Event Planner Career: How to Become an Event Coordinator

What does it really mean to be an event planner? If you thrive on organization, are proficient at multi-tasking, and enjoy a creative work environment, perhaps event coordination is the profession for you. In our interview with event planner Jessica Alpert, she discusses the wide range of opportunities in managing events, offers career advice, explains how she broke into the industry through informational interviewing, and stresses the importance of an event planning internship.

Diversity is the Watchword

The world of event planning is an extremely diverse industry. You can represent a piece of real estate such as a hotel ballroom, a convention center, a private room in a restaurant, or independent event space. Alternatively, you can work at an event management company that consults with clients to plan special events, or work in-house at a company that holds many events and needs someone to plan and manage them.

Fortunately, you do not need a degree in event management to start a career in the industry. Jessica, who majored in psychology at UC Davis, explains that a variety of educational backgrounds can prepare you to become an event coordinator. She says, "a major is a major and I feel like I could have focused on anything from communications to fine arts and I would have been fine." While a college degree is not necessarily required she emphasizes that it helps in being taken seriously when job hunting.

Network, Network, Network

Jessica also stresses the importance of the informational interview, noting this type of networking is what led to her first job. She recalls, "in meeting with all these people I learned what I did and did not want in a job...I was interviewing them just as much as they were interviewing me." This networking definitely paid off, because when one person did not have an opening they would say, "'I don't have anything available, but I have a friend who works [here] who might know somebody.'"

Jessica also recommends an event planning internship to help you understand the industry. Even though these may not be the most glamorous jobs, the behind-the-scenes experience is invaluable..."I truly believe that in order to understand how to hire a caterer you need to work for a catering company, and you need to see the behind-the-scenes look of it." Not only will you gain a better understanding of the different aspects of managing events, you are able to make an impression with vendors so they think of you when hearing about job openings.

Portable Toilet Hire Companies: Why Choose Them?

Many events are held in the vast expanses of open space. The nature of events like circus, sports meet, camping, picnics and fairs among several others need more of open spaces and thus outdoor venues are the most desirable.

Personal parties and events like weddings and anniversaries or even Thanksgiving meals are also oftentimes planned in outdoor locations with canopies and temporary arrangements for cover. These allow the pleasant ambience of natural settings with fresh air and open space. When it comes to children especially this is like a boon as a playground.

A few important details need careful planning when you are organizing and arranging an outdoor event. Firstly, there is a need for seclusion and coverage and secondly there is an important need for toilets and bathrooms.

In a company of several people that also includes children, there is an imperative requirement for bathrooms and toilets that will take place periodically. In addition, you cannot be expected to lead your guests into unhygienic and unsafe surroundings.

Portable Toilets

This modern innovation of the new age takes care of all your impending event management requirements. These are mobile bathrooms and toilets that have inbuilt wheels too. They will need to be hooked onto a truck and can be delivered to any destination of an event site.

These are modern and complete arrangements made in themselves. They are clean, hygienic and sanitized when they are delivered. They are also provided with towels, soaps, liquid cleansers and deodorants. There are tissues and toilet papers that are provided.

Each of these toilets is capable of storing up to a week's sewage for 10 people. There are advanced powders that have been developed to add to the sewage to turn it into a form of gel. This will be easy to store and dispose as well.

As you take a portable toilet hire for your outdoor events that will last overnight there will be nothing to worry for bathroom and toilet requirements. All the bathrooms have modern toilet and shower arrangements made in them. There is also inbuilt water storage that makes flushing and short showers possible as well.

The hiring companies undertake the management and maintenance of portable toilets completely. They will come and periodically come for cleaning and sanitizing with the complete removal of sewage that has been stored. They will also provide fresh stocks of towels, tissues, deodorants and soaps among the other articles of usage.

After the event is over the company will also remove the toilets from the venue.

Portable Toilet Hire Companies

Several companies in the UK are engaged in the business of portable toilets on hire. There are similar companies available in other parts of Europe as well as in the USA that have portable toilets on hire services as well. There is a comprehensive all inclusive package fees that take care of all your requirements for outdoor events

Centerpieces For Events - How Charities Can Benefit After the Celebration is Over

Are you hosting a live and memorable event for your close friend or a family member? Wondering what you can use as centerpieces for the tables?

The eco-friendly trend today is not to use disposable items such as flowers or fruit. Rather, many creative event planners are choosing to decorate their customers' festive tables with gift baskets as the centerpieces.

Inside the baskets are themed items that always include a memorable item, food treats, and sometimes games and puzzles to delight specific age groups.However, at the end of the event, who gets to take the centerpieces home, is always the question.

To clarify your intentions, especially if you're going to donate the baskets to a charity, you could place a note card alongside the centerpiece that states that it will be donated to a specific charity at the end of the evening.You might even want to encourage several of your guests to hand deliver the centerpieces to a favorite charity, and then the spirit of the event would get carried forward with your thoughtfulness and generosity.

If your gift baskets contain various selections of food, you might want to consider donating them to one or more local food banks. Those organizations would be delighted to receive such an offering, especially if the items have a long shelf life like canned goods, paper goods, and boxed snacks, treats, and cereals.

Likewise, if the event is a baby shower, you could donate disposable diapers, formula, baby clothes and blankets to charitable organizations geared especially for unwed moms and women's shelters.

Top 5 Reasons Why Team Building Games Fail, and How to Avoid Them

When a Californian home security company chose their team building games, little did they know that the program would end disastrously, not just for the employees but for the company as well.

In the fiercely competitive game, sales teams were pitted against each other. Throughout the game, the competitors' name posts were fixed in strategic places to make the employees 'fight the crap out of each other'. In the end, the winning team ridiculed the losing team by making them wear diapers, feeding them baby food and throwing pies at them.

After the event, employees sued the company and it had to pay out USD1.7 million as damages! So much for honorable intentions!

A huge number of team building games fails because they share at least a few - if not all - of the elements above. They think that the best team games are those that pit teams against each other through fierce contests and throw up clear winners and losers. This is ironic because most companies desire more cooperation between employees, not fierce competitiveness. They want an atmosphere where knowledge is shared and success is achieved together. Then, where is the sense in selecting team building games where the focus is on competition rather than cooperation?

Some of the main reasons why team building games fail are as follows:

• No understanding of final goals and objectives: Many employers like to spring a surprise on their employees but this can be counterproductive. When participants do not know the end goals, there could be seriously hostility between them. Instead, companies should inform the team members of the teambuilding program. In fact, companies can go one step further and give team members the power to choose. By respecting the team's views and decisions in the matter and by giving them what they want, companies take the first step towards effective team building.


• Trying to scare employees into being a team: Facilitators sometimes push a huge challenge on the employees as the very first activity. Quite naturally, this makes more than 90% of the participants hold back from giving their best. Facilitators must design games so that there is proper sequencing of activities starting with games that address the group's current state of being. Do the team members know each other well? Is there a conflict that must be resolved before the team can work as one? The level of complexity must go up slowly to ensure that everyone is able to contribute evenly.


• Stiff competition = rivalry: Competition is not the basis for team work, cooperation is. According to studies, more than 87% of times, greater advantage goes to teams that took the cooperative approach instead of the competitive one. The reasons are not hard to find. When you try to make one team (or team member) win, everyone loses. If people get a feeling that they weren't good enough, it lowers their performance. Often, competition uncovers the inner jerk in the participants and some people may even try unfair means just so they can win. Besides, people learn much less when they are fighting against each other. Therefore, team building games must focus on imparting lessons instead of finding and rewarding winners.


• Lack of commitment: Sometimes, management makes the mistake of considering the program an exercise in futility, something that is done to keep the employees in good humor. This feeling gets conveyed to teams automatically and results are unsatisfactory. Team building is a value mission and there must be a belief at the highest level that the company thrives on the culture of team spirit.


• Working with the wrong consultant: Finally, the quality of team building games is only as good as the quality of the team building Event Company you are working with. Experts in the field have the technical proficiency to guide management in choosing the best activities for their goals. When looking for a team building consultant, it is vital to find someone who is passionate about what they do and are ready to work with you for the success of your team.

If a company has had a bad experience with team building games in the past, the reasons are likely to be one or more of the above.

Top 4 WordPress Plugins For Event Management Websites

It doesn't matter whether you are a seasoned event manager or planning your first conference, you will always be happy to try out new ways to make the process easier. As we all know, a lot of work goes into planning a conference, including choosing conference venues and, depending on the size, many months of planning are required to pull off a successful event.

From an organisational point of view, interactive websites provide a trusty avenue through which to plan and implement your event. A blog is a great way to keep your potential attendees up-to-date with developments, and to advise them of program details, guest speakers, as well as allowing them to register on line.

WordPress is one of the favourite platforms used by event organisers because of the ease of installation and customisation. Specially developed plug-ins make the task even easier and in this article we will look at a few of the most helpful plug-ins event organisers can use.

