The worldwide events industry isn’t expected to fully return to normal until at least 2023. This is according to the average estimations of many industry professionals quoted here.
Making your events go off without a hitch in 2022 will be a challenge. Event professionals like you still need to adapt to an industry that’s yet to fully stabilise. So, if you organise corporate events, read the below article to get some tips for writing your next event brief. This’ll help you put together a more comprehensive overview of your costings and objectives. This way, the success of your next event will be more achievable and measurable.
Complete a Previous Event Evaluation
To help you pinpoint some starting points of your next event, Corporate Events recommends that you must first identify what didn’t go well in your last event. Gather some facts about what went well at your last event. These might include: Was the venue sufficient? Did your event partners work efficently with you? Was the catering suitable? Was the event in a convenient location for your audiences?
Don’t know where to go to gather such feedback from your events? You should be using the tips we gave in a previous article to gather event feedback. Implement those techniques now to make the next steps easier.
Once you’ve evaluated what went well and what didn’t at your last event(s), you’ll have an idea of which areas to focus on improving for the event brief you’re about to write. This step is key, if you’re to make 2022 a more successful year in terms of your events.
Define Your Goals and Objectives
The biggest thing to consider when writing an event brief, is what your organisation’s objectives are. These should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. We have a more in-depth article about writing smart objectives for CPD events here. Before linking your objectives to your event, you’ll need to know what your organisation’s overall goal is. Is it knowledge dissemination, promoting your standards, increasing member engagement, or something else?
This goal will also determine which topics your event covers in order to meet these goals. These can then easily be added to your event brief.
Decide on an Event Format
Before long, you’ll know what your goals are, and which and how many topics you need to cover. This’ll help you determine which event format is necessary. The 3 possible formats are outlined below:
• In-Person Events
o Is your objective to allow your members to network, and/or to help sponsors freely interact with your members? If so, a live event in person may be the most effective. Your members should find it much easier to engage with each other, and with you, if the event is in person, depending on their persona.
• Virtual Events
o Is your objective to have a vaster knowledge reach, or to quickly educate a large portion of your audience while saving money in your events budget? If so, a virtual event would be best. You won’t have to book a large venue, caterers, or consider transport or accommodation. The turnaround is a lot quicker and less costly.
o Furthermore, educational video broadcasts typically have much higher knowledge retention than time-consuming in-person talks.
o Don’t underestimate the power of a virtual event – Corporate Events states that digital elements are vital for any event experience, so the power of virtual experiences should be utilised.
• Hybrid Events
o If you want to reach the largest number of attendees, because your objective is an even bigger degree of knowledge transfer and you perhaps still need maximum engagement, a hybrid event would be best. It can allow you to both quickly reach the online attendees that can’t attend in person, and in-person attendees that wouldn’t attend an event if it was only online.
o If you want to read more about how to hold the perfect hybrid event, read our article here.
If your event is either of the latter two formats, you need a team to livestream it to your virtual audience. To get a quote from an experienced team of livestreaming specialists, contact CPD Online here.
Decide on Safety Considerations
Omicron will be a big obstacle to many people considering attending your next event. With how transmissible it is, people won’t want to attend your event if they feel like it won’t keep them safe from illness or having to self-isolate.
ContentMatterz have also stated that attendee safety’s reportedly the biggest obstacle to event planning. For instance, they report that 48% of event designers say commitment to following local health guidelines is the most important concern when selecting a venue.
When planning your event, you need to know:
• Will you be paying for a bigger venue to accommodate social distancing measures?
• Will you be checking attendees’ vaccination passes, or proof of negative COVID tests?
• Will the schedule need to be altered, to stop too many people from attending the same session or taking lunch at the same time?
All of these questions need to be answered, for you to have a full, 2022-friendly, event brief. Remember, all this is on top of the safety measures that you already have in place.
Outline Your Budget
Once you’ve planned for all the above considerations, you can now put a budget together to accompany your brief and ensure that the event you’ve planned for is viable and cost-effective.
We have a recent article all about creating a budget for your next CPD event. So, rather than repeating ourselves, you can read the full article here.
Conclusion
We hope the above article was useful for event professionals. If you follow the above tips, you should have an event brief that improves upon your last event, aligns with your objectives, has a specific format in mind, and considers the safety of your attendees. And these factors should all fit within your budget.
Remember, if you want your event to be broadcasted online, and you need to include a high quality yet still budget-friendly livestreaming team in your event brief, you can use our form here to tell us all about your next event.
Comments