Thinking about running your first event in the influencer marketing world? Ruby Mills, head of events at Blogosphere, shares her tips on how to plan and organise a physical event.
Running a physical event
Hello and welcome to my talk on Running a Physical Event. My name is Ruby Mills, I am head of events at Blogosphere and I am going to share a few tips on how to run a physical event. It’s aimed at those wanting to run their first event in the influencer marketing world.
There are a few attributes that I think make up a successful event planner and producer. Communication is vital, clear communication to get across your idea of the event you have in mind. The ability to think ahead to predict problems that may arise, as well as being a solution based person. You need to think on your feet and be solution based at all times.
I’m gonna show you a few things that I think are really important to bear in mind when running your first event.
Purpose and occasion
This is important to have clear from the offset. It lets you know what you need to be bringing to the table. It helps you to designate areas of the venue and order of events to what makes sense in line with that event. Once you know the occasion you are basing your event on, the expectations on what you need to provide become clear. It also helps the attendees know what is expected of them. the list of what you need to provide becomes a lot clearer i.e. a birthday party you know you need to provide a cake, candles, balloons. It helps you designate areas for specific things, breaking down the list of things you need to provide. Once you decide on the occasion then everything else falls into place of what is to be expected of you, it also helps the attendees to know what is expected of them.
Things that you may not think of when you decide to host an event become really clear when you decide on its purpose. You can then use your purpose as your mission statement to take it forward to sponsors and those you are wanting to attend your event.
Sponsor packages and budget
This brings me into Sponsor Packages and Budget. At Blogosphere we like to offer 3 tiers of packages, this allows the sponsors to be as involved as they would like. For each package it is important to state exactly what you are offering to the sponsors and what is required from them at each tier. We usually like to have the top tier as the headline sponsor. They need to know how they will be involved and what is required of them.
Some notes to keep in mind are:
- You have to be realistic in what you are promising. Try not to promise more than what you can provide because you may end up in a sticky situation further down the line.
- Aim high but expect last minute deals. Everything with events is typically last minute. Sponsor deals can be time pressure related, the closer you get to the date the more people want to get involved and typically you would see a spike in investment.
- You should ask your sponsors to pay 50% of the invoice when booking and 50% paid one calendar month before the live event. Everything after one calendar month before the event should be 100% paid on booking.
- Last minute is the world of events
With this in mind it is hard to get a clear understanding of your budget. I would suggest having a ‘best case scenario’ and a ‘worst case scenario’. You need to plan for both. You need to be able to pull off the event with the worst case scenario. Your worst case scenario budget should be the event with all of the absolute basics that you need in order to pull of the event, remove all of the trimmings of decor and any ‘luxuries’ you may have added and strip it back to the absolute basics that it would take to pull off the event and that is your ‘worst case scenario budget.
Once you have a realistic figure of your budget, I find it really useful to divvy up the budget into percentages; 30% food & drink, 30% venue & furniture, 20% staff, 10% entertainment, 5% decor, 5% buffer. It’s really important that you keep a small percentage of your budget for the buffer, last minute costs always pop up. If you don’t assign any budget to this you can find that a lot of extra costs pop up bring you far over budget. If you pre plan and expect these costs it won’t come as a surprise and hopefully won’t be coming out of your pocket.
Plan for unexpected costs. And for each purchase that you make, make sure to keep track. All spending that you do write it down. Account for all of the money you spend, this way you can keep a close eye on your spending otherwise you risk spending over your budget, costs add up quickly!
Something to not overlook on your budget is allocating budget to staff. For the build, live and derig it always better to have an extra pair of hands!
Priorities
The venue – the venue is so important for many reasons. It sets the tone of your event and helps to create the atmosphere for the day. The location of the venue matters hugely. It needs to be accessible for the attendees. If it isn’t in a location that is easy to get to, people will be discouraged from attending the event. You would also need to consider access points/loading bays of the venue for any deliveries and installations you may have.
The capacity for the venue is really important. If it’s a fantastic venue that holds 300 people but you are only looking to have 50 guests, it isn’t going to be suitable. You will struggle to fill that space and the event will feel empty, not good for building the atmosphere. With a smaller space there is less to fill and it is easier to make the space feel cosy. Make sure it is the right capacity for the amount of people you want at the event.
Finally the facilities, if they offer furniture to go with the venue, that is an area you could potentially reduce costs, depending on the quality of the furniture they provide. Other things to ask about are; wheelchair accessibility, their waste system – you may have to sort your own waste out, this is important as you don’t want your event to turn into a large open trash can! Another thing to check is catering, some venues have a strict list of caterers. You have to be careful with these because they can sometimes bring the costs right up and the list can be restrictive to what you were hoping to provide. You would also need to check if the venue has an alcohol licence if you intend to supply alcohol at your event.
Timings & date – these need to be realistic to ensure you have enough time to produce everything that you have promised or are wanting to achieve. They have to work for you as well as for those attending and contributing to the event. If you are given a strict date for the event you have to make it all happen.
The Theme – it has to make sense with the event, you want it all to tie in nicely together and make sense for the guest. Whatever theme you go for, you need to make sure your venue and budget can pull it off. It doesn’t take much to achieve this.