• Events Manager. This plug-in is a great solution for event management problems and makes it easy for you to run recurring events with little extra work. Your attendees can RSVP via the website and you can provide them with maps, events lists, calendars and detailed descriptions of every element of the conference. You can even provide RSS feed to keep everyone updated and because it integrates with Google Maps the location of your bed is easy to find and because of the geo-coding every potential participant can quickly determine whether they should attend. The best part is its free!


• Eventify. This extraordinary free plug-in gives you easy to edit widgets and pop ups to make your site look as exciting and interactive as it needs to be. With many other plug-ins using JavaScript there can be conflicts with other scripts contained on the site. With this plug-in however all conflicts have been removed and your site will load easily every time. You can upload event details using a database in the Excel.csv format and easily put videos in place where they will be provide great viewable content. You can use the details from previously held events by backing them up and using them later when you need to.


• Event Brite. If you're looking for an easy way to manage ticket sales and registrations, this plug-in gives you all the management tools you need. You can take advantage of any payment method including PayPal, and the easy to administer interface, including an e-commerce shopping cart makes it easy to gear your page for efficient event registrations.


• Event Calendar 3. Event Calendar gives you a convenient method to add event dates to an individual post and then automatically have that event posted in the appropriate category. This takes full advantage of the categories. Widget and your readers will be able to find particular events easily because every display is in date order and removed automatically when the date has passed.

After you have narrowed down your selection of conference venues, you can start using these plug-ins to make your ongoing planning much easier.

Negotiating Hotel Contracts to Your Benefit - For Easier Meeting and Event Planning

Is it really hard to negotiate a sales contract with a hotel sales manager for sleeping rooms, meeting space and food events? Well, it depends. It depends on a couple of factors.

First, do you know how a sales manager thinks and what the hotel is looking for?

The answer to this question may save you money or may allow you to get more of what you want and a better deal. Factors that influence room blocks and room rates are based on supply and demand. So, if the hotel is in their busy season, they have more clients requesting the same space and can either pick and choose who gets the space or they can set their price and you either take it of leave it. Thus, not much room for negotiation.

However, what if the dates you are requesting are in their off season or shoulder time period. Then options start popping up, the hotel then needs the business and your sales manager is ready to offer lower rates or special deals. But, you do not always have to take the first offer. Shop hotels to compare offers and tell the sales manager you are shopping. This way they might offer better rates in the initial offer to induce you to sign the contract.

Also, how does your room block pattern fit into their current block of rooms? Most hotels have a preferred pattern for arrivals and departures. If your pattern fits theirs, they may be willing to negotiate. However, if the pattern differs, you may have to pay higher rates.

To be better prepared, talk to the Convention Bureau in that city and ask what the normal occupancies are for various months of the year. That way you will have an idea of how much the hotel needs your business.

When negotiating, do not hesitate to ask for special items in the contract. The more the hotel needs your business, the more they are willing to give up or add to the contract in order to get your signature.

It may be easy to get that suite you wanted on a complimentary basis or at a special rate. If the hotel is going to have a low occupancy and would not be selling that suite in the first place, then they have nothing to loose by giving it to you in your contract.

So, the answer to my original question "Is it really hard to negotiate a sales contract with a hotel for sleeping rooms, meeting space and food events?" is based on availability of rooms, room patterns, your ability to be flexible and especially you being aware of what the hotel is looking for.

Therefore, do your homework before meeting with your hotel of choice and you will be better prepared to negotiate successfully.

Event Management Courses

Before being accepted for a position, event companies prefer individuals to possess extensive knowledge and some experience in the events planning field. These skills and knowledge can be attained from event management courses, where applicants are trained in event planning festivals, corporate events, music events and fundraising to name just a few areas.

The training provide in these courses is based on many years of experience, and gives you the tools you need to get a head start. As with hotel management course applications, applicants get 'sifted' and sorted, and generally the people who have the most creative minds will be accepted.

Events management courses are designed to give participants the opportunity to develop the necessary and practical skills, which are taught by instructors who have been in public relations and the event industry for a long time. The skills you will learn in these courses are the skills which are fundamental to working in the industry.

The events industry, just like an other industry, has specific requirements of individuals and companies who work within this field. This is why taking a course like this, where you will learn all about public relations, project management, online PR and even wedding planning, is essential to your success.

If you like a challenge and can think on your feet to quickly organize situations, a career in any of the following areas will be both rewarding and satisfying:

• Project management


• Public relations


• Fashion shows


• Fundraising events


• Graduations


• Corporate events

These are billion dollar, global industries offering challenging and exciting careers for the right people. You never know which celebrities you are going to bump into at big events, which makes working in events a real eye opener for people working a nine to five job!

Online event management courses are also widely available. All you need is a PC or laptop (with internet access). These online training programs, although not providing you with experience, do teach you highly relevant information about the events industry, which would be favored by an interviewer.

The advantage of an online course is that you can complete it to suit your own time table, and if you travel around, you can study anywhere you choose.

If you have a genuine skill in organization and love everything about parties and socializing, a career in event management would create a huge change in your lifestyle, but when you think that your work would be what you love doing most, you are guaranteed of a happy future in a global industry.

Who do you think will be employed first, a person with little knowledge about event planning and hospitality, or someone who has learned from reputable instructors of an event management courses? This is why if you are serious about a career where you plan music festivals, corporate events and fundraisers, you'll take the time to learn and gain experience first.

Event Planning is Not a Difficult Task Now

New York City is among the most sophisticated, glamorous, exciting and vibrant cities in the world. Almost every year, the NYC attracts more than millions of visitors from all the corners of the world. It is amid the most well known and very essential tourist hot spots on earth. New York City is the biggest center for the trade and commerce and it is mostly filled with the professionals and other businessmen. The sophistication and glamor of this city makes it a huge attraction amid everyone. This beautiful city offers a lot to everyone. NYC has a superb nightlife, great restaurants and very interesting culture and heritage.

NYC is amid the most happening cities on the earth with the marriage functions, corporate events and social events being arranges almost on the daily basis. These events are so well known in the city that getting an event planner in New York City for planning and event is not at all problematic.

Easy going attitude on any main aspect may result in a very devastating event. The major constraint which is linked with any event is budget. Therefore, it is a crucial thing to plan out before starting anything else for the event. Setting your budget will help you to organize everything without any troubles and you are assured of a good event.

Immense frustration and tension is linked with any event. Thus, taking help from the event planners is the most apt way of ensuring a great event. The event planning people in New York City offer superb quality services to the clients. They are amid the best planners in the world who have organized a lot of large scale events before globally. They look after all the small as well as the big aspects which includes seating, site selection, catering and publicity. The right kind of publicity about the event is very essential which will surely leave a mark on people.

There are numerous A Class event planning people in New York. If you wish to get the help from any event planners in NYC, then you may get hundreds of them. But all of them come with some fee; thus you will have to select the right event planners according to your budget. Getting help from the event planners will surely make your event a memorable one for everyone.

Event Marketing Opportunities Through iPhone Apps

Remember the story of Icarus? He was the character in Greek mythology that escaped his imprisonment by fashioning wings of feathers and wax, and almost made it but for flying too close to the sun which melted the wax and plunged him into the sea. What's this story got to to with events and apps? The analogy is quite startling when you consider that an Event like Icarus has the potential to escape the bounds of its venue but if it uses limiting technology will probably sink into the sea... in today's world an event based iPhone app is the means to have your event outreach and viraly continue to soar ever higher.

Use the empowering aspects of an iPhone app to enhance your event promotion, support your event's management, and most importantly, extend your event into the digital world such as through viral sharing with social networks, monetizations through on-platform advertising, and contributions through in-app donations. Examples included the following:

Promote Your Event - iPhone Apps are hot! Simple association with release of an app and availability of an app for your event offers parasitic benefits associated with this medium's popularity. Positive public relations opportunities abound, with as above the app's release and availability, but also with content that can be released and accessed through your app.

Manage Your Event - Laptops aren't truly portable... it's not like you or your patrons are going to be carrying laptops while attending the event. On the other hand, an iPhone app is truly portable and with the user everywhere, all the time. The implication is that the app can deliver to your patrons the static data present on your website, but in a useful format, when and where they can use it. Schedules, itineraries, maps, all available when they're most useful, thereby increasing consumer convenience and app commitment. Consequentially, the app is also a green solution saving on printing, costs as well as associated garbage and cleanup costs. Now for the best part... unlike the PC web, an iPhone app offers the potential for dynamic, realtime event content deliveries - alerts or notifications as to what's on where, offers from event participants, and information updates of event occurrences & changes.

Digitally Extend Your Event - In app connectivity to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube allow for immediate sharing of your and your patron's content, for potential viral distribution. What better way to publicize your event. Similarly, in-app monetization functions permit in-app advertising by way of banner ads with click through capabilities. Donation functionality is also possible such as through embedding sms text to donate initiation or integration with mobile merchanting alternatives.

