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Resources for Creating an Event Planning Checklist

April 12, 2013 By Comments

event planning checklistI have often noticed on this blog that many visitors are looking for an event planning checklist. It almost always tops our list of searches. And I consider that a good thing. You see, to me anyways, planner templates play a vital role in organizing many event and meeting planners. It shows that people are always looking for ways to help increase their productivity without having to re-create the wheel each and every time they’re planning a new event.

An Event Planning Checklist Works to Establish a Blueprint for How You Execute Events

If you’ve read a few of our articles regarding templates and checklists, then you’ve probably noticed that we talk about establishing templates that are tailored to the individual that is using them. Each of us has our unique way of executing events. What an event planning template does is help the planner establish a blueprint to work from. From there, I always recommend that people personalize their templates, or checklists.

Additional Resources to Help You Establish Your Own Event Planning Checklist

As I mentioned above, we have written many articles over the last couple of years dealing with event planning checklists and templates. Some of the articles delve into the actual checklist items which are important to incorporate into your event planning checklist. And others are more of a resource providing you with information on finding the most suitable checklist based on your specific needs. We even show you how to come up with your own event planning checklist by highlighting parts of your job tasks which recur no matter what the event.

Whatever your specific reasons are, you’re sure to find the right information here. And it’s something that were continually developing and writing about on an ongoing basis.

Below are some additional resources for searching and developing your event planning template:resources for an event planning checklist

Event Planning Forms – Organizing Your Way to a Great Event

  • This post deals with the type of event planning forms and, specifically, which type we use most.

Party Planning Checklist – Party Planner’s Map To A Fun, Worry-Free Bash

  • As the title indicates, this article is related to party planning. Here we show you a sample pre-party planning checklist.

What Items Make up Your Conference Planning Checklist?

  • In this post we look at an overall conference. What we do in this article is break down the various components of that conference (hotel, travel, tours, off-site activities).

How To Find A Good Event Planning Guide

  • Here you’ll find information on external resources for finding event planning guides. Microsoft is an excellent resource for free event planning templates.

Where to Look for Guides to Meeting and Event Planning

  • Continuing on our hunt for external resources that we can refer, this article focuses on Amazon.com’s event planning resources. Click here for a robust list of what event planning resources Amazon.com is offering.

An event planning checklist plays a vital part of planning and executing events. But it’s important to note that each template can vary from one planner to the next. And that doesn’t mean that the results of the actual event would be any different. Rather, it’s best to look at an event planning checklist as a blueprint from which you would add your way of executing events.

 

 

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Three Tips for Negotiating Event Planning Contracts

September 19, 2012 By Comments
event planning contract

photo by sherylvalentine. blogspot.com

Event planning contracts are what some consider to be “the necessary evil” required when finalizing details between the client and the services provider. However, all too often, the contract is something that is left until the very end and, even then, it’s dealt with such haste that many things get overlooked. I’ve worked with many companies that use a border plate template for their event planning contract. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. However, there are crucial areas that should be addressed first and foremost when entering into a contract for services.

A Good Event Planning Template Will Also Include Key Contract Items

Contracts are like marriages. You usually don’t look at all of the particulars until something goes wrong. Like a divorce for a married couple. However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be sure that you’re crossing your t’s and dotting your i’s when completing the terms of your contract. Then, hopefully, it’ll be like a good marriage and you’ll never have to look at the contract again. However, in the unfortunate event that things don’t go as planned, a good negotiated contract upfront could be the make or break difference for you.

Three Tips, or Key Items, to Consider for Your Event Planning Contract

Like your event planning template, your contract is a border plate where you can add particulars for each client. However, regardless of your boilerplate, there are key areas that you should always ensure are being properly addressed.

We turned to a couple of law firms to find out what they considered to be the more important elements of an event planning contract. For this post were going to cover three key items.

Expectations. Make sure that the goods and/or services for which you are contracting are outlined properly on your contract. For example, what are your minimum expectations from the event. You would be surprised how many contracts that I have reviewed over my career and an event could simply be stated as “an off-site dinner at XYZ venue”. While it is correct that you are contracting for an off-site dinner, you better make it pretty clear what your minimum expectations are for that event. And then make sure that that is included in your contract.

Financial. You might think that this one is a no-brainer but quite often the amount of money and when it’s due is quite vague on a contract. It is imperative that the event planner knows from its suppliers how much is due, and when, for the contracted event. Once, as a supplier, I had to rely on this clause in our contract. You see, the meeting planner that I was working with didn’t have enough funds to give me to secure an off-site event. Even though I had clearly marked the due dates for deposits in my contract, she didn’t feel that she needed to provide the funds by those dates. Well, to make a long story short, she ended up providing me with her personal credit card to secure the deposit. It wasn’t that I was trying to play hardball, rather, the venue in question had another interested party.

