Major Challenges Faced in Planning an Event and Their Solutions
Darryl Scotti 15 September 2018
Planning a corporate event can be an overwhelming task for those with no prior event planning experience. Great organizational skills are required to plan a corporate and these skills develop with experience. That said, planning can also be fun and it’s incredibly rewarding when you manage to pull off a successful event.
Whether you are planning a product launch event of your company or organizing a conference, you are bound to face challenges in organizing the event. Unforeseen mishaps, scheduling conflicts and caterer-related issues can ruin your event if not managed properly. While you cannot foresee all event-related problems, understanding common challenges faced in planning corporate events is a good way to get prepared for mishaps. Many challenges that you may encounter while planning a corporate event for your company have simple solutions.
In this post, we’ll highlight a few common challenges faced in planning a corporate event and their solutions. Read them to prepare yourself for the hard event planning task that lies ahead of you.
Challenge: Over Spending
Solution: Frame an Event Budget
Many people who don’t have any event planning experience overspend when they are organizing a corporate event. Instead of planning before spending the money, they plan and spend as they go and thus end up spending a lot more than the allotted budget. They realize their mistake after they have made all the preparations and by then, it is too late.
To avoid this problem, you should always frame a corporate event budget beforehand. You should consider your budget before making a decision. For instance, when you are selecting a venue, you should consider the total cost of the location. If the venue is too expensive for you, select another less luxurious location. You should also research about event supplies and determine how much you can afford to spend on catering, entertainment, and other essential activities.
Challenge: Thinking that You Have a Lot of Time
Solution: Start the Preparations Early
Some people think that event planning is easy and they just have to make a few calls to make all the arrangements. However, that is not the case. Event planning isn’t something that you can wrap up in two or three days. It takes time to plan a successful corporate event. If you start planning a few days before the date of your big event, you are bound to miss something important. Even professional event planners start preparing for an event early to ensure that nothing gets missed.
Therefore, start planning as early as possible by outlining your goals. Once you have outlined your goals, prepare a specific timeline depending upon those goals. For instance, if your event is due in February, define your goals and event schedule and set your budget in October. In the next month, say November, search for the venue, find speakers and make arrangements for catering and entertainment. In December, finalize your invitation strategy and start inviting guests. In January, confirm the guests list and send reminder to your guests. Also, remind the caterer about the arrangements required. By doing all these things before your big day, you’ll be able to pay attention to all the details and successfully pull off the corporate event.
Challenge: Losing Attention of Guests
Solution: Make Event Exciting
A corporate event is only successful when the guests remain interested in the event. If your event is dull and boring, your guests would regret accepting your invitation in the first place. Holding the attention of guests in a corporate can be extremely difficult.
You can keep the guests interested by breaking up your presentations with interesting activities that require involvement of guests. You should also have a plan to counter boredom. For example, if your audience is losing interest because of speeches and guests-speaker sessions, you can offer entertainment to keep the interest alive. You can offer photo booths or organize magician acts, circus show, comedian acts or a rock band performance to keep the guests entertained during the corporate event.
Challenge: Bad Weather
Solution: Have a Back-up Plan
Bad weather can break your corporate event within seconds. Although you would obviously have to postpone your event if a hurricane or snowstorm is on the horizon, you should be prepared to tackle light snowfall, rain or extreme heat.
You should always have a back-up plan to address bad weather challenge. For instance, if rain is expected and you have organized an event in the outdoors, arrange umbrellas. If the forecast reports a heat wave, then be prepared to offer water bottles, juices and sunglasses to your guests. Your guests will appreciate your special arrangements to tackle bad weather.
Challenge: Too Many Guests
Solution: Keep a Track of Attendees
Getting a lot more guests than what you expected means that you went overboard with marketing. While a big crowd is generally good for your company, but managing it can be extremely hard especially when you weren’t expecting so many guests to show up. You can run out of food or the space can become crowded.
To avoid this problem, you should keep your marketing activities under control and track how many guests are planning to come at your corporate event. If you figure out these things, you will able to offer a stress-free experience to your guests and they’ll be able to enjoy their time at your corporate event.
Challenge: Not Paying Attention to Little Things
Solution: Create an Event Planning Team
When planning a corporate event, most people fail to pay attention to little things. By little things, we mean those details that seem small, but can have a major impact on the bottom line of your event. For instance, you may forget to investigate needs for any special licenses, permits, insurance etc.
You should pay attention to these minor details to ensure that not a single thing gets missed. If you think that you can’t focus on all the event planning details, you should create a team. When you have a team, you don’t have to do every minor task or remember every detail yourself. You can assign different tasks to the team member and ask them to report back to you when they have completed the task. This way you can get things done more efficiently and pay attention to all the details of the event.
Challenge: Attracting Guests During Winter
Solution: Create an Engaging and Inviting Atmosphere
It can be extremely difficult to convince a large number of guests to attend a corporate event during the winter months. People are more drawn to indoors because of the cold weather and don’t like to leave their comfortable homes.
You can counter this challenge and increase the turnout on your corporate event during the winter months by creating an engaging and inviting atmosphere. There are many winter themes that you can use for your corporate event to make it more appealing for your guests. You can find a few winter themes and ideas for your corporate event in one of earlier blog posts. Also, you can organize the event indoors to avoid the harsh winter weather. You can offer hot soups, cocoa and other dishes to beat the cold.
Challenge: Unexpected Issues
Solution: Have a Plan B
During a corporate event, unexpected issues can arise anytime. Many people who are inexperienced fail to tackle unexpected issue and these unforeseen problems end up ruining their event.
Tackling unexpected issues isn’t easy as you don’t know what or when things will go wrong. But, you can minimize the impact of such issues by having a plan B. By plan B, we mean having an alternative planned for every major detail. For example, if you think that the comedian you have hired for your corporate event is going to bail on you, you should hire other entertainers as well. This way you’ll be able to provide entertainment to your guests even if the comedian doesn’t show up.
Now that you have read all these challenges faced in corporate event planning and their solutions do you think you can successfully pull off your company’s next big event? If you prepare a budget, start the preparations early, prepare a back-up plan to tackle bad weather and create an engaging event atmosphere, you can organize a successful corporate event. However, if you are struggling to focus on all these things, it is better to leave the event planning job to the professionals. Contact the Great Event for your corporate event planning to ensure that your event is not ruined because of the common event planning challenges.
At the Great Event, our experienced planners have successfully worked with companies like Samsung, PayPal, Apple, Twitter and many more. We can deliver the same level of quality customer service tailored to your company’s need.