So use an iPhone app to promote, manage and extend your event - engaging today's event patron and their means of direct communications. Bring your event into today's digital world, your patrons are there and so should you be.

How Will You Promote Your Events Using a Smartphone?

Event organizers and public relation companies have started using Smartphone to increase interactivity with their customers. Smartphone offers all businesses ample opportunities to stay connected with the clients. Smartphones, such as Google's Android and Apple's iPhone and iPad, contain electronic diaries, contact lists, and automatic reminder tools. Event planning organizations can use such phones to take notes, edit and update all contacts and appointments, and perform other tasks, both easily and fast.

These user-friendly mobile devices are embedded with many applications for enterprises to use for different purposes. One of the most important features of a Smartphone is its ability to send news and updates to a large number of people within a few seconds. For instance, prior to a meeting or a conference, you can send a reminder or a text message to all your registrants, requesting them to be present at the event.

Marketing of events and fundraising campaigns has also become easier with the introduction of Smartphones. An increasing number of corporate houses are using these high-tech gadgets to provide all event-related details, right on the mobile phone of their visitors.

Many online event management solutions are also offering mobile application tools to maximize event attendance rates and generate high revenues. These tools help users to access complete information about your events in just seconds, from wherever and whenever they wish. All they need for this is a data connection on mobile. Using the modern, integrated mobile tools, users can easily view your events, and your organization's members can stay in touch with each other and with your activities.

Registrants can easily access all kinds of event-related information on their Smartphone. It offers enhanced communication with your clients and also enables quick access to the internet. For example, people can view your event's web page anytime and anywhere using their smartphones. Moreover, the device makes it easier to access e-mails and view any notification from the internet.

Event organizers can use Smartphone applications to:
- Enable your potential attendees to search and view your events calendar
- Provide easy event registration
- Offer the opportunity of participating in instant polls
- Enable easy posting of your event details in Facebook and Twitter
- Send and receive messages to and from other attendees or members
- Receive bulletins and announcements from event planners, anywhere and at anytime

Thus, the mobile phone application has emerged as a very powerful tool to easily connect to, share, and remind people about any seminar, trade show, or workshops.

How to Get the Most From Corporate Sponsorships

Sponsorship Can Pay Off, If You're Smart About It

Are you thinking about sponsoring an event, conference, trade show or community fundraiser? Read this first, so you can turn a potential money pit into a real opportunity to build your business.

If I sound harsh, it's because I know all too well that sponsorships CAN be money pits if not handled properly. Just like any other marketing investment, the decision to be a sponsor deserves careful consideration before you commit.

What's in it for You?

First and foremost, know what your goals are for the sponsorship.

There are three main reasons to sign on for a sponsorship opportunity:

1. You are focused on "soft" objectives like increased visibility or building awareness within a targeted market, like a local community of interest or executives in your industry.


2. You have clearly measurable goals like launching a new product or generating demand (and leads) for a service offering.


3. You want to create goodwill within the community so you can be seen as a good corporate citizen or to make it easier to recruit great employees.

Determining which of these goals is most important to you is your first and most important decision. You can't effectively evaluate a sponsorship opportunity without understanding how it fits your goals, so start with what you need, and not what the organizer wants. (Even if it's a cause that is dear to you!)

Are You Hanging with the Right Crowd?

Second, does the audience provided by the sponsorship align with your target prospects? If it's a community event, what percentage of the attendees will be interested in your business? For industry-sponsorships and trade groups, are the people participating the real decision markers or influencers? You must reach the right people to get any financial return from the sponsorship.

Don't hesitate to ask organizers about the job functions or titles of attendees. Before committing, find out how many people are expected to participate (attendees, members, website visitors, etc.) and get demographic information to be sure it matches your target prospects.

If the event is not brand new, this information should be available. For trade shows, you may even be able to get an audited report on prior year participation.

Next, look closely at how the sponsorship will help you meet your objectives. For example, if you want to build awareness for your business, consider how your company be represented, and how much visibility you will get.

Is your company listed on event signage or will you have a website link? Will your sponsorship be mentioned in presentations or printed programs? Can you distribute coupons and flyers to participants? If there are not enough impressions (views of your brand name) then either pass up the opportunity or ask for more.

Document Sponsorship Agreements

Get ALL commitments in writing as part of your sponsorship agreement, especially if you've negotiated something that is not part of the standard package.

Sometimes the sales pitch includes verbal offers like, "We'll give you top billing on the signage," or "You'll be including in at least 3 press releases." Make sure those promises are documented, so you have something to fall back on if those promises are not fulfilled.

You also need to know what will happen if the event is cancelled. Ask these questions in advance to avoid potential problems later. As they say, "Get it writing."

Get Involved

Don't forget about what is required of you to get the most from the sponsorship. If it is an event, are you expected to provide a presence with a table, display or speaker? Can your small business support that? Do you need to submit graphics or other marketing materials that you have not yet created?

You can't just write a check and expect a big payoff from sponsorships, it takes work to leverage the opportunity for maximum return. This work extends beyond the event itself, to follow-up and connect with people who are interested in your business.

Time for a Payoff

Finally, how quickly do you need to see a return from this investment? Building brand awareness is a long process, requiring consistent effort over time.

If you are sponsoring an event with the hope of immediately increasing sales, you need to have a specific offer with a compelling call to action. Define (in advance) how you will track sales back to the event so you can evaluate the ROI. Use QR codes on coupons or flyers to help link inquiries to the sponsorship, or provide a unique web address and landing page for prospects.

Keep it Going

After the event, evaluate the sponsorship and decide if you would do it again. You may get a discount for signing on early for the next year. You may also be able to take advantage of year-round promotions that latecomers won't get.

Continue to leverage the contacts you made from the sponsorship through email marketing and other engagement tools like social media. Use your contact list to reach out to attendees for the next event - even if they haven't bought from you, they can generate referrals or become future customers. Don't let the seeds of the relationship you've planted dry up. Keep nurturing them and your sponsorship investment will grow.

Event Production Services - Make Your Party Interesting

Event Planning seems to be a very interesting task as it helps you bring out your creative side by planning something nice and unique for the guests. However, this task is not as simple as it seems to be especially when you are planning to host the party. We all know that corporate events are always arranged in a superior way and the arrangements have to be done differently. The preparations have to be done very carefully keeping all the details in mind because a small mistake or sign of carelessness can spoil the whole party. The best way to make the corporate party successful is by hiring a party planner. Party planning services specialize in event production activities. Event production San Francisco provides the best service and assistance. It is necessary that you choose the right party planning company which is experienced in handling all sorts of events and provides many different kinds of services. You can conduct a small online research to check the event management websites. They offer the best services at discounted rates which can prove to be very beneficial for you.

Event production consists of many services like decor design, sound, presentation and design, set design, theme design, lighting, video editing, creative writing, speech planning, special effects, staging and much more. All this services come together and the make the occasion a grand success. A corporate event planner will set the right atmosphere and theme design for your party making it look effective and more dramatic. It is important that corporate events look professional and hence, it should be planned in the right way. Event production San Francisco provides professional services which ensure event success and goodwill.

Corporate parties are grand events and you have to put together a number of segments to make the whole event successful. Factors like seating arrangements, catering arrangements, lighting, entertainment and event production services have to be arranged together. These factors are very important and cannot be handled by everyone. Thus, a corporate event planner should be hired as he will provide you with all the professional services which will make your party look perfect. An event planning company will plan the entire event and make all the arrangements. They plan for high profile parties and big events but, they can also plan small meetings and every event that can be included in the corporate industry. You can have an initial discussion with the party planning company and inform them about your basic plans and ideas. Together you can work on the planning process which will definitely leave you satisfied and make the event a grand success. Thus, this was some information on event production services. Event planning in San Francisco is considered to be the best in providing event management services.

Importance of Latest Communication Technology for Event Planners

Event planning is a very busy field requiring a whole lot of time, planning, organization, ideas, creativity, and most importantly a large creative team (depending on how big your business if of course). For most event planning companies, they have different agents or managers as you can call them who take on various clients and assignments at a time. However, all the resources of that company, be it decorations, caterers, venues, partners in clothing, stage design, security, tents, or limousines are shared by all the agents.

Because of this issue, it is very important that all the agents and their workers always stay in touch. They need to have the latest technology in communications. Therefore regular cellphones don't work, smart phones is a must have for everyone so they can check email from clients, send Facebook or Twitter messages to other agents if they are unable to reach them via phone or email and need to discuss some sort of an emergency that needs to be handled urgently. Time sharing is also an option on today's smart phones such as iPhones and BlackBerries for group discussion. When something that requires pre-planning and also a lot of time and energy in the moment like an event management job, all workers involved in the project need to have access with each other for any last minute changes such as a change in the guest list, seats for more people, or other types of duties their clients/ hosts of the event may ask for.

