How Do You Set up an Outline for Your Event

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Professional events have become essential in the life of a modern company. But often the heavy logistics that surround the organization of this kind of event makes organizers nervous enough to dread getting started.

However, with a few simple tips that we will give you, you will be able to fully succeed in your professional event.

Have the invitations been sent out? Have you sent out enough reminders? Has the catering been booked? Then you are probably counting down the days until the event!

You probably want to be as prepared as possible so that when the day comes, everything will run smoothly. To achieve this, you need to establish a detailed outline for your event. But how do you go about it?

A detailed outline will allow you to know exactly what will happen when. This will reduce the risk of surprises during the event and will also identify in advance small details to be taken care of.

But how do you establish a perfect outline? Here’s a rundown of a few steps to follow to develop a flawless outline.

Start with the raw timing of your event.

In the invitation, you’ve already informed your guests of the program and the time they’re expected. This timing can serve as a starting point for your outline. Are you going to organize a conference with several speakers? Then you may have already thought about the timing of the communication.

Use the program as a guideline for your outline and start working on this basis. What time will you meet your staff? When will the briefing take place? What time will lunch be served? These are just a few of the questions that need to be answered in the outline.

Identify your partners and suppliers

You will never organize an event without calling on partners or suppliers for sound, catering, reception or checkroom services for example. Look for concrete agreements in your mailbox or in your contracts and transpose them into the template.

  • What time will your suppliers or partners arrive?
  • What time should they be ready?
  • Who can they call in case of problems?

No concrete agreement has been reached yet? If so, contact them to clarify everything and include these timings in your outline.

Designate a responsible person

No matter how you look at it, you will not manage an event alone. Indeed, it is impossible for you to be everywhere at the same time.

Divide the responsibilities among several colleagues. Are you going to organize a conference? Then designate one person who will be responsible for the smooth running of the speakers’ speeches.

He or she will make sure that the speakers get to the right place on time and will keep an eye on their timing. You have a long list of guests? Designate a person to speak to the hostesses when a visitor shows up without a ticket or is not on the list.

For each item, clearly indicate who is responsible. This way, everyone will know exactly what their task is and the right people can be notified immediately in case of a problem.

Indicate contact information

When you designate a person in the outline, it is also important to specify his or her contact details. This way, you can easily contact everyone on the day, without having to scroll through thousands of emails looking for a supplier’s phone number, for example.

You can also put all the phone numbers on a separate sheet that you will distribute to all your employees or post for their attention.

Have you finished your outline? Then send it to everyone involved

Don’t do it the day before the event because chances are not everyone will read it. Also, if you get feedback on it, the time frame will be too short to make any more big changes.

So what is the right timing for this? At least five working days before your event kicks off.

This way, everyone will have enough time to read through the document and you can still process any feedback and make changes.

Also, make sure you have several printed versions of your outline at the event to use as a reminder.

Think of your event outline as a bible that you will need on the day. These steps will already help you a lot. Do you still need a concrete example? To make it easier for you, we’ve put together a template to get you started.

Organizing an event is not done in a day. Usually, you don’t know where to start.We guide you in choosing suppliers and partners and draw up a precise schedule for the day in advance.

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