with your team closely as they will know all the detailed costs of all the necessary items. This will start from working out the entire Marketing Plan and Strategies with your own staff, colleagues from other departments etc. The worse thing to happen is that you have done the initial event planning and only involve your staff after the project is confirmed and you expect them to be passionate in "executing it".
This is a real "morale suicide" for the people in your team especially if they are given a task to do rather than be involved from the start. A great leader is someone who will get his/her staff involved right from the start, valued his/her contributions and be open minded to ideas. Encourage the exchange of ideas; you will be surprise with the creative ideas that your staff can come up with.
Learn the skill of declining your staff's suggestions respectfully instead of criticizing them. Achieving this skill will motivate and encourage your staff to contribute ideas.
Event planning also involve advertising and promotions, media relations etc. do get your key staff involved in all discussions and do sweat all details. Ask your suppliers questions, personally check out the venues etc. Have a back up Marketing plan for unforeseen circumstances like a plague, disease or global economy downturn.
Most importantly, lead by example. Practise what you preach.

4. Calendar For Access To All Within The Company
Part of your event planning should include a calendar for all your corporate, marketing, special and company events. You can create two types of calendars: 1) one comprehensive calendar for your marketing team and 2) another summarized version to update your boss, CEO, Board Members and stakeholders.
The calendar for the marketing team members should be meticulously detailed for example, name of the events, date estimate if don't have exact dates), objectives, target audience, ROI, brief strategy, deadlines for each line of work needed to be accomplished. For example, you may list down the deliverable dates for all advertising i.e. from invitations, posters, brochures, newspaper and television ads etc. Under events management, there will be conceptualization of stage design, exhibition panels, selection and engagement of performance artistes like foreign or local celebrities, DJs, Master of Ceremonies, Mascots etc down to landscaping, floral baskets and corsages.

5. Strategic Planning For Events
For future event planning to be successful, evaluate every event on your corporate calendar annually. Have an internal and external audit done to get feedback of all of them. Get an independent party to do the auditing. The results may be very different from what you think you have achieved especially if you are the in-house Marketing team.
Once you have the list of all the events for the year, consider the overall marketing aspects of each and every one planned for the year. Is there any that's organized too close to each other and may cause "consumer fatigue"? For example, never launch products in less than a month from each product.The first product has not enough brand recognition and familiarlization among your target audiences. Evenly spread out events or marketing campaigns, that way, you will be able to achieve the maximum impact for your products.

6. Master Understanding Of Both Internal and External Objectives
Your objectives will affect how you organize and plan. Knowing the target audience's habits, taste, demographics etc will also assist you to customize details like from food to party favors, decor to entertainment. These are essentials to capture your audience's attention and please their overall senses.

7. Create Your Event - Choose The Right Theme
Thematic events are most memorable and fun and guests can remember them well. For example, if you have a Japanese product, then everything from invitations to food, decor to the guest relation's officer should be dressed in Japanese. You can even invite your guests to come dressed in Japanese costumes!

8. Create and Manage Your Guest List
Corporate guest list are one of the most difficult list to produce during event planning stage. It needs careful considerations, as you do not wish to miss out any supplier, dealers, partners or affiliates etc. Do spend a lot of time working and reworking on the guest list. Sometimes, even the guest lists needs the CEO's approval first before invitations are sent.

9. Manage All Your Expenses
No event should be run without careful tracking and managing of all the expenses. You will find it hard to explain to your boss should the event cost more than your budget. It will be worse if it is your client’s money that you are managing.

10. Stay On Work Targets And Updated On All Details
Work diligently on all the work targets and ensure that the whole team set out to accomplish each and every one of them on time. Get all team members to update each other on the progress or problems and work on solving the problems together. The manager of the team should be managing the workflow of all events.

11. Plan and Manage Logistics And Manpower
It is crucial that you have mapped out all your logistics and plan your manpower accordingly. It is common for even professional event planners with a large team of full time staff to engage part-time staff during the preparation period leading to the days of execution especially for large conventions and exhibitions. Do not stretch your full time manpower too thinly until they cannot cope. Manage and factor in extra costs or outsource mundane jobs like packing goodies bags. Your full time staff will be better off managing the smooth running of the event rather than be bogged down with these tasks.

12. Post Event Evaluation And Thank You Cards
Do post event evaluation for all events big or small. Collate and compile all kinds of feedbacks from your target audience. Every project should followed up with thank you notes to your guests. The mailing lists collected should be stored in a central database managed by one department and shared among the other departments. Post event guests lists should be continually updated. It can be used in the future for special occasions like Christmas for sending corporate Christmas cards.
Most people only get to see the glamour side of all events. To be a truly successful events planner, you need 4 key characteristics:
1. Flexibility
2. Adaptability
3. Quick thinking and fast reaction - especially when faced with unforseen circumstances and lastly,
4. Sincerity - to your staff, guests and all
Lastly, event planning is not just about serious work. Yes, it can be real fun too. Once you have worked out a detail-planning calendar, enjoy the process and finally the event itself. At the end of it all, it can also be very fulfilling to see your all your projects successfully executed.