How to Rent a Portable Toilet

If you've ever been on a desperate search for an available rest room, renting portable toilets is already at the top of your event planning logistics list. Before you start contacting portable toilet rental companies, you should identify the special needs you'll have to address.

How many portable toilets will you need to rent? This will depend on the duration of your event and the number of participants anticipated. You don't want long lines if you want your guests to stay. Ask each portable restroom rental company that you approach for their suggestion, and average your need from the answers. While you want to keep your participants comfortable, a successful event must be cost effective.

Make sure your portable toilets are well ventilated and deodorized. No explanation needed requirement.

Who will clean and restock the portable toilet rental? If you have your own people who will check on the portable toilets, replacing toilet tissue and hand sanitizer on a regular basis, you can use this to negotiate the price of maintenance. How often will you need the rented toiled cleaned, and at what level? Will they pump, pressure wash, wipe down and sanitize? How quickly will they respond to an emergency? If someone decides they will block the maintenance access point because it's a convenient parking space, will your event coordinator be notified, or will they just move on the next scheduled stop?

Are the portable toilets handicap accessible? Access the need of your event attendees with disabilities. What percentage of your rental units will need special provisions? The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that no less than one unit, but at least 5% of facilities at public events be wheelchair accessible.

Do your local ordinances require hand washing stations or any other specific provisions for your event? What about if you provide food?

How large of an area will your event encompass? If this is a wide spread event, you'll want to locate your facilities at reasonably convenient locations. When planning your event map, identify areas for placement of your portable toilet rental according to pickup/delivery and maintenance accessibility, lighting, and safety.

Would your event benefit by a luxury restroom trailer? Is it worth the money to provide this amenity for your VIP attendees? Ask about the availability and cost with each contractor you approach for a quote.

Now that you've identified your needs, you have to search out the best supplier. If you're using the internet, be aware that portable restroom rental suppliers may use a variety of keywords on their websites. Search for porta-potties, portable sanitation item rental, portable toilet, portable toilet rentals, renting portable restrooms and narrow your search by typing in your city or state.

If you're using your local business directory, contact construction companies, rental companies and local sponsors of recent events to identify rental sources.

If you've planned properly and found the right portable restroom rental company, you can turn your attention to other event activities, confident that your waste management needs are enhancing the enjoyment and comfort of your guests.

Fun-Filled 4th of July Party Ideas

4th of July is almost here! I have started planning this year's celebration well in advance. Each year I make it a point to call all my friends for a grand outdoor party at my Vermont farmhouse and believe me no one disappoints me by not turning up! We gossip, we have a live barbeque, tons of flowing beer, lots of fun games, and just spend some quality time. After all, 4th of July is all about togetherness.

Well, for folks who are planning to throw a special 4th of July party, I have some of the best party ideas to share.

Invitation

This is the first thing on my 'To do list'. Invite your friends for this year's 4th of July party in a different style! Create a series of U.S. flags on your computer and take print outs. Paste those mini flags on a thin stick. Punch two holes on the invitation card to put the flag stick through. Be a sport. Visit each of your friends in person and hand over this lovely looking invitation. Won't that just be an added surprise for them!

Decoration

Keeping in mind the traditional American theme-based party concept, why not spray paint the chairs and tables in red, white, and blue. Drape the umbrella poles in the portico with a big U.S. flag. Why leave the garden space empty, let's just spray paint the trees and bushes in tri-color as well to give it a look and feel of 4th of July.

To add more to the decorative ideas - place small printed flags on each pot in the garden and along the entrance to your house. Remember to use all kinds of vintage stuff that you have such as wooden boxes, candle sticks, old umbrella, grandpa's table and chair for styling purpose.

Costume

Fun ideas for the costume; ask your guests to dress up like their favorite 'Founding Father' or like a popular US politician imbibing the 4th of July theme in their attire. That would be both fun and innovative!

Food and Drinks

Add a patriotic color to the day's food and drinks. Put the American flag on each freshly baked tart, cakes, and cookies. Keep the barbeque going with lots of free flowing beer. Remember to have flag printed plates for the guests to use them while enjoying a dessert. You can even prepare toffees, cakes, and mini pies at home, adding red, white and blue jelly on top of them.

Crafts

A very simple and easy to make craft is creating fabric flowers. All you need is a couple of straps of fabrics in red, white, and blue and a big button of any color. Place those wonderful looking fabric flowers on the dinner table to brighten up your 4th of July party.

Happy blogging, happy reading, and keep sharing your 4th of July party ideas with me!

Starting Out In Event Management

Event Management and Wedding Planning are both big business. Huge shows, sporting events, charity events, as well as a memorable occasion for that 'special day', have made Event Management into a multi-million pound industry.

Humans are sociable creatures. We all love a good 'get together' - whether to celebrate an event such as a birthday, wedding or anniversary; or to promote something such as a product launch, political party or new season's fashions. An event can also be educational in nature (conference, meetings, graduations etc.) or even an opportunity to remember someone special via a funeral or memorial service.

Whatever the occasion, if you enjoy socialising, are hard working and good at organising, it can be a highly lucrative career running your own Event Management business.

Becoming an Event Manager or Wedding Planner is a marvellous opportunity to make money and have fun at the same time. It can be genuinely glamorous, and you have the satisfaction of knowing that you are there to make people happy. In today's fast-moving world, people don't have the time to organize their special event, so they increasingly rely on event management professionals to do it for them. Yet good Event Managers are in real short supply, even though the demand for special events is growing all the time.

So what does Event Planning involve? It's a massive topic, but you need to consider things like background research, creating a theme, finding a suitable venue, arranging good quality food and entertainment, arranging transport, sending invitations, organising event staff and supervising on the big day.
And it's not even over then! Post-event, you will need to conduct a thorough evaluation of how things went.

A useful way to start on a new career in Event Management or Wedding Planning, is to sign up for a distance learning course on the subject. By studying in your own free time, you can gain a considerable amount of knowledge and learn important kills that help you on your way to becoming a successful Event Planner and Manager. The distance learning (or 'home study') course will also give you practical advice about starting up in business and how to 'sell' your business to potential clients.

If you do go down this career path, whatever the occasion, the real challenge as an Event Manager or Wedding Planner is to make sure your event is such a success it will be remembered for years to come. What could be more empowering than that!

Market Research Tips For Event Planners

You don't need much to start an event planning business, and this means that event planners are a dime a dozen in a crowded city. Competition is fierce and you have to offer something unique lest the bigger, more established groups of event planners gobble you up.

Starting a party planning business is exciting to say the least, but a bit of reality check is needed every once in a while. One way of making sure you're not just building castles in the air is to make sure there is a market for your party planning business. Specialization is an option for event planners who want to corner a certain target market. For example, you could focus on the debutants and plan your business model around this group of people. However, if you feel that girls and parents won't readily spend on debutant balls, you can choose to target the bachelorettes who are more likely to shell out cash for a memorable hen party.

Event planners should engage in market research to....

1. Gauge the acceptability of your service or product
2. Isolate the specific needs of your target market
3. Estimate the scope of your target market
4. Decide on the best strategy to adopt
5. Identify your biggest competitors, and
6. Find a way to make your service more unique

You can delineate your target market according to their demographics (age, gender, income, religion, education etc.), geographical location (urban or suburban area) and psychographic traits (lifestyle, personalities and values). Remember that there is always that untapped market that your competitors are ignoring. Finding out where these people hang out and what their main concerns are will enable you to corner the market more effectively.

It's safe to assume that event planners are among the shrewdest among all the business people in a locality. They can sniff opportunity from a mile away and will always find ways to pitch their services to prospects. They have to be aggressive because the event planning business is highly dependent on trends and market demands (e.g "Jeez girl, didn't you know that carnation corsages are now considered tacky?"). You must also undergo a thorough self-analysis to determine your best selling position. Here are some questions you need to ask yourself.

1. Do you have enough passion for the business to outlast your competition?
2. Can you afford to give out generous discounts to new prospects who can promote you well in the long run (i.e. well-connected individuals, socialites etc.)?
3. Do you have loyal employees to cover your back just in case you need to work on simultaneous projects?
4. What's unique about your service?
5. Do you have enough suppliers to support your growing business? and
6. Do you have a plan B?

Now, you are probably asking...what is a plan B for event planners? No, it's definitely not "quitting". The main purpose of a plan B is for you to keep your business going and earning even when your major plans are going to the dumpster. One good plan B is to go back to your roots. Before you became a jack of all trades, you specialized in one aspect of party planning (catering, restaurant, public relations, advertising, crafts, interior design, venue reservation etc.). If business is slow or if your competition is too big for you to handle, the best thing to do is to regroup, re-organize and go back to the drawing board.

Top 5 Reasons Why Faith Based Organizations Use Feature-Rich Event Management Solutions

One of the top priorities of faith based organizations is to raise funds on a regular basis. By boosting fundraising initiatives, such organizations spread their cause and get more members in the most effective manner. Significantly, due to the growing number of faith based organizations across the world, it has become essential for these organizations to adopt effective strategies that make their mission successful. Fundraising events enable such organizations to promote their cause and attract more donors and sponsors.

