What Event Planning Supplies Do You Need for Your Conference

Planning a conference or meeting? If so, have you determined what event planning supplies you’ll need for a successful meeting? The question may seem like a no-brainer at first glance however you’d be very surprised at how many meeting or event planners do not make a list of supplies that they need to take to their meeting. On the other hand, I’ve seen seasoned meeting planners that would be lost without their meeting’s checklist. Event planning in general requires that the planners be very organized individuals. I’ve seen people that are not what we’d call organized individuals enter into the event planning industry only to see them become very frustrated as their position acquires them to be detail oriented.

Make a List of Event Planning Supplies You’ll Need

Event planners are always making a list and checking it twice no matter what the season is. Well it seems that making a list works quite well for Santa. The same goes for meeting planning. Event planners are always looking for wholesale event planning supplies. That’s why so many vendors focus on providing wholesale event planning supplies. For meeting planners, the difference between wholesale and retail can have a dramatic effect on a meeting’s budget.

Meeting Planners are often traveling with their supplies. Today, however, many are looking at ways to obtain their supplies at the destination, thereby eliminating the hassle of carrying all those supplies with them – not to mention the added luggage cost now from airlines. Especially if your conference or meeting has a registration component to it. For registration you need to include checklist items such as; badge holders, badge holder inserts (for printing delegate information), lanyards (those of those badge holder ribbons that you see hanging around people’s necks) with or without printed information on it (this is also a good area to consider for sponsorship), ribbons and pens, carrying cases etc. Depending on where your meeting will be held you may also want to determine whether it’s more economical for you to purchase these products there or bring them with you. It also doesn’t hurt to check with your conference facility to see what type of software they use and whether or not it’s compatible with your software. Local contacts can also help meeting planners obtain wholesale event planning supplies in the meeting’s destination city.

The Use of Today’s Technology Can Help Reduce Event Planning Supplies That You Need to Travel with

A lot of times meetings consists of large binders with printed information for the delegates. While I’m happy to say that the days of these large binders are being replaced by electronic devices, they are still warranted for many meetings. It used to be that the meeting planner would package up the binders ahead of time and ship them to the location of their meeting. Today, I often recommend to meeting planners that they consider uploading their documents to an FTP (file transfer protocol) site such as Google Docs and then print the binders once you arrive for the meeting. While this may create a bit more work upon arrival it will save you from having to travel with a large amount of documents. You’ll save on shipping costs. One tip I would suggest is that you check with the business center to see what their costs are to print and coordinate the binders for you. When you factor the shipping savings you may still be ahead of the game.

For those meeting planners that takes their delegates outside of the US for their meetings or conferences I always recommend the use of a customs broker to help move supplies seamlessly across the borders. Or at least from your aspect it’s seamlessly. Good customs brokers are well versed on how to deal with receiving or shipping to other countries. They are well worth the cost.