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The success (or failure) of your event will be determined by what you do before delegates arrive (12 Sep 08)
Your aim is to give your undivided attention to delegates. You can only do this if you are fully prepared. So here’s a check-list for you
Running an event is a bit like war. Ten percent sheer fright and 90 percent keeping things ticking over.
The fright bit is at the start, when everything seems to happen at once and things hit the fan if you are not prepared.
But it needn’t be that way, which is why I got together with
Carolyn Kelly our Events Director (see left) and
Allison Notley her offsider to put together a checklist so you are prepared when you next run an event.
We run over three events a week so I hope we haven’t missed anything. If you think we have, or you have any questions, please tell us.
But before we look at what you should and shouldn’t do, the golden rule is to get there early. Do this and you are half way there. Even for small events of 10 people we always get to the venue 2 hours before the start.
If you haven’t used the venue before find the venue staff responsible for events so they can show you the room and you can check the following with them. Don’t be shy, as its better to find a problem when there is time to get it sorted.
- What should delegates do if the emergency alarm goes off? What does it sound like? Are any alarm practice runs expected? Where is the assembly point people should go to? Are these instructions written down anywhere so you can tell people what to do when you run through the “housekeeping” information with them .
- Where are the toilets - and how many cubicles are in the women’s toilet? Don’t laugh because if there are not sufficient toilets you will soon have queues. Find out where the other nearest toilets are? Are there disabled toilets?
- How do you control the room temperature? How does the temperature feel now?
- Can you have a room key? Check that it works.
- Will the room be cleared at the breaks and over lunch?
- Is there a flip chart and enough paper? Are there black and dark blue pens? Test them to see if they are new. (Red and green are hard to read so avoid leaving them out if you can)
- Look for any flickering lights as they will drive delegates mad.
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