Managing fundraising events is a major challenge for the faith based organizations. To assist them in hosting successful fundraising events, a wide range of comprehensive event management solutions have arrived in the market. These event management solutions offer several benefits to these organizations. Some of these benefits include the following:

Online Registration

For event organizers, the key challenge lies in inducing prospective attendees to sign up for the event. Simplified online registration facilities aid in drawing more registrants. With a click of the mouse, registrants can complete the registration process within a few minutes.

Marketing Capabilities

One of the key factors that determine the success of your event is promotion. Cutting edge event management solutions come equip with powerful marketing tools that help in event promotion. Organizers can create customized emails to spread awareness about their upcoming events. In addition, these solutions support social networking sites that have become popular platforms for creating a buzz about upcoming events.

Customizable Registration Pages

Understanding your attendees properly helps in putting an event together successfully. As an event organizer, you should have a clear understanding of what your attendees expect from your event to cater to them. With customizable registration pages, you can select the questions for the registrants and procure relevant data. Moreover, you can design the pages according to your corporate brand with your own logos and graphics. This makes your registration pages more professional looking.

Reporting Features

To gauge the success of their events, event planners depend on a wide range of reports that provide an at a glance view of the number of registrants, attendees, and more. Comprehensive event management tools offer excellent reporting features. You can access various reports such as attendee reports, sales reports and check in reports to have complete control over your events.

Simplified Payment Management

With an objective to streamline payment processing, advanced event management solutions offer excellent payment management services. By opting for these solutions, you can easily monitor all financial transactions, process refunds and reconcile transaction. Most of these solutions support multiple payment gateways and offer a comprehensive view of all the financial transactions made for the event. As a result, both registrants and administrators find it easier to deal with payment processing.

In addition to these benefits, feature-rich event management solutions enable faith based organizations to reduce administrative workload and focus on improving efficiencies. Notably, cost effective event management solutions are available for all kinds of events, irrespective of their scale and budget. These solutions provide high a ROI and assist in exceeding expectations.

Event Planners Must Have Multiple Skills for the 1,000 of Tasks and Multiple Jobs For Success

Welcome to the fabulous world of event planning! If you have a special event, meeting, concert, festival, or party to produce, plan, or coordinate, you have come to the right place. Events do not just happen by themselves; they are well planned, specifically orchestrated, and extremely coordinated. Preparation is the key to any successful event. Remember, a planner is responsible for the education, entertainment, feeding, housing, safety, and care of all attending or participating in your events. It is a huge responsibility and not to be taken lightly.

Event planning is a process that starts by delineating the beginning and the end of the event. At that point, it becomes a project and you are the project manager! It is not like your typical job where you go in and do the same thing every day. Your tasks and responsibilities change each day during the process and will be different with each event. You will need to be skilled in many areas of the event business. What hat will I wear today?

There is always something new or different to enhance the logistics and creativity of planning an event. Things are changing all the time, whether it is new technology, new ways to "green" your event, social media and networking services and applications, new or remodeled venues, contracts, or insurance laws; it is wise to keep up with new developments in all of these areas.

Each event is complex and diverse with unique characteristics. There can be thousands of details associated with one event. You will wear many hats, juggle a number of tasks simultaneously, and use many skills. The job of the event planner varies according to the size, the scope, and the complexity of your event. You will be responsible for any number of different tasks; including but not limited to:

• Client consultation


• Setting budgets


• Choosing dates


• Selecting and inspecting a location


• Negotiating with and choosing suppliers


• Arranging transportation


• Negotiating room rates and booking blocks of hotel rooms


• Arranging catering


• Booking entertainment or speakers


• Writing copy for publicity


• Creating a Facebook page and twitter account


• Gathering leads for potential participants


• Writing social media content


• Choosing printers


• Creating agendas


• Hiring security


• Signing contracts


• Dealing with lawyers


• Compiling participants' packets


• Gathering and directing volunteers


• Sticking on labels


• Shipping boxes

You will be interacting with chief executive officers, talent agents, general managers, waiters, house cleaners, and everyone in-between. You will meet or talk to different people every day. Therefore, communication skills are necessary!

For those of you new to event planning, finding a complete guidebook will direct your progress, help organize your time, provide you with resources and suggestions, keep you focused, and allow you to look as though you have been an event planner for years. Best of all, it may keep you from making the costly and time-consuming mistakes thousands of planners have made before you. Just one or two of the tips from an experienced planner can save you a great deal of money on one event alone and possibly save your job as well! And be flexible. One of the most important characteristics of an event planner is flexibility.

Tips To Give Your Company Picnic Bling To Make It A Big Hit For Everyone!

Throwing a company picnic involves more than just setting a date, hiring a caterer, and choosing a location. Yes, that's the list of basics if you just want a routinely boring event. Your company picnic offers the opportunity to do more than provide some food in a relaxing atmosphere. To get more from your picnic, there are a few things that must happen before the big event.

Goals of Your Company Picnic

First, let's decide what you want to accomplish with the company picnic... do you just want to say thanks to your employees, give employees the chance to get to know each other on a personal basis, to honor an employee, or to celebrate a company event. If you know what you want to accomplish, before you begin to plan your picnic you'll be much more likely to create the atmosphere required to get the desired actions.

Once you know what you want to accomplish choosing the theme for your company picnic becomes much easier. The theme of your company picnic can be centered on the season, a holiday, or it can be company related, such as a new acquisition, or increased performance, or whatever positive event has occurred within the company. Your imagination is the only limit when choosing themes.

Let's say your goal is to provide time for your employees to get to know each other in a more personal way. Team events are a great way to evoke open communication and build unity. Friendly competition gives your employees a chance to be in the limelight and gather support from co-workers. So be sure to include a team event at your picnic.

Location

Choosing the location also plays an important role. Using the previous example, the attendees are much more likely to converse and enjoy each others company if they are in one specific location. Let's say you have decided to hold the company picnic at a local park. Rather than just say come to the park and lunch will be served at twelve. Set times for specific events, like slow pitch softball beginning at 10:30, trail walk for the kids at 11:15, volleyball game at 1:00.

Choosing activities and entertainment for your company picnic also needs to revolve around the theme and your underlying goals. In addition, you need to be sure to keep the needs and tastes of those attending in mind as you plan this aspect of your company picnic. Planning for employees only, versus employees and family results in different types of agendas, so make sure to include activities for every age group within the crowd.

Allow sufficient time to give your attendees advance notice before the company picnic, so they can include your event in their plans. Make sure everyone attending knows the schedule of events and what's happening before the day of the event. This helps everyone be able to prepare and bring any necessary items.

Add the "Bling" to Your Company Picnic

Next it is time to add the "bling". To make your company picnic shine, get creative. Banners, balloons and other decorations add a sense of festivity. Music and entertainment are other components to add to the zest of the picnic.

Giving prizes also adds excitement to a company picnic. Holding a drawing for prizes serves more than one function. These prizes create a sense of employee appreciation. They will also ensure that attendees of the picnic linger and socialize.

Planning, scheduling, and finding providers for food, beverages, entertainment, and music can be time consuming. Finding and meeting with a host of providers and coordinating everything can sometimes be time consuming and put a strain the budget. Often it is easier to contact event planners and compare prices and services.

Using an event planner reduces the time involved and also ensures no detail is omitted. Event planners will assist you with every aspect of your company picnic...even suggesting company picnic ideas. All you need to do is set the specifics of what you want and they will take care of the rest. Everything is be included- food, beverages, activities, entertainment and music.

It is a good idea to confirm everything relating to the picnic plans at least two weeks prior to the event. This allows enough time to solve any problem issues without rush or panic. Even of you have chosen to use an event planner, you still want to make contact to ensure everything is going as scheduled.

Effectively planning your company picnic will create a day of fun and relaxation. Great food, fun activities, good prizes, and hopefully sunny weather along with your creative ideas all comes together for a memorable event. Ready, set...plan and enjoy!

Promote Corporate Social Responsibility by Using Eco-Friendly Event Transportation Services

Enlisting sustainable event transportation services is a cost-effective way for companies to illustrate and promote their corporate social responsibility to the environment. It illustrates concern for the planet and a willingness to go the extra mile and do its part in minimizing the company's carbon footprint. On the other hand, it shows that the organization's move towards sustainability does not compromise its ability to make a profit.

Using fuel-efficient hybrids and other eco-friendly vehicles to transport employees, media, and clients to conferences or company-wide seminars can go a long way to improve a corporation's image to the public eye. After all, good publicity from the press can carry just as much weight as a CEO's engaging speech regarding corporate social responsibility.

