How to plan an event? 6 big steps!

The concept of "organizing an event" may be rather vague for most people, but it is very easy to understand if we change it to "organizing a dinner party". Today, who hasn't organized a party to entertain guests? The difference is that the work involved in organizing an event is more multifaceted and complicated than simply organizing a dinner party, as shown in the following figure:

This article mainly analyzes the priority tasks marked in red in the above picture, and reviews them in the chronological order of event planning and promotion to present the important links of the event to everyone. Use the method of "group (ban) dinner (huo) party (dong)" to break it down, knead it and explain it clearly. My humble opinion is as follows:

Table of contents

1. Preliminary confirmation (what kind of party to organize, initial understanding of the dinner party)

2. Copywriting planning (what programs to prepare, what food to eat)

3. Business invitation and promotion (whether there is a sponsor to invite you, and who to invite to dinner)

4. Activity preparation (where to eat, how to arrange the seats)

5. Activity site (bring up all the prepared programs and food)

6. After the event (eat and drink well, discuss whether we can do it next time)

1. Preliminary confirmation (what kind of party to organize, initial understanding of the dinner party)

1. Activity intention and theme

What was the original intention of organizing this meeting?

You should ask yourself this question at least three times to make it clear whether you want to increase the number of participants, the total amount of investment, or achieve other goals. Once you have confirmed the answer, do not change it. Because all our subsequent work will be based on this; then we will confirm the original intention and theme, make it clear to people at a glance, and highlight the most attractive ones.

Confirm the theme of the event: catchy and easy to remember, four words are best.

If it is a mid-autumn dinner where the family gets together, then the theme would be “Moon Viewing and Family Reunion”; if it is a gathering of old friends without a specific theme, then “Drinking, I’ll treat” would be more direct; if it is an activity in a certain industry, it is also necessary to find the most appealing points that can arouse user participation, and combine them with the theme of the activity to make users unable to stop.

2. Accounting activity costs

How much money are you prepared to spend on the event? This should be the easiest to understand, right?

It is necessary to have a good idea of ​​the level, scale and performance programs of the event. Cost accounting is of utmost importance. Without a clear understanding of the funds, it is impossible to clarify the benefits of the event.

For cost accounting, you can refer to this ratio:

3. Create a schedule

When you confirm your intention to hold an event, you can start to make a time plan, allocate the subsequent contents, determine the corresponding persons in charge and task deadlines, and avoid unnecessary work mistakes such as unclear responsibilities, unclear division of labor, and time delays. Work can be carried out simultaneously on multiple fronts and completed quickly.

Example of "Timetable (Part)"

2. Copywriting planning (what programs to prepare, what food to eat)

1. Stage setting

The setting of the segments corresponds to the prepared programs and food and drinks, what kind of stars to invite to perform, and what kind of chef to invite to cook the dishes. These are the points that diners pay most attention to. Of course, you can add some small surprises to liven up the atmosphere.

During the event, it is necessary to plan the presentation format and balance the rights and interests of the organizers, guests, participants, sponsors, etc. How to satisfy all participants is the focus of this link. The corresponding interactions are mainly designed around five aspects: inviting guests, giving speeches, awarding medals, increasing interaction, and connecting emotions.

The pitfalls of this link usually occur in:

(1) The decision maker’s indecision led to meaningless changes to the event copy, which resulted in indefinite delays in the event schedule. Therefore, copywriters not only need to be able to write copy, but also need to understand upward management and how to persuade their superiors to achieve the goal of rapid progress.

(2) Make arrangements for the event based on the venue, such as whether there will be sub-venues and how many sub-venues there will be. During the early planning stage, an ideal venue can be used as a reference for the design phase.

2. Conference selling points

Since we are talking about "selling points", it is natural to obtain benefits from the outside, mainly in two directions: money and people.

Who will pay the money? Of course it’s the sponsor. So how do you impress the financial sponsor? Naturally, the event can bring them benefits and can be of great help to their own brand promotion or sales, so the rights and interests that can be given by this event should be clearly listed so that people can see it at a glance and promote sales.

(Photos from the event)

Some activities can also be carried out at the "selling point", such as grading products into: diamonds, gold, silver, and charging different fees for different levels of services, so as to meet the different customer needs of the market.

Where do people come from? Participants have different positions, industries, and needs, so how can we attract them to attend the conference? Generally, the focus is on the following points: meeting industry experts, knowledge learning, on-site socializing , and conference gifts.

(Photos from the event)

Promote activities based on the different needs of users to attract more users to participate. For example: if there is anxiety in the workplace, then use the knowledge learning of the activity to attract users, and clearly point out that the activity can bring the possibility of improvement to users, as well as other growth opportunities. Each promotional point must be clearly defined. If it is scattered, the goal will be unclear.

3. Business invitation and promotion (whether there is a sponsor to invite you, and who to invite to dinner)

1. Sales and enrollment

Because these two points have been mentioned above, I will combine them together and find their respective overall goals based on the confirmed copy content.

