People Power

Harness the power of your people and plan a seamless event.

In the same way that many elements are required to pull off an amazing event, it also takes a variety of people to make it happen.

As it’s important at every conference or business event for an organisation to showcase the very best version of itself (to their staff, clients, key stakeholders, etc.) it’s vital that each member of your team works together seamlessly. We’ve all been in a position where one grumpy staff member has given us a bad impression or left us feeling as though an experience could’ve been done better. The same applies for your guests. From the moment a delegate or guest arrives at your event, you’ll want to make a good impression and it only takes one person to drop the ball to create a bad one. Since you only get one chance to make a first impression, here are a few reasons why working as a team is always a better strategy than flying solo and some ideas on ensuring you get the very best out of your event team.

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Working as a team also promotes idea sharing and as the saying goes, a problem shared is a problem halved. When you use a small team, issues are typically resolved faster. Round up your internal team from the start, don’t wait until the last minute. Bringing in extra people at the last minute can be a recipe for miscommunication and the risk of important things being overlooked. Having a well-formed functional team right from the start means everyone understand ins and out of the event and is invested into it from the begining.

Break down your conference into the parts requiring extra people power and find out who is able to assist.  Remember to check with the venue if they are offering any extra staff that could assist with certain aspects of the event, such as 'human' direction/location signage. Since a guest’s first experience is generally registration or ticketing, start there and do it well. Talk to your team and think about what a guest might encounter during registration. Think about who on your team might be the best ‘ambassador’ for your event. From there, work your way through the event and appoint team members to take responsibility for each part of the event.

Start the briefing process early and prepare specific, clear directions for everyone involved. Schedule regular catch ups with your team in the lead up to the event. If you can’t all meet regularly, project tracking and productivity websites like Trello can be a huge help for everyone to work collaboratively from different locations and still stay on the same page.

About a week out, get your team together and brief each team member, filtering the information to the staff member it involves. Even better, create customised briefs for each member of your team so they know they’re important to the event and exactly what their role is and what’s expected of them on the event day. If possible, get your team into the venue before the day of the event so they can better understand the space and have plenty of time to ask questions.

On the day of your event your team will feel confident and secure in what their roles are, meaning there’s less misunderstandings, less mistakes and less stress overall.