Hybrid cars and vehicles offer a fair compromise for users by combining an electric motor with a gasoline engine, drastically cutting down on emissions while enabling them to share a similar performance to dedicated gasoline machines. When companies enlist the event transportation services of a capable eco-friendly provider, they're able to enjoy a wide selection of automobiles and vehicles that are just as much about luxury and presence as they are about fuel-efficiency.

For instance, some offices can provide transport options such as the Toyota Highlander Hybrid, a vehicle that comes with an emission-free and all-electric mode, while still retaining an impressive 270 HP gas/electric engine. A company that opts to transport its VIPs to their next investor's meetings in a fleet of sleek, fuel-efficient hybrids also sends another important message-that while they are committed to offsetting their carbon footprint, it doesn't mean they've forgotten how to increase their bottom line.

A company that enlists eco-friendly event transportation services can further drive home this point by making sure each of the company's VIPs are cared for as soon as they arrive. Getting into specifics, this can mean arranging for greeters the minute they step off the airport and arranging suitable accommodations at premium, conveniently located hotels. It can even be as simple as selecting drivers who are trained not to idle their vehicles when they're not on the move.

For any organization that's gradually opening its doors to sustainable energy, the services of a capable transportation services provider can help make their journey more manageable. This is especially true if the transportation provider that was hired has years of experience in advocating the use of eco-friendly vehicles for both corporate and public use.

Try to Use an Online Camp Management Software to Save Time and Cost

Camps are organized throughout the year to satisfy different motives and goals. For example, governments of various countries arranges camps to provide shelter and protection to refugees and nationals who have lost their homes because of some natural calamities or war. We also find many organizations planning summer camps for kids or adults to let them enjoy the day and participate in various fun-filled activities. Now, whether a State organizes a camp or a professional institute, there is an urgent need to manage these camps properly to save time and cost.

Managing camps, especially the big ones is a mammoth task. You need to handle the registration phase as well as fee collection to ensure the success of the camping experience. An online camp management software can help you streamline and handle such elements of the camping registration process at an affordable cost. It is because of the cost effective nature that we see the majority of camp organizers turning towards using the Cloud-based camp management solution instead of manually controlling and supervising the event.

Technology is slowly overpowering the manual aspects of executing a task. Let's see how such a solution is helping the camp owners manage work professionally.

Camp Registration Forms

You can create, design and publish the camp registration forms just like your existing hard copy forms. The only difference being is that instead of printing the form on paper, you publish it on the website. I Interested individuals can start filling it up their details as soon as it is uploaded on the website. If there is a need to enhance and publicize the organization's brand value and corporate identity, it can be done by customizing the forms to make them look like your camp website. You can even add any number of questions on the forms to gather relevant details from each registrant.

Confirmation Emails

With an online management app, you no longer need to print and post individual confirmation letters to the respective registrants. You can quickly send confirmation group emails to all the participants after the successful completion of registration as well as any links or attachments that needs to be filled out.

Payments Collection

Cloud-based camp management app will let you accept registration fees using one's credit cards and such other leading payment gateways. As a camp organizer, you can utilize the online payment solution to send refunds or chargeback to individuals who decide to withdraw their registration due to some personal reason.

Generation of Online Reports

After the camp gets over, the next key element is to generate a variety of reports to measure the specific aspects of business activities and ROI. Online generation of reports saves time and you can create multiple reports and store them on a single activity dashboard in minutes. All registrant plus their payment details get automatically stored in the solution database; hence you can instantly access them online to import them in excel or such standard formats.

4 Tips for Surviving With Online Event Management Solution

In the world of business, many situations crop up that can create challenges to the budget of a corporate organization. Some are beyond the control of the organization such as the falling state of the economy worldwide. However, some factors are within the reach of an organization which includes including planning and management of an event, its marketing strategies, and deciding on your sources of funding. A smart professional will always choose solutions that are easy to adapt to and work with at an affordable price.

Perhaps, an online event management solution can give you the kind of respite you are looking for. Let's find out how event organizers can survive and grow in these challenging times using an online event management solution.

Controlled Budget

Before planning an event, an individual needs to finalize the amount of money to be spent in executing all the phases and aspects to make it come together. It is also important to keep a tab on the variable sources of funding to execute the plan of action.. After you finalize the budget you can then decide on the event venue, number of invitees, venue decoration, and so on. An online event management solution can help you arrange an event within a restricted budget. With this system in place, you don't need to rent a venue because a webinar can be arranged conveniently with the attendees joining in from their respective places over the internet.

Online Registration

The registration part can be managed in a hassle-free manner, if it is transferred to the online domain. You can save printing and domestic postage expenses plus additional cost of international couriers. Online registration system is eco-friendly eliminating the need of paper usage. Additionally, you can create and publish sign up pages and choose a template that best meets with the design of your corporate website and business goals. Feel free to customize the sign up pages adding your company logo or banner.

Easy Payment Methods

There are a host of online payment methods and gateways that can be integrated with this platform. These payment modes are becoming very popular these days because of faster processing and transfer of payments via cyberspace. En-cashing checks can take up to 3 days whereas your registrants need to visit your organization in person to pay via direct cash. These processes are quite time-consuming and a way out is going the online route. Many event organizers are using online payment options (credit cards, PayPal, etc.) to accept event entry fees from would-be attendees.

Event Marketing

Many event planners fail to regulate their marketing budget because of unnecessary wastage of money on less important, promotional channels that yield no satisfactory results. Hence, you first need to complete a thorough research on the most popular and time-tested marketing channels in use let's say by your competitors. Decide your own marketing plan after giving this its due thought. Besides, printed promotional adverts on newspapers and leaflets, it is good to have an online marketing plan to have better sales results. Social media, websites, and blogs are increasingly being used to create awareness amongst people about events and push people towards registering for the same.

Charity Event Tips: Best Auctionable Items for Your Charity Event

An evening at a memorable charity event is sure to inspire attendees to donate more money to a charitable organization. And, event planners must take advantage of this willingness when setting up one of the most important fundraisers of the night-The Auction.

So, how can event planners know what will reap in the most profits? One study, which asked charity event goers what type of auction items they would most prefer to bid on, showed that unique experiences (like lunch with a celebrity) are the most popular choices with a leading 29% vote. However, over 28% of other voters said that tickets to a sporting event or a concert would be just as preferable. Beauty or fashion items, complimentary dinners, and memorabilia were the least preferred choices consecutively.

Charities should not be surprised by such data. It's already been established that today's up and coming philanthropists crave priceless experiences. And what makes a priceless experience? Being a part of something, like an event they can share with friends, that they simply wouldn't trade for anything else. Keeping this in mind, it is obvious that inert objects like memorabilia and fashion items are the last things that people are hoping to bid for at a charity event.

According to recent research done by an organization which works with successful non-profits every day and helps sell out events through their new online ticketing service, the best advice a charity organization can take is to focus auctions around getting more mileage (and profit) by offering trips, outings, and communal opportunities rather than stuff.

3 Tips for Effective Special Event Planning

It wouldn't be summer gala season without a new string of articles by nonprofit bloggers and journalists questioning the efficacy of special events. Among them, the Nonprofit Quarterly's, Special Events: Are they an addiction?, highlights some common gala dangers and pitfalls: your audience's ambivalence to your cause post-event, questionable return on investment, and misuse of your Board and staff's time and energy.

For many organizations, a strategically planned event is one of your nonprofit's most effective tools for building awareness and loyal supporters. (Notice the adverb and adjective there -- they're crucial.) Before nixing the idea of a gala or special event, consider the following three details, which are among the most frequently neglected components of event planning.

1. Prepare a Detailed Run of Show: We have heard this from some event planners before:
Once everyone has made their way into the dining area around 7, each of our speakers will talk for 3 to 5 minutes or so. We will serve dinner after the speakers are done, and once it seems like everyone is about finished eating, around 8:30 or 9ish, we'll move on to the live auction which will take between 30 and 45 minutes. Then the CEO will give some final thoughts and we'll wrap up the program.

Based on that plan of action, your program could take anywhere from 2 to 3 and a half hours. The problem with a vague run of show is that each of the program elements creeps outside of its poorly defined time limit. Crowd-herding doesn't finish until 7:09, each of your speakers ends up speaking for 5 and half minutes (ish), dinner is served late, and the CEO waxes poetic for a whopping 20 minutes. The result? Your audience becomes disengaged from the lengthy program, and running off-schedule reflects poorly on your organization.

Keep things timely and running smoothly with a detailed run of show. Not only does a chronological list of what's-happening-when guide components your guests experience directly, but it can also help manage elements that should be occurring behind the scenes. For example, if you want people to move out of the cocktail reception area by 7, your run of show might include a note for the bar tenders to stop serving alcohol at 6:50. If people will be leaving the event at 10, you can schedule volunteers to start preparing the gift table at 9:15. A run of show also gives you a sense of how much time you're budgeting for each component of your program. A common mistake we see is that nonprofits try to cram too many speakers into the program. This has the dual negative effect that speakers have to rush through their commentary and guests start tuning out.

