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12 steps to organizing a successful corporate event

What are the steps to take in planning corporate event?

Pulse.ng goes through the importance of a successful event planning.

1. Before anything else, decide upon your target audience.

First and foremost, before anything else, clearly define who your target audience is. From this, all the other decisions will fall into place in terms of format, content, prices, location etc. This structured approach will also help you to stay focused on achieving specific goals and not allowing the scope to become too broad or watered down.

2. Get started

When it comes to planning corporate event, waiting for responses and confirmation from others might birth unnecessary delays. These delays might as well give room to uncertainties. So in other to avoid this, it is important to get started with the planning process as soon as possible.

3. Create your event planning theme

Irrespective of the type of event (party) you’ve embarked on organizing, coming up with a theme gives tone to the event and that tone will, in turn, gives you direction when picking your food, your music, your decor, your location and much more.

Also, when coming up with a theme, it is important to remember the crowd for which you are planning. You can find a large variety of theme ideas online to get you started.

4. Make your list

Important to realize is that lists are the best things in the world for planning a corporate party. And this is because they do not only help you break down the process of corporate party planning into manageable tasks, they also help you keep track of how much you have already achieved and how much more is left to do.

5. Come up with a event planning budget

It is your budget that determines the type of corporate event (party) you organize. With this in mind, it becomes essential to realize that finding out how much money you have to spend as early as possible is really important. The budget does not only determine the type of event you organize, it also gives direction to your planning process.

6. Create an event planning team

Most companies have events team. But should it happen that your company does not have one, now is a good time to create one? Choose people with different skills from across the company. Your team can help you with everything from allocating budgets to making invites and even cleaning up afterward. Many hands make light work and having a good events team can help you get things done a lot quicker.

7. Make plans to visit locations and discuss relevant issues with vendors

Discuss the cost of hall renting and what is included in those fees.

Check if the capacity is the right size for your guest list.

Observe if the location is accessible to taxis and public transport. If not, you may need to consider hiring buses or even overnight accommodation

Clarify through determining the hours that you will have access to the room. If no one books it the night before, can you have access to get in and decorate or set up? Are they providing the service ware for the food, or do you need to bring in or rent your own linens, plates, napkins and silverware?

Find out if it’s a must for the food to come from that location, or if you can bring in an outside caterer?

And should it happen that you can bring in your own caterer,  then start meeting with potential vendors to taste their food and determine their pricing.

Determine if your venue requires you to bring in outside security for your event. This not only protects you from liability, but this can help keep outsiders from crashing your party.

If you choose to have alcohol at the event, hire a licensed bartender if your facility if you cannot provide one.

Find out if the venue can provide decorations or if you have to supply your own. Some facilities have a wide variety of items that you can use such as candles, mirrors to set on the table, glass jars, etc. So if you can take advantage of anything being provided for free, you can save quite a bit on your budget.

8. Sign contract with vendor

Upon agreement, it is important that you sign contracts with your vendors, and ensure that they provide you with your copy.

9. Invitations to event

Top tips for organizing your invitations:

Ensure you give your guests plenty of time to leave work and get ready for the party when picking an arrival time

Get invites designed to fit your theme

It is left for you to decide whether your invites will be emailed or printed

Ask your team to help deliver invitations

10. Music for the event

Your options are few when it comes to music. You either hire a DJ or live band or put together a playlist. Whatever decision you take, make sure you liaise with the venue to make sure you have all the equipment required.

11. Double check your event planning list

It is important that you check and double check your list the week before, the day before and the day of the event to make sure that you haven’t forgotten anything.

12. Have standby errand persons

Have on standby two or three of your team members as errand persons so that you can stay and orchestrate the event while you send them off for any additional items that need to be picked up.

In conclusion, you should be reminded that memorable events don’t just happen.  Organizing and holding an event takes planning.

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