Our expert event management checklist
Event Management involves planning, organising, and delivering events such as meetings, conferences, and awards dinners. Key elements may include logistics, venue finding, budgeting, marketing, and attendee engagement. It is important because it helps businesses meet specific objectives, enhances their brand reputation and credibility, and ensures a memorable experience for attendees.
The benefits of doing it right include high satisfaction leading to positive attendee experiences and loyalty, optimal use of time, money, and resources, risk reduction through proper planning, and better interaction among delegates.
However, poor event management can lead to dissatisfaction, negative feedback, and damaged brand reputation. It can also result in financial loss due to inefficient resource use and unexpected costs, logistical issues, and missed opportunities by failing to engage attendees.
Given the level of dissatisfaction a poorly managed event can cause, it’s no surprise event managers are under extreme pressure. In fact, for nearly a decade Event Planning has been listed among the top 10 most stressful jobs across the world.
Our event management checklist below is designed to help people looking to organise their own events. For events of a certain size and scale we would recommend, to guarantee a great event, you should work with event professionals like FMI.
Our event management checklist
Stay up to Date
The event industry is fast-paced and ever changing, even more so since the COVID-19 pandemic. Stay abreast of which venues, hotels and suppliers are open and taking bookings, keep up to date to avoid any last-minute cancellations or disappointment.
Terms and Conditions
In a disorganised industry where venues continually launch, close, and change ownership, read the booking terms and conditions carefully. Ensure you are fully covered in the event of a cancellation or unexpected change to avoid incurring unplanned charges.
Budget Management
Nothing is truer in event management than the saying ‘take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves’. Managing the detail in your event management budget is critical to avoiding dissatisfaction. Check your booking contract for any hidden costs and always receive supplier quotations in writing before committing.
Maximise Technology
Event management tools are readily available and can help with many operational tasks from venue finding and hotel sourcing to delegate management and digital contracting. Event management tools can provide efficiencies across the planning process.
Venue Recce
It may feel time consuming but do conduct a venue recce before committing. In practice an event space may not feel the same as the website photos depict, or practical elements such as car parking, access points, outdoor space may not work for your event.
Put it in Writing
At every stage of the process put everything being agreed to in writing. Be that with venues and suppliers or internal stakeholders and colleagues. This removes any ambiguity and provides certainty at every stage of the sign off process.
This is by no means an exhaustive list and our event management checklist sample is just some of the key elements to consider when planning your event.
Please get in touch if you are specifically seeking event management checklists for conferences: Event management checklist conference
Event management services from FMI
Event management can be complex, and at FMI we are always happy to support event planners where we can. We can provide basic event management guidance to complete end-to-end event management services. You may have already started planning your event, or had a change in resource available. Either way while a basic checklist can be helpful, to get the best results from your event you may prefer to work alongside expert event managers.
We are experts at connecting audiences through live events and can help you to maximise the benefits such as attendee engagement and ROI. Our event management services are in the UK and Worldwide meaning we can support you wherever your event takes place.
We work with customers who require light touch to full event planning support. From global companies to UK businesses across automotive, telecoms, electronics and finance, we can help whatever your industry.
We also have an experienced events production and health and safety team who can provide an event management logistics checklist and event management risk assessment checklist. Contact us to speak directly to our event team.
We would love to hear about your next event, contact us below with your event ideas and brief and we will arrange an introductory call to discuss further.