A detailed, down-to-the-minute run of show ensures your program is tight and stays on schedule.

2. Create a Line Item Budget in Advance: One of the biggest anxieties our clients face is creating (and maintaining) their event budget. Most have an easy enough time determining the overall budget for the event, but things quickly become more complicated when determining what percentage of that overall budget should go to each event expense. Let's say your event budget is $40,000. If your approach to event budgeting is to deduct expenses from that total amount as you go, you run the risk of unwittingly going over budget. $10,000 for the venue, $10,000 for catering, $5,000 for printing, $10,000 for A/V, $5,000 for decor and... Whoops -- we've already blown through our entire budget and haven't factored in insurance, vendors, taxes, accommodations for honorees.

Avoid a monetary shock half way through your planning by creating a detailed line item budget at the start of the project. Having a baseline to compare your budgeted vs. actual expenses will help you see where cuts and compromises need to be made. Did your venue end up costing $8,000 instead of $10,000 as you anticipated? Great! Or, did the venue end up costing $12,000? OK, just keep in mind that you'll need to pull $2,000 from some other line item or increase your event budget accordingly. Preparing these numbers in advance will ensure your event stays on budget and won't cut into your profits.

3. Develop a Follow-Up Strategy: There's a common adage that "people don't plan to fail, they fail to plan." We couldn't agree more; in fact this advice should live beyond the day of the event into your post-event follow up. There is no way your event will be wrapped up when the lights go down at the end of the night. In fact, a sign of a successful event is lots of loose ends: new donors to thank personally, potential partners to meet with, and a whole new audience to engage with in a strategic and timely fashion. Before the big day, be sure you have created a follow-up strategy. Some good questions to get you started include:

•How will you get contact information for people whose information you don't have from the RSVP list? Your approach can be as simple and straightforward as having a bowl for business cards at registration.

•What is your post-event communications plan? Categorize and prioritize your audience (both those who attended and those who did not). Establish how key contacts will be contacted and by whom.

•Is the event being hosted out of town? Schedule a few days post-event for a representative of your executive staff or Board to follow up with important contacts in person.

•Draft a thank you email in advance so you can send it to attendees shortly after the event. Find a way to personalize the message with a sample of photos from the event, quotes or major highlights, etc.

Strategic Planning Essentials For Your Business Success

Strategic planning is essential to the success of any business. You have to look at strategic planning from a global perspective. That means the big picture - not minute details, but, its direction and scope. You start by thinking about your ultimate monetary goals for the year, product development goals, and workshop/teleseminar goals and more importantly, how you're going to reach those goals.

Then, use backward planning to develop your plan. That means you work with the end result in mind. It's a road map to get you where you need to go and where you want to go.

Strategic planning is critical to keeping a focus in your business. Again, if you don't have a plan, and you don't know where you want to go, most likely you're not going to get there.

Strategic plans can be long-term plans or shorter term plans, but typically, strategic planning is a longer-term plan. Ideally, you would have your current year plus a minimum of 6 months past that, or 18 months.

If that thought makes you cringe - hold on! Think about your marketing cycles for each of the events you schedule. The further out the events are, just "pencil them in". A strategic plan is not in set concrete. If you need to change or shift gears - do it! There is a lot of flexibility within your plan.

You will have other plans in place as well. Like your implementation plans and your specific marketing plan for each specific event. So your strategic plan is a global overview of where you want to go and the events that must happen to get there. Your marketing plan will include everything you need to implement, item by item. So the two plans work together, hand-in-hand, to bring you the business result you want.

But, hold on you say! I already have goals & objectives for my business - isn't that enough? That's a good start, but you need to take it one step farther.

Just having goals and objectives for your business isn't quite enough. Everybody has good intentions. Most entrepreneurs have goals - ideas and ideas and ideas. Few are implementer's, and don't really know what it takes to get the job done - they just want it done.

Developing a plan forces the entrepreneur and staff to come together and put some structure to the goals. Action plans, written down, with accountability systems, tend to get done.

So the first step is identifying your business goals and objectives. Your strategic plan is partly how you're going to reach those goals and objectives.

Here's an example... Let's say, your goal is to make $1 million this year. Your next thought should be, how am I going to make it? How many events, coaching groups, products, workshops and seminars do I have to do to get there? What is my marketing budget? How much am I willing to spend on getting a new client? How many staff will be required to accomplish my goals? The answers to these questions are key to making your strategic plan.

So while keeping the end result in mind, you may want to say, if I want to make $1 million this year, I can make $200,000 in seminars as profit. How many seminars am I willing to do? Five would get you there. You decide as the business owner and entrepreneur. You may also have product sales. Your product sales in the year may generate $300,000. Factor that into your plan. Get the picture? Brainstorm and write it down.

You can quickly see that by thinking about your strategic plan with your goals and objectives in mind, you can start to sketch out exactly what it's going to take to get you where you want to be.

The responsibility of developing your plan lies with you - the business owner and entrepreneur. After all, whose business is it anyway?

If you're the business owner, it's critical for you to decide your financial and monetary goals for each business year. You don't have to share them or delegate that responsibility to anyone because it is solely your decision. Once you have decided your monetary goals and your budgets, and all of those personal business decisions, you take your overall plan to key people in your staff to build out the details.

So the bottom line is, if you're the business owner, you make the decisions - you are in the driver's seat - figure out where you're going and your staff will help you get there.

Integrating Event, Incident and Problem Management

Change, Change, Change. What needs to change as IT organizations move towards sophisticated virtualized infrastructure? Event/Incident and Problem Management integration of course!

We have been conducting polls of our customers and of IT professionals at technology trade shows for the past two years and the results are in: Pulling together all of the management pieces and processes is even more crucial in a virtualized environment.

So what does this mean for you? You will need to refine your incident and problem management processes with new technologies in order to reduce downtime and maintain end user performance. But of course even the most basic technologies are not well integrated even in today's world.

I recently participated in a Gartner Conference and watched to my amazement a real-time electronic survey of the audience. To my disbelief, the audience, filled with 300+ people from Fortune 2000 companies provided real-time responses to the question:

What level of integration does your IT org have between event management and service desk applications? None: 10%. Manual Phone call from IT ops to IT service desk staff member: 46%. Manual click button on event manager to open trouble ticket: 20%. Automated event management system automatically opens trouble ticket without requiring human oversight or approval: 24%.

Unbelievable - still very few of the survey respondents have yet to formalize problem management systems with event management systems. For 56% of the audience the process is still manual!

Another interesting real-time survey question at the Gartner Conference was: Who in your organization is responsible for critical problem processes and resolution? IT Service Desk 13%. IT Operations 49%. Process Team 12%. Other 9%. Responsibility not formalized 17%.

Virtualization adoption and the speed with which things change in a virtualized environment require automation and will transform Incident and Problem Management. Clearly with this new technology we are required to re-think Organizational, Behavioral and Cultural Challenges required to take advantage of the opportunities that virtualization provides.

Incident and problem management processes and metrics must bridge organizational silos that have been the norm within IT. With virtualization, people have to work more closely together in the different silos than ever before. IT leaders need to break down the walls between the technology-centric silo mentalities.

Business Imperative Action Plan:

What can you do today? Understand the impact of virtualization on incident and problem mgt. workload, provide technology training for helpdesk/service desk staff.

What can you do in the next 12 months? Formalize problem management processes, metrics and personnel.

Invest in tools and processes for systems on virtualized servers. Long term: On the Radar Screen!Instill teamwork into all groups responsible for the virtualized environment service and support. Map components and configuration items directly to end user services.

Final Thoughts: Know the management pieces and ensure that they fit together. It's great to buy new technology, but be demanding to ensure that your vendors show you have they will help to link all these pieces together - Change, Inventory, Incident, Problem, Server, Capacity, Performance, Configuration, Event, and Integrated Workflow.

How A Wedding Planner Book Can Save You Thousands Of Dollars When Planning Your Wedding

A good wedding planner book forms part of a wedding planners toolkit and is maybe the most essential element in the wedding planner's arsenal. This book can literally be the difference between success and failure and time and again proved of immense value when planning a wedding event.

Many times brides don't have money to make use of a professional wedding planner. To actually get married, she then needs to plan the wedding event herself. This is when it becomes very important for this "novice" in the field to use a "little" bit of help to guide her along with the planning process. As a professional wedding planner I have seen some great weddings brides planned, but also some disastrous events that are still the talk of town today where the bride attempted to plan the event without the proper tools. So what makes a wedding event successful when a bride doesn't have the luxury of hiring the services of a professional wedding planner?

