5 fundamentals when organising corporate events

All professionals in the field of events know how complex our work is. You need time, the capacity to pay attention to detail and experience so that nothing escapes you. To keep everything under control whilst under pressure, is quite complicated. That is why thevast majority of companies prefer to engage the services of professionals to guarantee some perfect results at each eventthey hold.

Today we wish to share some basic advice which we should all take into consideration when organising any type of business event.

The first step is to establish an objective

As we always say, in the first place you have to be very clear what the objective of the event being held is about. To day,events have become one of the main communication tools for companies.It is therefore essential that the first step is to establish exactly  what we want to communicate to the participants, what the motive is and what we expect to achieve.These 2 sample situations are vastly different:

• Annual meeting of Marketing Directors of a company to share results, analyse positives and negatives and propose objectives for the next year. Normally accompanied by a motivational agenda and a Team Building activity that reinforces networking and communication among everybody.
• Presentation of a new product to which we invite distributors. It can also be focussed towards the press, but that would be in separate groups. Here the objective will be for each participant to understand and experience the characteristics of that new product to optimise their ability to sell it. We shall concentrate on impressing the participants, so thay they remember our event with its wow factor. Activities can be arranged that emphasise relations with the brand.

As we can see, the objectives are different. We cannot plan 2 events in the same way. Therefore, the first thing will always be to nail that objective in order to plan a suitable strategy: budget, guests, programme, venues….

Selecting the correct advance is also very important

We must be aware that the events sector is on the up. This is due to the fact that it is a tool that works very well. Increasingly, there are more venues with very different characteristics and capacities to adapt to the growing demand. It requires investment but provides very good results. By this we mean that we cannot leave reservations “from one day to the next”.If we do not reserve the venues with sufficient time we can encounter various problems: the venue we want is no longer available, the participants we wish to invite have their diaries booked, the flights or train tickets have increased prices…., these are just a few examples.

Therefore, basing ourselves on very general numbers, we can speak of a minimum advance of about 3 to 4 months in order to start to reserve venues and send out invites.  This means that the whole decision process needs to have been done before. In any case, if we are speaking of a large number of people, depending on the event, we have to move at least 6 months in advance. Not all destinations have the capacity to house various groups depending on how many people each time. For example, if the demand is high, we have to be there first! And if we speak about a congress that can move thousands of people we recommend even more than a year in advance depending on the logistics required.

Organization and planning are the keys to success.

In spite of the recommendations above we must confess that on many occasions those time spans are not available. An average is an advance of 3 months, but there are many who plan this requirement one month in advance. Can it be done? Of course. And with only a week in advance, too. The range of possibilities will not be the same, but a specialist agency is always going to find a solution. 

It is always thought that the most important thing is the available budget. However, this is not totally true (although it is, of course, very important). If we have sufficient time for correct organization and planning, marvels can be achieved with nearly all budgets.  

Creativity and new technology are the new “must”

The majority of the public attending an event has already been to others. If we want to be remembered, we have to provide them with our touch; it cannot be just another event. We have already said we cannot focus 2 events in the same way and, increasingly, more and more suppliers are prepared to help us provide those special touches.

There is no need to focus our creativity on a virtual reality on a stage full of robots, flying drones and infinity lighting. If you have the budget for that, then great, the participants will remember you for sure J. But there is no need to go so far. It is, in fact, the details that are fundamental when wanting to distinguish ourselves. We believe that finding a balance between creativity and tradition works much better, the experience is enjoyed more when “you do not know what they are going to surprise you with throughout the day”.

And we must not forget to make use of social media for the promotion of an event, for greater distribution, reach and to give the content a longer life. With the amount of effort and enthusiasm invested in each event social networks will help us to reach more people.

Analysis of the event

And finally, but no less important, we have to be able to reach some conclusions. We shall analyse the surveys of the participants, the feedback, reach, cost…. All this will enable us to calculate the return we can expect from the investment made. This also forms part of the success.   

We hope you have found this article interesting. For anything you may need do not hesitate to contact us. And don´t forget to follow us on your favourite social network. It will be great to see you there!

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