Corporate events are hard to get right. Pulling off a seamless experience for your employees can be challenging. It always seems like a given that something will go wrong. Maybe the caterer doesn’t show up. Or you can’t get technology on your side while a guest speaker stands there waiting to begin their presentation. You should be able to enjoy the event too! The number one thing you can do ensure a successful corporate event is fool-proof planning.
Whether your corporate event is to reward your employees for hard work, promote teamwork through teambuilding activities, or educate staff, the end goal is to instill the values of the company in employees and facilitate a more effective work environment.
Planning is daunting, so here’s a simple list of our best tips to help you plan your next corporate event!
1. Start Planning as Early as Possible
To keep your stress to a minimum, begin your event planning as soon as you can. This may sound like common advice, but you’d be surprised how many people leave important details to the last minute.
When you plan early, it’s easier to find guest speakers, a caterer, a venue, and volunteers to help you out. Wait until the last minute and you risk scrambling to find these key aspects when everything is already booked up.
2. Enlist Volunteers and Give Them Responsibilities
If you have the honor (or should I say the burden) of planning your corporate event, don’t try to do it alone. Enlist the help of volunteers. Find employees or friends who are willing to take on specific tasks. Again, if you start early then it’s more likely people will agree to help you.
Assign jobs and responsibilities to your volunteers so you can clear up your own list of things to do. For example, put one person in charge of finding catering and another in planning activities. When each person only has one job to do, it’s less likely that something will fall through the cracks. And, you’ll be able to focus on the most important things like finding the best speakers for your event.
Take advantage of collaborative event planning apps and software like Whova. This helps keep everyone on the same page throughout the planning process. Whova includes live guest polling, attendee check-in, name badge generation, a scheduler tool, and a post-event report.
3. Find the Perfect Venue
The location of your event should be one of the first things you nail down. It may be realistic to hold it at your business’ location. If so, great! You can check this off your list. If not, you’ve got many other options.
A resort or hotel for a company retreat needs to be booked way in advance to ensure you can get the dates you want. You’ll want a more secluded venue for retreat events so coworkers can focus on the purpose of the event.
For conferences and networking events, the conference center or venue should be easily accessible. This will ensure that many people will be able to attend.
It’s a bonus if your venue also provides food and refreshments. This alleviates the planning and coordination of bringing in caterers. You’ll also want to know if the venue provides equipment for presentations or if you’ll have to bring your own.
Make a list of all the equipment you need, like a projector, a screen, microphones, speakers, maybe even notepads and pens for your attendees.
4. Make Food a Priority
Food is one of the most important aspects of all events. If your guests are hungry, they’re not having a good time. Good food is something that your attendees will talk about well after the event is over. The easiest thing to do is book a venue that provides in-house catering.
These days, it seems like almost everyone has a food allergy. So, before you plan the food for your event, make sure you collect essential food restrictions from your guests. If this isn’t realistic for your type of event, just ensure you have some vegetarian and gluten free options since these are the most common food restrictions.
Make sure that you have refreshments available at all times. Have a coffee, tea, and water area set up and continuously stocked. Assign a volunteer to this task so you don’t have to monitor the refreshment station. A venue that provides this service is even better.
5. Plan Engaging Activities for Your Guests
Whether your event is a party or an educational seminar, you want your guests to be entertained. Aside from booking guest speakers, you may also want to book someone to lead games or team-building activities.
You’ll be able to find local activity planners in almost any city. Or, you can take advantage of Strayboots’ simple team-building activities. We’ve got competitive scavenger hunts, indoor adventures, trivia games, and even seasonal-themed activities. All of our activities are guided by a smartphone app, so every one of your event attendees can be involved in the fun.
Work with a Strayboots’ member to plan your event activities. We’ll be with you every step of the way if you need any help. We take care of the planning for your event’s entertainment so you can focus on everything else you need to get done.
6. Provide Fun Takeaways for Attendees
Reward your employees with small gifts or branded merchandise from your company. Your guests will appreciate the gesture and remember the event whenever they use their gift. And if they’re branded, the gifts double as great promotional products for your business.
For example, you could get some custom T-shirts made for your team. Custom Ink has provided some awesome T-shirts for other corporate events. These are perfect for team-building or corporate sports days.
Choose a gift that people are actually going to use, such as pens, notebooks, blankets, or scarves. 4imprint creates custom promotional gifts by branding almost anything from water bottles to umbrellas. You can find some great ideas for corporate gifts for different budgets in this article.
Relax and Take It One Step at a Time
If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done, just focus on one thing at a time. Having people to help you will take some of the burdens off. Starting early will keep you from scrambling to get things together. Just remember, your employees will appreciate your event even if it’s not perfect!
