Whether for 50 or over 500 attendees, planning, organising and staging a congress or training workshop can be a daunting experience, even for the most level-headed person. Needless to say, a badly organised event will reflect very negatively on the organiser and, what is more important, on the sponsor. For this reason, there are several important issues that should be addressed before embarking on the planning stage: first and foremost, is it really necessary?
Why Stage the Event?
Before taking matters any further, you must ask yourself if the event you plan to stage is the quickest, easiest and cheapest method of putting across your message to the target audience in an efficient, personal way. Nowadays, there are much less energy-consuming and expensive forms of achieving the same result, such as mailing a report or promotional brochure to the parties concerned, or using the media. Evidently, this does not refer to events in which personal contact between participants is crucial for professional, educational or networking reasons, incentives, team building or events held for purely recreational motives.
Planning and Organising
Once you have made the decision to go ahead, the next thing you must ask yourself is if you, yourself, will do the organising, whether alone or as the co-ordinator of a planning committee, or whether it would not be better to hire an organising agency or a specialist.
If choosing the second option, the expert in question may be a person with the necessary planning skills "on lone" from an outside agency, or any one of the many agencies, companies and professionals working in the sector – professional congress, convention and/or exhibition organisers (PCOs), congress travel and destination management companies (DMCs), event and meeting planners, trade show, fair and expo organisers, incentive houses, event management companies, traditional travel agents, etc. Whoever you choose, it is a convenient solution when the employees at the sponsoring agency are unacquainted with the task – doing the job on your own might prove to be a false economy with drastic consequences.
What should be borne in mind, however, when outsourcing is that not all agencies, companies or professionals advertising themselves as such are members of a professional association, like, for instance, MPI (SMeeting Professionals International), SITE (Society of Incentive Travel Executives), AEDMC (Spanish Association of DMCs), SIMA (Spanish Incentives and Meeting Association), OPC Andalucia (Andalusian PCOs), OPC Spain (Spanish PCOs) or UNAV (Spanish Union of Travel Agents).
One way to get round this problem is to make a shortlist of associated professionals or companies that can provide you with reliable testimonials from satisfied clients or that have been strongly recommended to you. To avoid nasty surprises, above all when organising an event abroad, it is advisable to look for a highly recommended professional, with an excellent track record. To this end, Spain's convention bureaux can provide useful information concerning venues and suppliers.
Whether you choose to rely on your own resources (in-house organisation) or prefer to outsource to a professional, an event planning committee ought to be set up. A dependable, responsible, flexible person who is used to teamwork and empowered to make decisions is the kind of profile you are looking for. The co-ordinator must therefore be involved in the selection process, with the power to veto the appointment of unproductive, unqualified or conflictive members. Furthermore, although no important people should be left out, it is wise to limit the number of committee members to the strictly necessary.
One of the first decisions the planning committee ought to make is whether the organisation is to be in-house or outsourced, partially or totally; while always keeping in mind that, according to Cotterell, a two- or three-day conference for 200 people will in all likelihood require 250 hours, or approximately six normal working weeks, plus two or three 18-hour days just prior to the event.
If the former option is decided on, the members of the team in charge of organisation (from one person to a group, depending on the size of the event), including intermediaries, should be identified, along with the different phases of the planning process in which each of them will be involved. Should the outsourcing option be chosen, the usual procedure is to prepare a request for proposal, which should include as much information as possible, such as the target audience, expected attendance figures, past history of the event, if available, etc.
Format
There are a number of things, all interrelated, which must be very clear to all the parties concerned before getting started, the first of which is the event format.
Corporate events, association congresses, managerial retreats, training or coaching courses/workshops, incentives, scientific or medical conferences, golf meetings, team building, product launches, publicity drives, trade fairs; the list goes on. There is also no rule against multidisciplinary or hybrid events, mixtures of two or more activities with the idea of reaching a wider audience, economising or generating extra revenue.
Target Audience and Anticipated Attendance Figures
Although a lot of the core decisions will probably be taken by senior management, everybody involved in planning (the co-ordinator and the planning committee) should be left in no doubt as to the format and duration of the event, and be duly informed of any changes in plan. Furthermore, they should know who is to be invited and the anticipated attendance figures.
If you are not entirely sure who is your target audience and how many people can be expected to attend (which is usually the case when there is no event history available), this can turn planning (and budgeting) into a nightmare.
