I’m back and sharing my final blog on event planning! By now, you all are experts on knowing your audience, defining your budget and determining your needs from my Event Planning 101 blog, and you now know how to navigate RFP’s and BEO’s from my second blog post. But after all this planning, comes the day of the event!  In my third and final installment, I will talk about on-site venue logistics.

As the KTB conference nears, I am in constant communication with our venue staff, volunteers, Conference Host Committee, and host city visitors’ bureau coordinating all things logistics.

I have a day-by-day schedule that outlines, in detail, where everyone needs to be by the half hour each day of the conference. The Friday before we leave, each of our staff and volunteers receives a binder with said schedule, contact sheet, session scripts, venue layouts, conference brochure, FAQ, session schedule and any other procedures/details specific to that person’s tasks during the conference. 

Once we arrive on site, it’s “all hands on deck” to set up. I meet with the venue staff and familiarize myself with the people that will be taking care of us during our event. We have a primary point person for communication with the venue staff to reduce confusion and that person is me. I ready all of the venue rooms and AV and ensure that all setups are correct.

Each morning, we have a mini staff meeting to go over expectations for the day and troubleshoot any areas of concern. We go over the schedule for the day and discuss any anticipated pain points. After our meeting we break and head out to our assigned areas. 

 Once the conference is underway, I spend the majority of my time troubleshooting issues that arise and making sure that everyone is as happy and content as possible. We need another table in the exhibit hall? I’m texting my Banquet Captain to bring that out. AV issue in one of our breakout rooms? I’m texting the AV director to get that handled. An attendee has an issue with their accommodations? I’m calling the director of reservations to get it sorted out. KTB staff informs me and I deal with the venue staff. Having one point of contact filtering requests to the venue staff keeps things less confusing and ensures that we don’t have multiple people asking for the same thing. We want the hotel staff as happy as possible so that they want to do good work for us.

Lastly, once conference wraps and we are all back in the office, we meet and discuss the event. We talk about what worked, what didn’t, and what we would like to change/add going forward. It’s important to do this when things are fresh in our minds. We have come up with some of our best ideas in these meetings.

I hope that my Event blog series has been helpful to you! Now you know how much time and effort gets put into making our conference successful for you. If you haven’t already registered, please join us in Dallas/Rockwall June 18-20 to see our hard work put to life. Early registration rates end on April 5! Hope to see you there. ​Register Today.