When planning a conference, there usually is a checklist an organizer decides to follow. This list involves all the logistical needs of the event. Viewing, selecting, and booking a venue is very important. Other things may include selecting a dedicated team to help with planning, transportation, catering, booking speakers at the event, sending out invitations, and many more.
However, there are some hard truths that you need to know about planning a conference, especially if you haven’t done one before or if you’re still a newbie. Here are some of the things.
Conclude and Announce Speakers as Early as Possible
One reason this is very important is that many people tend to purchase tickets for your event based on the speakers they will get to listen to at the event. If you don’t do this early enough, it might be too late for people to purchase tickets. Another reason why this should be handled very quickly is that it gives the speakers plenty of time to plan their speeches and presentations to give the conference a very credible outlook when these speeches are delivered.
Speaker Fees can be Quite Expensive
You might not have much of a problem if you’re hiring speakers you know or have already worked with. However, if you intend to hire people who speak for a living, you’re going to need a lot of money. Some of them – especially the most popular ones – may charge thousands to appear and speak at your event. This is something you need to keep in mind when trying to book speakers.
In a few rare cases, if you’re lucky and put in a good argument, the speaker may decide to waive their fee or just ask you to cover their basic logistic costs. However, the only way a speaker would be willing to do this is if they think your conference would be valuable to them.
Finding and Booking a Venue is usually a Hassle
This can be really stressful. You need to find a venue that has the capacity to contain the projected number of attendees. Also, if you plan to have breakout sessions, you also need a venue that has the capacity for different rooms. Be aware that nothing much can happen until your event is set.
You can easily solve this problem by using a service like Venue Finder. You can specifically search for the kind of venues you want with capacity and even location. So, when next you need to find a venue and you need a location like Nottingham, Venue Finder will give you the best Nottingham conference venues available.
Profits from Conferences Might be Small
If you’re looking to make a substantial amount of money from your conference, you need to find out-of-the-box ways to keep running costs very small. This is because most conferences don’t offer a lot of profits until after a long time of running.
The next time you have a conference to plan, keep these things in mind. It’s important to still go through your regular conference checklist, but these other things, when considered, will help you plan better.