The Guest Journey – try to imagine what your guests will experience from the moment they walk through the door to what they would experience as they go through the event. This is a way to improve the guest experience and make your event stand out. Mapping out where they would go in the event give you a better understanding of what your guests might need. It also helps you to designate areas for specific purposes, such as, conference seating for a conference hall stage, soft seating for chill out, trestle tables for standing areas etc..
The next priority is Photo Moments – these are so important for your event, it provides free publicity of your event. People will take photos and share them on social media, the more areas you dedicate to photo moments the more photos people will take and the more your event will be visible on social media.
Suppliers – you really need to be picky with your suppliers, make sure you have a good relationship with your suppliers. Sometimes they can help you with last minute solutions!
Waste – make sure to ask the venue how they handle the waste for events. In some cases if you don’t dispose of your waste correctly you can receive a fine, the regulations change from borough to borough. You may also need to provide physical bins for your guests throughout the venue, they do not usually come with the hire. Make sure to check!
Decor – this would always come as last priority unfortunately! I would always want it to be first priority but I am a big believer in you can do a lot with a little. You have to make sure your budget has covered all of the basic requirements that will allow for your event to run functionally and smoothly. You would rather make sure you have everything completely secured before you spend money on decor. With your left over budget, go for it with decor!!
Timeline
I find these hugely useful. However short or long the timeline is, you should mark out the date of the event and work out from then every single task that needs to be done in order for the event to go ahead. To do this dissect every part of the event and think logically about the order of what will need to be in place first, i.e. decor would be the last thing you can do once all of the tables and chairs have been set up.
Try to pre-plan for when you want everything to be signed off and ready for the live event. The tasks that you set each week need to be achievable and in a sensible order so that everything falls into place. You can show this timeline to the sponsors and incorporate their deadlines so that both of you know when they should have things ready for the event.
Once you have a list of all of your tasks you can then give those tasks a deadline. This helps you keep up to date with payments, orders and general organisation of the event. It can really help you to complete all of the tasks on schedule and inform you of what is left to do.
There’s nothing worse than forgetting an integral task and realising the night before!
Sponsor tasks that you may need to keep on top of would be
- Assets for any tech displays i.e. branded videos
- Design of their area (if they are given a designated area)
- Logistics of supplying products – if they are supplying any products
- Logistics of live event day, what’s going to happen on the day, what do they need to set up? How much time do they need?
I would aim for the event to be ready to go live 24hrs ahead of schedule, this is to give yourself breathing space in case there are any last minute alterations. This way you can focus on getting ready for the live event.
Legal Documents
There are some legal documents that you would need to get for your event.
Public liability insurance that covers you for any accidental damage or loss of things on the property and covers you from lawsuits from members attending the event. These are regulations that you need to do in order to cover yourself for holding the event.
RAMS, you need to do a Risk Assessment Method Statement. The method statement is a detailed list of everything that you are planning to do in that space, for example install a PA system/ move furniture from the car to the hall.. It’s a very detailed list of everything you are planning to do.
Risk assessment, this is assessing all of the risks that might potentially occur on the build, live and derig.
This is where event agencies really come into play, these are documents that take knowledge and skill to fill in and can be dangerous and costly if you go without. The legal documents are important to get right, event agencies ensure your event is covered from any fines or liability.
Another important document to keep safe are supplier contracts, for example, if you choose to hire a giant disco ball DJ booth – it is actually a thing you can hire @pinkmarmalade – the supplier will provide you with a contract of hire, as well as a note of delivery. This will let you know the condition of the item when it arrives and ensures you won’t be charged any damage costs that were not caused by you. The supplier will also provide RAMS for the item hey are hiring out, this takes a small load off of the legal documents you need to complete.
Helpful Documents
Production Schedule. Similar to the timeline, however, it is a more concentrated step by step plan for the BUILD, LIVE and DERIG. This is so when you begin the build you have a clear schedule that you need to be on top of, i.e. the furniture needs to be in place by XXam, the PA system needs to be installed by XXam, etc… The production schedule needs to be a chronological list of tasks that have to be done before the live event goes ahead. It’s a detailed intricate checklist. Sometimes the build can be overwhelming, the phrase a rabbit caught in headlights comes to mind, the production schedule can really help to maintain stability. I find it useful to assign people to tasks so you know who is in charge of what.
Contact sheet for your suppliers and for everybody involved in producing the event.
A clear brief. This really helps others to understand your vision of the event. Writing a detailed brief ensures that everybody working to produce the event knows exactly what they’re working towards. When running a physical event there is a big team involved, messages passed down from person to person can become distorted, having a clear brief helps to avoid this.
Marketing
Photo moments are marketing’s biggest saviour in events. This isn’t for the build up to the event, this is for the social reach potential and event report to show it’s success. It ensures that you have media coverage of your event.
Influencer involvement, paying an influencer to make an appearance or to feature in a panel is a great way to guarantee attendance and social media coverage. It helps with sponsor involvement.
Time, make sure you start your marketing strategy for the event with enough time to generate a buzz around the event, this will help with ticket purchases, helping you hit your target of attendees and good vibes!
“A goal without a plan is just a wish”
Events really take a huge amount of planning, that is why a lot of people do turn to event agencies to help bear the load. Event agencies do provide such a great service so it is well worth checking out agencies such as MarbleLDN as they can take your event to the next level. With small scale events you can pull it off, but as soon as things start getting larger, I would highly recommend turning to an agency.