Event management requires many different qualities, skills, and knowledge. People attending your event may not even realize there is either one event organizer, or a team who coordinates the event, and what they all really do. Being an event manager can seem overwhelming, but if you keep yourself organized, aware, and are able to build a good team around yourself when you can, you’ll be successful in managing your event.
Skills of Event Organizers and Their Team
Event managers typically have an impressive background of knowledge and experience. If you do not have a large team, there is still the ability to harness your knowledge and master a number of different skills simultaneously. Event Managers and Organizers constantly are working to expand their knowledge in so many areas.
Here are some of the major roles that event organizers will want on their team, or skills necessary to incorporate into their own work:
Copywriter: From social media posts to an essay writer, newsletters and all sorts of marketing materials, an events team needs outstanding copywriting skills for engagement.
Public relations manager: All events should attract the attention of the public and the medium through engaging press releases, creative campaigns, and to generally attract attention to your work, and event.
Marketer: A large percentage of any event management team’s job is marketing. The success or failure of an event mainly depends on the ability of the organizer to promote it. The Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How to promote any event is crucial to its success.
Project Manager / Coordinator: Each event is a project, which includes the typical stages of acceptance, planning, execution, and closing. All this requires control and management. Project managers keep every team on task and ensure all deadlines are met for the common goal of the event’s success.
Increasing Productivity While Organizing Your Event
Event organization can be challenging, even for professionals. We have a few thoughts on how to best organize your thoughts and tasks to mitigate challenges if they do come up.
The Right Location is Essential
Your top priority these days is knowing whether you are holding a virtual, in-person, or hybrid event. You may want to survey past participants to better understand their expectations for your event, or discuss with other event organizers what has worked with them in recent months. Regardless of where your event is held, it’s important to research any software and event spaces to ensure they have the right feel for your event.
Follow the “Five-Minute Tasks” Rule
“Five-minute tasks” are tasks that you can knock off your to-do list quickly. Accomplishing these five-minute tasks will not only get work done if you’re needing to focus on something in short bursts, but it will also increase your own feelings of accomplishment. Even if it’s a smaller task, knowing it’s getting done can be so comforting.
Keep Your Workplace Organized
This is the foundation for effective and productive work. The goal should be that nothing will disturb your focus, and you have all of the necessary tools to accomplish whatever tasks you’re focusing on during that workcentric time. Grab a drink, light a candle, put on some sweet jams, and get to work!
Keep Your Budget Top of Mind
Sticking a budget is important when you are planning and organizing the event. White down all your expenses and plan them. It’s important to not be working with 100% of your budget, to ensure that you have extra money for the unexpected.
Automate What You Can
Automating whatever you can, or whatever you feel most comfortable with, will save you so much time. Can you set up invitations to your event so they’re able to come directly from your scheduling tool as opposed to having to email all attendees and participants individually? Is your ticketing system creating more confusion and questions from your participants than it is helping them access your event? It may be time to re-evaluate how the tools you’re using might be slowing down your own processes.
In summary
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel when planning your event, but you do need clear expectations, deadlines, and vision. Keeping yourself on task and organized is a huge key to being able to navigate any hurdles that may come your way.