When it comes to investment and sponsorship, copywriting is the foundation, and it depends more on sales staff to transform it into sales talk and communicate with potential sponsors. You can obtain sponsor information by looking for other similar events or searching for other potential customers. Regarding enrollment, you can use your own publicity channels , or cooperate with other channels for enrollment; as for the trigger point and rhythm of the event promotion , I believe that those of you who have been through many battles will come up with different ideas.

2. Invite people

The invitations here mainly refer to guests and heavyweights in the event. Inviting guests to every event is a headache. It is difficult to invite guests and there are many variables.

Once an event was scheduled to be held on the 10th, but the guests had not been confirmed as of the 7th, and there were even cases of temporary changes of guests. Another time, an event was held in Shanghai, and the guests came from Beijing, but due to special weather conditions, the plane could not take off, so they had to take the high-speed rail instead. Fortunately, these guests were easy to communicate and cooperate with.

So how do we invite these guests? There are many tricks involved. When you use small things to leverage big things and mobilize the resources around you, you generally need to pay attention to some details. For example, you can't jump too many levels in invitations. Village chief A can invite town chief B to his event, but it will be more difficult for village chief A to invite district chief C. However, it will be easier if you can ask town chief B to help invite district chief C. The same principle can also be used when inviting guests.

If you can confirm one or two super heavyweight guests, you can use these guests to leverage other guests and attract similar guests to participate. If you can invite District Chief A to participate in the event first, then when you invite District Chief B, you can tell him that District Chief A has agreed to come. This will make it more likely that District Chief B will agree. If you invite Town Mayor C instead, it will be even easier.

For invitations to guests, please refer to the table below:

4. Activity preparation (where to eat, how to arrange the seats)

1. Site screening and construction

Choosing a place to eat is the best way to directly demonstrate the level of the event. When choosing a site, you should conduct on-site inspections of factors such as site size, quality of environment, and geographical location to ensure that the site meets the standards. In addition, when selecting event construction suppliers, you can choose the best one by comparing prices from multiple suppliers, recommending favorable reviews, etc., so as to control costs and ensure the quality of the event.

(Site reference rendering)

After selecting the venue, the organizer, the venue owner and the construction supplier must hold at least one three-party meeting to re-survey the venue together and check the details. The construction supplier can be asked to come up with an on-site layout plan and check whether new game sessions can be added, etc., to ensure the feasibility of the plan.

2. Material procurement

The person in charge of the relevant work previously confirmed will provide a list of materials and material procurement intentions to ensure that the materials are prepared 5 days before the start of the activity and will not be unusable due to errors or other reasons. Always have a Plan B and always have a backup plan in case of unexpected situations.

Example of "Activity Material Purchasing Price Comparison Table"

5. Activity site (bring up all the prepared programs and food)

1. Personnel division of labor and schedule arrangement

Confirm the performance programs, the order of serving dishes and the corresponding personnel to ensure that this is a smooth event and make all participants feel at home.

The advantage of this is that everyone has their own responsibilities, each project has a person in charge, and there is also mobile support, which keeps things orderly and assigns responsibilities to individuals. Even if an accident happens, you can still pass the buck when you're held accountable afterwards. This is of course a joke.

2. Rehearsal and Live Performance

Before the official opening, you should leave enough time to at least rehearse the process once, review the work arrangements of the relevant personnel on site, and check the big screen, PPT, lighting and other details to make sure they are perfect.

When performing on site, just follow the pre-arrangements, provide timely feedback when problems are discovered, and respond quickly to emergencies and resolve them. Pay attention to the users' emotions on site, comfort them at any time, and ensure satisfaction with the event.

The areas where errors are easy to make are: the site is crowded, personnel in different modules do not communicate well, and sudden situations are easily handled improperly, so arrangements must be made in advance to prevent them from happening.

6. After the event (eat and drink well, discuss whether we can do it next time)

1. Closing thanks

Reward participating users and guests, maintain emotional connections with users, and they will be more likely to accept the next invitation.

Pay attention to secondary promotion of the event, make full use of the influence of the event, and consider how to expand it. Our activities are usually serial and connected, not a single event, so we need to lay the groundwork for future planning so that the next event will be easier to carry out.

2. Review

It can be developed from two aspects: one is the objective work aspect, just like the content of this article you can see; the other is the subjective feeling aspect, talking about personal insights during the activities.

Finally, two additional points:

1. All preparations must be completed before the event begins, step by step, steady but not chaotic, with everyone managing their own abilities and fulfilling their own responsibilities. Make a plan first, then implement it, and the results will come naturally.

2. Always have a Plan B ready so you won’t be panicked when faced with unexpected situations.

postscript:

This article mainly analyzes the key points in the overall activity, in order to reduce as much as possible the chances of the activity overturning in accident-prone areas due to insufficient preparation during the implementation process. The success criterion of an event is not only its smooth completion, but also the results of the event should be considered to see whether the established goals have been achieved and whether the requirements of the initial planning have been met.

author: Yin Hongye, authorized Qinggua Media to publish.

Source: Yin Hongye