The following statement sums up the answer: The bride needs the proper toolkit to make sure the wedding is successful. Period! As some sort of guidance what should typically be included in this toolkit, I have listed the following key elements a planning toolkit should have:

繚 A good planning book that is the guide the bride works from

繚 Inspirational ideas on ALL the elements of the wedding event

繚 Time

繚 Innovative inspirational ideas

繚 Help from others such as friends and family

From the above you can clearly see that all future actions actually flows from the guidelines set out in a good planning book. So how does one choose the right planning guide that will make sure the success of the wedding event for the DIY bride? Here are some important attributes such a planning book must have:

繚 Must be comprehensive and cover all aspects of a wedding event

繚 Must be a clearly set out guide

繚 Must be inspirational to give guidance on ideas

繚 Must be practical and in line with current trends

繚 Must be an easy read

繚 Must have a wedding budget schedule

繚 Must have a wedding planning checklist

From the above you definitely see that the correct wedding planner book is surely a life saver when planning a wedding either for a DIY bride or a professional wedding event planner. This book also make sure that the wedding event planner stays on the right path and this make sure a lot of money get saved and preventing costly mistakes. So make sure you have a successful wedding by choosing the right wedding planner book!

Event Planning Training - How To Name An Event Planning Business

It is commonly said that the title of a book is half of the information about the book, and it is really true in the case of naming a new company. For a businessman, deciding name for the business is like naming a new born baby. Name leaves a great impact on others and it reflects the intensity of the business. You can name your business by having some important points in mind.

Subject: During event planning training you are trained to arrange different kinds of events but there would be some specific events which you can handle nicely so you can name your business according to that. If you are a wedding and party planner then select a name related to the subject that creates a colorful and joyful feeling inside and on the other hand if you are good at conference or business meetings then go for a sophisticated name that shows the grace and commitment of the company.

Different language: this is another interesting way to acquire client's attention. Select a name from any other language which has a good meaning related to your business; it can grab the attention of the client easily. But make sure to select a melodious name. You need to deal foreigner clients as well so in event planning training students are encouraged to learn different foreign languages and this could be a good step to get attention of foreign clients as well.

Simple and short: it is better to select a simple and short name, it dose not mean to select a common or old fashioned name, but make sure that the name you select can easily be pronounced and spelled, so every one can take your company's name with out any obstacle.

Use of puns: in event planning training people are taught to use creativity, and use of puns shows your creativity; it explains your work in dual meaning and makes it interesting. A little bit change in spelling can make it more noticeable for the people for example if you want to name your company ''Cool Parties'' you can write ''Kool Parties''; this might grab the attention of the people.

Logo: Never forget the importance of the logo for your company, so when you choose a name, see if it fits in the logo you design for the company?

Personal name: some people prefer to give their own names to their business, it is fine but still if you want to bring a little change or creativity, you can use the initials in bold for example John Smith (J S).

Make sure to choose an impressive and meaningful name for your business that grabs the attention of the client.

5 Biggest Mistakes in Event Planning

Everyone wants to have the best of the best for their events, and of course, at their events. Therefore, providing a relevant theme is necessary, as well as the music, the food, and of course, a good crowd. Though it sounds all easy and fullproof, some events are planned poorly, causing an anticipated experience to turn into a huge flop. Though only five mistakes out of an entire production, these factors can make or break your function and even your reputation.

1. Lack of social media. Hello! Get with the times. To get attention from people you have to go where they always are; that's either their cell phone or laptop. Facebook, Twitter, and Linked-In are three of the largest social media sites out now, but there are plenty more. Get there, make an account, add people you want to reach, and share your message. The best part of this is that it is free! You can create your own buzz.

2. No Strategy.All our lives we are taught to brainstorm, create three or more rough drafts, and make outlines. Why lose that lesson when it comes to event planning? Start with an outline. Include the amount of people expected, how to get to the venue, the interior, and the supplies you'll need,. When planning, imagine as if the event is happening as you plan so when it is actually time for the event, you have worked through all of the kinks.

3. Over promise, under deliver. No one likes to be expecting one thing and end up getting the complete opposite. Do not hype your event to be the best thing since touch screen and it becomes a huge disappointment. Have confidence in your function, but do not over do it. Give it enough excitement, but leave room for your guest to coin it as the best thing ever. If you gas the event, it can backfire if it does not deliver. Disappointed guest will speak and you would not want your name tagged to anything less than worthy.

4. Following up. People have lives. Everyone you are trying to reach may not get the message at the same time so you have to follow up on your event. Do not sent out one post a week before the event and do not speak of it until the day of. Post daily reminders and key information that will get the guest you are attempting to reach prepared for the party. If they ask questions, answer them. They want to know that they are being considered.

5. Targeting a small audience. It is comfortable to invite just the people you know and a few that they know, however there is no gain. Expand your message and share your expertise. Do not just invite the same people you go out with. Reach people in other circles from other places, but who have same interest. Broaden yourself. This can open up doors for you and even more event planning. Network!

Make a checklist with these five tips and apply them to your outline to make sure you are in the right direction. Avoiding these mistakes by paying them close detail, can definitely bring you and your event great success. The better planned, the better outcome, the more events for your and your business!

What Is Perceived Value?

An essential ingredient in either being a successful leader, or a successful event planner/ organizer, is the creation of perceived value. It is important for leaders and organizers to understand that there is a significant difference between actual value and perceived value. Where actual value may be measured, for example, in monetary terms, perceived value is often far more difficult and challenging to measure. The Free Merriam- Webster dictionary, idictionary.com offers definitions for perception such as "a mental image; physical sensation interpreted in the light of experience; quick, acute, and cognitive cognition" as primary and relevant meanings. However, as it pertains to leadership, perceived value should be thought of as the value that others place on what is being offered. If addressed properly, effective and intuitive leaders make sure that they emphasize perceived value, and thus prioritize expenses, and appeals. On the other hand, in my over thirty years of working with leaders, far more individuals in leadership positions tend to minimize emphasis on perceived value, and offer spend monies on items that others do not feel provide value.

1. Members perceive open communication as providing significant value. While the leader who reaches out and emphasizes communication, by be disciplined enough to consistently write and communicate their Blog, make telephone calls, jot little personal notes, and use personalized (or at least appearing personalized) emails enhance members perception of being offered something valuable, because perception is to a large degree, experience and attitude based.

2. Event planners need to really emphasize the concept of perceived value. In order to attract potential attendees and sponsors/ supporters to an event, those individuals need to feel that their involved has a true value. This must be a combination of highlighting the benefits and needs of the event, as well as the "what's in it for me" perspective. As a professional event planner and conference organizer, I am convinced that perceived value is certainly not strictly based on what is being spent to put on the event. Rather, it is based on how attractive the schedule or flow sheet appears, how this event compares to the competition (yes, organizations, especially not- for- profits, must realize that there is lots of competition for time, involvement, and monies), how well the negotiator negotiated, proper prioritization, and a keen eye on perceived value. Free (to the organization) items like certain games and activities, walking tours, etc., go a long way towards giving the appearance of value. Event organizers must understand that from a perceived value perspective offering more included Food and Beverage functions (for the price) makes far more sense than spending excessively on costly (but not perceived value) items such as spending lavishly on one event, spending a fortune on speakers, excessive comps, etc.

Leaders who think about perceived value almost always set priorities that the majority of potential and actual members (and in the case of events, attendees) consider valuable. One cannot over- estimate the perceived value and tone that friendly and helpful people create, and the potentials obstacles that are avoided when individuals are made to feel welcome and wanted.

Why Do Well-Planned Events Often Fail?

In spite of spending countless hours planning an event, you find that the end-result does not meet your financial objectives. In-spite of investing a good amount of time planning the event, you don't see many heads turning up for your much-awaited meeting, seminar or business conference. If you critically look at your events, then you might find that you haven't done a very good job of planning the program.
Let's go through the smartest tips for organizing a successful event.

Marketing Your Show

Having more money doesn't mean you have marketed you show satisfactorily. You need to think hard before you invest your company capital on promotional activities. For example, plan out a strategy for marketing your products and activities, both offline and online. It means, in addition to giving ads in several popular newspapers and magazines, open accounts on leading social networking websites to market your function. It is an excellent way to attract a larger audience to your website to initially register for the conference or fundraiser.

Registration Problem

Try to analyze if everything all right with the event registration process. Are people facing any problems while completing the manual registration process? Is the attendance falling because many individuals are unable to be present during the stipulated registration times? An online registration solution offers potential registrants the freedom to complete the sign up process at their convenience. People can access the forms, 24x7 from any part of the world.

Reaching Out to Maximum People

Ask yourself, if you have reached out to all the target audience? Have you exploited all possible ways of convincing the contacts to attend your program? These are the most important questions for which you need to know the answer to before you evaluate further on the reasons for which your well-planned event failed. You can reach out to the maximum number of people via social media websites. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, MySpace, and such other tools can be used to inform more people about your gathering and such other occasions.

High Ticket Price

In this period of economic crisis, people don't feel like going to an event if the ticket price is sky-high. Even if the show has their favorite singer or actor, still the number of footfalls will be less compared to what you had actually projected. Hence, event organizers should keep tickets moderately priced to have a sell-out full house event generating high revenues.