In the case of recreational events, courses/workshops, one-day meetings, incentives or team-building activities, this issue normally does not pose too much of a problem. Events that are expected to make a profit or at least to break even, however, are another matter. For instance, if the event involves several overnight stays and coincides with a holiday period, it might be diplomatic and even necessary to allow the attendance of spouses and children, with the added organisational problems and, if applicable, at an added cost. In fact, some conference attendees are notorious for getting the most out of events of this sort by bringing their spouses along and maybe arriving several days beforehand or staying on afterwards to make a short holiday of it, particularly in the case of foreign or exotic venues.
Frequently, outside speakers or workshop leaders, who might require a fee as well as travel expenses, and, if foreign, maybe an interpreter as well, will have to be engaged (sometimes well in advance). The same goes for special guests, such as VIPs or media representatives.
Event staffing should also be considered, this being determined by the size of the event. Staff might belong to the sponsoring agency, if available, or casual, probably the cheapest alternative if the event is going to be staged abroad. In the case of sporting events or tournaments, the possibility of using volunteers should never be overlooked. Security should also be addressed, above all in the case of large events, such as trade fairs, exhibitions, or when VIPs are expected to attend. Last but not least, special arrangements will have to be made for participants with disabilities.
Budget
The next point on the agenda is the budget, which is not just a lowly spreadsheet but a document combining planning and managerial activities, including a list of anticipated expenses, funding sources and projected revenue. In a lot of cases, planners will be obliged to work to a fixed budget. On the other hand, the event might be expected to break even or to make a profit through registration fees, entrance tickets, stand space rental, sponsorship, subsidies, product sales, merchandising, etc. If non-profit, it is essential to determine right from the start which expenses will be assumed by the sponsor and which by the participants.
On the subject of expenses, insurance is often overlooked. Albeit increasingly more expensive, all possible risks ought to be considered before deciding on what kind of insurance should be purchased, besides public liability, which is a must.
Since the person who picks up the bill is usually the sponsor, he/she should be included in the budget planning process from beginning to end; this has the added advantage of allowing the co-ordinator and the planning committee members to be kept continuously posted. The job of controlling the budget and approving payments, from pre-event planning to post-event auditing, should be the co-ordinator's alone; if too many people are involved, it will be difficult to keep track of expenses and, consequently, to bring the co-ordinator to account for overall expenditure. As a rule, the co-ordinator or person in charge of budgetary planning should set aside 10% for contingencies.
Timing
Timing can also make or break an event. Lead time is all-important, but more often than not too little is allowed for planning and organising, this being particularly the case with the corporate sector. As a rule, big events ought to be planned with at least a year's lead time.
When working with a fixed budget, it is an advantage to have alternative dates in order to obtain the best rates for accommodation, meals, venues and recreational activities. Moreover, flexibility as regards dates is an excellent negotiating tool.
There are plenty of additional factors that have to be considered, such as the professional obligations of all the participants, whether they be delegates or speakers, other events of a similar nature that will be held on or around the same dates, religious or bank holidays, holiday periods or the expected weather condition – heavy snow disrupted air traffic all over Europe at the beginning of March 2005. In short, the task of selecting a set of dates to suit 100 people, let alone 500, is not a simple exercise, above all when having to work with a restricted budget; a task that can take on Herculean dimensions if planning involves multiple plane ticket and accommodation bookings.
Location and Venue
Both for budgetary purposes and for other important considerations, the question of where to stage the event should be agreed upon early on in the planning process. This decision might be taken unilaterally by senior management or by the sponsor, who might be precise (a charming hotel in the sierra of Ronda, for instance), not so clear (any type of venue within a 25-mile radius of Seville), or rather vague – "Well, anywhere'll do, as long as it is original and good value for money."
Unless the event requires a more secluded venue, the place should be easily accessible: close to a motorway, a train station or an international airport. If long-haul flights are involved, participants will arrive with jetlag, so the last thing they will want to do is to embark on a long car, coach or train journey. The distance between the airport and the venue must be reasonable, i.e., no more than two hours away, whatever the mode of transport.
Needless to say, the venue should be comfortable and well-suited both to the type of event being planned and to the average participant profile. Knowing the participants' tastes is crucial when deciding on where to stage the event and the kind of venue that should be used. Since people are now moving away from more traditional venues, the opportunity to innovate (without going over the top) ought not to be overlooked. Even if a certain destination has been imposed upon planners, this does not mean that the venue has to be unimaginative. Museums, historical buildings, botanical gardens, haciendas, theatres and yachts, to name but a few, are becoming increasingly popular as alternative venues.
Drawing up a shortlist of venues, including their pros and cons, will help decision-makers to make an adequate choice. With the rapid expansion of the Internet, venue inspection trips are not as important as they were before; although in the case of large events it is still a wise move to go on at least one.
Accommodation
