Managing events can get chaotic. Ensuring you have an event planning template to follow and track tasks with will make your life as a manager much easier.
If you want to know why a template is beneficial and what to include on the template, carry on reading our in-depth article to level up your management skills.
Understanding the Event Planning Process
As an event manager, you oftentimes won’t be in control of planning the event. Normally there is an event planner, but if there is no event planner you will be in total control of planning the event.
However, working closely with the event planner to ensure the event day runs smoothly is paramount. For this reason, we suggest that you know your way around event planning so you can manage the process.
When working with an event planner ensure that you are in consistent communication about all aspects of the event. This can include things like the event’s goals, the project plan, deadlines, caterers, guest list and event space set up. A clear event plan template will help you and the planner remain on the same page. If done correctly, this will ensure the event’s success and your joint party planning would have proved effective.
The key to a successful event lies in the event planning process, from knowing the event timeline to tracking tasks to being aware of the budget. As a manager, it is your responsibility to track event tasks and maintain consistency throughout the event.
Event Proposal Template
Something that a client or event planner might do is come to you with a proposal template. What this means, is that the client or planner has put together an event planning template for you to work on together. This is the best way to work on your event, as you can have joint control over the template.
They might have even drawn up their own event budget template, or simply an event proposal. Once they bring it to you, you can adjust the budget to make it more realistic or add a few tasks, if necessary.
For example, you can decide on what event tasks are included, whilst also having access to the planning process.
Using Online Software
If making and sending event planning templates seems either daunting or a waste of time, we suggest trying an online system to do it for you. Perfect Venue is the ideal online software management system that can generate proposal templates for you.
One of the key elements of the planning process is being in communication with your client. Working with event planning templates means you can streamline, track, and manage your tasks transparently and efficiently.
Make your communication easier by using an online management software system. After making changes to your template, you can easily send out batch emails to clients and/or vendors alerting them to the changes.
Developing a Budget for Your Event
Because templates can be used to manage your event budget, we thought we’d go over how to set up a budget.
When it comes to budgeting for an event, you will most likely be given a budget by your client. This is the first thing you should discuss when meeting with your client. Once a budget has been established, you can delegate where the money goes.
Sometimes clients might want more focus on catering, and have a bigger portion of the budget go to that. Others might focus on entertainment.
Whatever it is, you need to ensure that budgets are being stuck to. This is where a budget template will come in handy.
Creating Your Event Planning Template
When it comes to event templates, there are a few routes you can take.
Managing events with templates doesn’t always mean you’re following one guide. Oftentimes event planners will create different templates for different reasons. For example, you may be working with an event budget template or an event timeline template. Each template requires a different structure.
If you’re new to the template world, we suggest starting off simple. You can open a document (or hand-write one out the old-fashioned way!) and create a simple table. For example, you could set up a weekly template with communications that you need to achieve. This way you are managing when you are communicating with staff/vendors/clients, and tracking what you called them for.
Once you feel comfortable with how templates work and how you can adjust them to suit your needs, you can use them on a more intricate and professional level.
Common Event Planning Template Platforms
Before talking about using event templates, we suggest discussing with the event planner or client beforehand what format and platform they are using. Or maybe there is no event planning template and you are on your own.
As an event manager, it is crucial that you are up to date and familiar with the different platforms or spreadsheet formats that templates are made with. It can be unprofessional if you don’t know how to follow an event planner template.
A few of the most common platforms that people use to create templates are:
- Microsoft Word
- Microsoft Excel
- Pages
- Google Docs
- Google Sheets
With these platforms, you can create templates yourself or use a pre-built one. Sometimes these come with custom fields that you can personalize or even have pre-populated templates with task lists.
What to Include on Your Event Planning Template
Again, as the manager you might not be heavily involved in the event details. However, it’s important that what you value as important is on the template. Below we have a few suggestions on what might be useful to include.
- Name + Date: We know, obvious right? But stating the name and date of your event serves as a visual reminder for internal team members. Sometimes multiple events can be held on the same day or your venue may be hosting several events on consecutive days. So stating the name helps with clarity.
- Location: Much like the first suggestion, the location can also seem obvious. But let’s look at it from a management perspective. You could be managing a venue with the capacity to host 2-3 events simultaneously. An event planning template with no name or location will waste your time because you’ll have to search through the template to figure out which event it is.
- Guest List + Dietary Requirement: This heading is especially important for catering. When working in tandem with the event planner and caterers it will be easy to fall back on your template to check requirements. As the manager, you can keep track of dietary requirements and make sure that the caterers are planning accordingly. As a result of consistent event management, on the day of the event, you don’t need to worry about any food concerns of event attendees.
- Timelines + Event Schedule: Having a due date for all your event goals is critical for a successful event. As the manager, having an accurate overview of timelines, attendees, staff, and other tasks will make your life easier. The event schedule and event details should all be streamlining your focus on the day of the event.
- Budget: With the budget, we suggest having a whole separate template. It can all be on the same document, but just create another template for the budget. This makes it much easier to separate event information, and you can streamline your work easier. On your budget template, we recommend including projected costs, event budget, due dates and respective payments.
- Equipment rentals: Equipment requirements can easily get a bit chaotic, and this is where your role as manager comes in. On the day of an event, no matter how much planning has occurred, the day goes quickly and things are forgotten or used through. Following a template ensures that you are keeping track of all rentals so that they can be returned post-event.
We find it important to work closely with the event planner so you can suggest any additional notes that you think will be important.
What to Do on the Day Of The Event
Now that you have your event planning template, you can start putting it to use.
As an event manager, you most likely would have been hands-off during the event planning process if an event planner was involved. However, as the manager, you still would be keeping in the loop and knowing what’s going on.
When you reach the day of the event, you can use the event template to your benefit, and ensure that the day runs smoothly.
What we love about following templates is that you can track your event progress throughout the day.
For example, managing the event team and logistical details becomes easier. With your event template, you can create tasks for the team, then assign tasks, and monitor the task status throughout the event. The template you use may have time stamps which the team members can mark off. Or perhaps they have to check in with you and you use the template to manage the event.
Advantages of Using Templates
How can you make the most out of using event planning templates? Well, we suggest considering your template after the event to analyze what you could have done differently or better. If you notice gaps in it, you can change this for future events.
Maybe you realize that you work best with Google Sheets, and as a manager, you require that for your next event.
Conclusion
Now that you know how and why a template is a great management tool, you can step up and start using an online management software system. Perfect Venue collates all your event information into one convenient place. From creating a calendar, keeping track of tasks, and even sending out emails, Perfect Venue can save you time and effort.
Check out our demo video here, or sign up for our 14-day free trial here.
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