It’ll be all right on the night

There was only a week to go before the major product launch and Sara had a concern; a phrase she used when she was shaking in her boots with sheer panic. She had been checking with all of the presenters to make sure that their presentations were well into development, if not complete and, although she had not heard or read them all from end-to-end, she could tell that there was an unacceptable amount of repetition. The audience was in danger of walking out after the first hour if she could not convince these high-flying executives to modify their approach.


Simple Headache Cure For Event Managers

Managing or administering a seminar, workshop, roadshow or other type of event, even the seemingly simple, can provide you with headaches that you never thought possible. Being crystal clear about what you and your company actually needs the event to deliver at the earliest possible stage is critical to so many issues.

Although holding an event like a seminar or a workshop often evolves out of discussions about sales, marketing and even technical issues like product failures, it is almost always critical to establish clearly in everyone’s mind what the true purpose of the event is. This can have a substantial effect on:


Planning Your Next Event: Can All Speakers Talk?

Although it was flattering to receive an invitation to speak on his specialist subject, David Johnson had never presented to a large audience before. He was nervous, not only about the reception his ideas would receive but also about his under-developed presentation skills. The invitation provided him with no help on either topic and asked only for a written version of the talk on disk in advance of the event.

Some seminars are simply a list of guest speakers following one another onto the stage to describe their experiences or to stimulate controversy with a new theory. Other events will invite a single guest speaker to add authority to the subject matter and to give the audience a change of face and a change of pace.


Planning An Event: If You Think You Can’t, You’re Right

It was their company’s first ever breakfast seminar. Sally Thompson had never designed a seminar before. She knew the start time, the finish time and had a list of presentations that had to be made but could she make it fit?

Remember that, for maximum impact, each hour of an event should be divided equally into one third listening, one third discussing and one third doing. So, for every hour you really only need a script for twenty minutes and, if you are using a PowerPoint type presentation, a well-paced speaker will “talk to” one slide of the presentation every 3 minutes on average. You therefore need around 7 text slides each with no more than 7 bullet points to generate a one-hour chunk of the event.


Event Catering; The Most Primitive Form Of Comfort

Nancy did not consider herself to be fussy. She was just trying to eat a healthy diet which included herbal teas. The trouble was; when she attended seminars and workshops, a frequent part of her job, she was always offered coffee in the breaks and rarely, if ever, her chosen beverage. Even when she brought along her own herbal tea bags, the venue could never seem to be trusted to supply boiling hot drinkable water to complete the infusion.

The dietary requirements of your delegates can be very complex. You may have to deal with vegans, vegetarians, fruitarians, those on a raw food diet, those with nut allergies, wheat intolerance, dairy intolerance and, who knows, maybe the occasional carnivore.


Do You Have The Right People To Organize Your Event?

Jenny Jones would never have considered she had any skill when it comes to running seminars. She was just quietly and competently doing her job when she was asked to organize an event to help promote the services that her company provides. Fortunately for her, she recognized instantly that she did not have all of the necessary skills herself and, by borrowing some tips from her recruitment experience, amongst other things, she saved herself from a great deal of stress and put together a team that delivered the goods, and more.


Conferences and Events: Don’t Agonize, Organize

Planning paralysis was creeping up on Phil. Every time he looked back at what needed to be done to complete the event successfully, he found himself tinkering; changing and adding activities that did not really add any value to the event he had been tasked with managing. He had to grab hold of this project and move it along.

Once the planning is done and you have your team, a venue and a workable framework for the timetable; it’s time to get organizing. As the event manager the buck stops with you but that doesn’t mean that you have to do everything. Make sure you delegate tasks and activities effectively and you will end up being less stressed and more productive.


Selecting The Right Venue For Your Next Event

We’re running a conference in three months”, said the CEO, “Find me a really good venue and make sure we don’t break the bank”. So, in around twenty words, you’ve been promoted (or demoted) to Event Manager. You may have little or no experience in this field and training is definitely on-the-job and it starts now!

Just about everyone with space to rent is into providing a venue for all types of event. You can choose from purpose built training facilities, hotels, mansions, castles, conference halls, exhibition centers, art galleries, museums, universities and colleges. You can be sure that every one will be different and will have its own particular attributes that will make it attractive for your event.


I Remember Going To The Event But I Don’t Remember Much Else.

Hey, Jack! That seminar I sent you to last week? Any chance you can give us all an overview at the team meeting?” Jack’s boss had just delivered his worst nightmare. Not only had the event been tedious and disjointed, he couldn’t find the paperwork to remind himself of the key points and his memory was not providing any brilliant clues.

Ted had been to events before where he could not get satisfactory answers to his questions and was disappointed that he could not get to grips with the theories that were being promoted.


Who Do You Blame If They Learn Nothing At Your Seminar?

Ted, Alice, Pete and Rita are all attending the same seminar. They all expect to learn something, after all that’s why they are there. Trouble is they each have very individual and different ways of learning, so this seminar had better take this into account or some of them may come away disappointed.

Ted had been to events before where he could not get satisfactory answers to his questions and was disappointed that he could not get to grips with the theories that were being promoted.


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