Integration Clause. This tip is more of a legal term. Basically an integration clause states the intentions of both the client and the service provider. While on the onset it sounds pretty simple, an integration clause can have a dramatic impact on a contract. If an integration clause exists in your event planning contract then you had better make sure that the contract covers everything about the event(s) that was discussed between the client and the supplier. If you end up using a court to settle a dispute you’ll not be able to enter as evidence anything that was not covered in the integration clause.

Like an event planning template, and event planning contract is an important part of the planning process. All too often the contract is one of the most overlooked tasks. I tend to think of contracts like marriages – if everything is going well then there is no need to go back and review the details of your agreement. But, it’s when things go sour that contracts come into light. And for that reason you had better make sure that you took the time at the beginning of your relationship to make sure all of the what-ifs were addressed.

 

 

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Event Planning Template for Establishing a Venue Budget

July 18, 2012 By Comments

event planning template for venue budgetsAs part of the event planning process, putting together a budget is a crucial step towards your overall program. And it’s often the part of the job where many event planners cringe. Quite often clients will ask us “can you give me a per person price?”.  And, let’s face it, we dread having to go back to our office and do our calculations so that we can present our client with their requested information.

Putting Together an Event Planning Template Isn’t As Hard As You Think

In my business, and particularly when we did more full-service groups, I would have various templates done up ahead of time. Then, I could just pull out which template I wanted to use, based on the type of event that I was pricing, and fill in my information.

In the video below I give you a quick run through as to how to put together a quick and easy template for costing a wine tour and lunch. The most important aspect that needs a little bit of thought is all of the components that you will need to organize in order to successfully execute the event.

If you would like to save this event planning template , you can click here and save the spreadsheet on your own computer.

 

 

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Meeting Planning Template Tips

December 7, 2011 By Comments

A meeting planning template is something that you either design yourself or you use an existing template to help you organize the various components of your meeting. There are many meeting planning templates and checklists available. Which one is the right one for you really depends on your needs. You could spend a small fortune and have a template that’s automated with you just needing to fill in the various blanks and presto your budgets and timelines are done. You can also develop your own using Microsoft Excel.

Think of the Meeting and Event Planning Template As a Blueprint of Your Meeting

If you want to develop your own meeting planning and event template you just need to think of your overall meeting needs. For this post were going to walk through a very simple meeting and talk about how you would set that up on your template – an Excel spreadsheet.

First you need to outline the dates of your meeting. This will give you the visual on the spreadsheet of the times you need to fill in with your meetings’ particulars. Next fill in your meeting times. This will start to block off times that you know ahead of time are devoted to meetings or sessions themselves. Next, determined if you’re going to be providing transportation to and from the meeting location for your delegates. If so, how far in advance will you provide transportation (i.e. a day or two days before the meeting) and for how long you will offer return transportation. And plot those times on your spreadsheet.

Once you have your meetings and sessions filled in you now can see, at a glance, the free times or rather times where you need to fill in with either food and beverage functions, sightseeing tours, off-site events, etc. Of course how many of these functions you’re going to offer will be determined by the budget of your overall meeting. For example if you only have budget for one breakfast perhaps consider scheduling that breakfast at the beginning so that you can have all of your attendees come together before the first meeting starts. If your meeting delegates have spouses you may want to offer sightseeing tours for them while the meetings themselves are occurring.

A Meeting and Event Planning Checklist Helps You Develop a Budget

Once you have filled in your non-meeting activities you should have a blueprint of how your meetings will unfold. If you’re determining the budget at the same time you may want to start putting some cost beside the various components on your template. For example if you know the hotel’s breakfast cost you $20 per person, you can quickly calculate how much that will cost you. If your meetings are held within the hotel or a conference center it’s also very easy to put in the room rental cost beside each of the meeting times as well. The same goes for coffee breaks and/or any other food and beverage will be offering during the meetings. Once you have filled in all of your costs beside your activities you be able to quickly add up your total meeting cost to see if you are coming in on budget. As is often the case, if you’re over budget you may have to go back and review your meeting planning template to see where you can cut items from your meeting.

The above outline is for a very basic meeting planning template. Another website that I would recommend is Corbin Ball and Associates. In particular, Corbin Ball has an excellent page with Excel spreadsheets for you to review for your specific needs and save as needed. Corbin has taken the time to review each and has provided some comment beside each one for you to determine if it’s the right one for you.

An event planning checklist, or template, comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s very easy to create your own using Excel or you can also choose a meeting and event planning checklist template that has already been designed by professionals in the industry. Whichever template you choose one thing is certain – a meeting planning template will help you focus on the various components to your meeting as well as allotting budgets and schedules to keep you on track.

 

 

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