Common Mistakes Planners Make

Nothing is perfect. Certainly not when you’re planning an event. There is so much preparation that must be done, it becomes impossible to coordinate all the tasks without making any mistakes that can cost you in an attendee’s experience and satisfaction. For you, not to over-do or under-do your event planning, here are reminders of common mistakes to avoid when planning an event.

✓  Mistake: Being an overly detailed-oriented person

Problem: We oftentimes end up forgetting the big picture, nitpicking on the smallest things that aren’t as important in the long run. This leads to unconsciously overlooking what the initial goals set were and getting carried away faster than you think.

Solution: Set yourself reminders of what is important to achieve. Having a dashboard that shows the progress of your event planning and highlighting the key tasks to complete can help understand what is crucial when making decisions and taking a step further in the managing of events.

✓ Mistake: Bad Communication with the Staff

Problem:  A person can be given instructions, yet still fail to complete the task. This happens more often when miscommunication occurs. Unpredictable and repetitive tasks are accomplished. This can lead to inefficiency as time is potentially wasted and not used for better purposes. For example, one staff left to pick-up the equipment. However, the equipment rental store already planned on delivering the equipment to the venue. The employee could have put his time somewhere else and avoided the whole trip. 

Solution: Setting chat rooms or grouping people in social media/project tools together can help deliver the message to the whole team. If urgent and priority information must be delivered, mass emailing all the vital information can be a solution to ensure everyone is on the same page especially for the actual event day. Moreover, having consistent meetings and a debrief before the event occurs can lessen the loss of information.

✓ Mistake: Being a One Person Team

Problem: What we believe is best for us, may be worsening for us. This is the case when we try to take everything upon ourselves for an event. We believe that we know what is best and can do it even better even if it creates more stress and responsibility. However, this can lead to you feeling more stress and unable to finish the required task on time.  

Solution: Instead of taking on so many tasks, try recruiting the right people or give the minor tasks to people you trust to complete them. Slowly, if they accomplished these assignments, perhaps bigger roles can be given to them.  It’s not easy but remember in order for you to focus on the must-dos, delegating tasks can be helpful. In addition, rather than being a one person team, making a two-person team can already improve the stress and lessen the workload. In other words, an assistant can be the peanut butter to your jelly when times get hard. 

✓ Mistake: Doings things too last minute

Problem: Delaying one thing after another creates an unwanted domino effect where a late venue booking, can lead to a rushed and delayed event release, which that can lead to an insufficient promotion and as a result lead to an unsuccessful event. 

Solution: Scheduling soft and hard deadlines can help ensure that each step is done in a timely matter in case of a delay, there is still time to catch up with the tardiness.

✓ Mistake: Overscheduling the program

Problem: Juggling too many activities at once can create conflict in the time schedule. Be realistic in what you can offer and provide attendees. It is crucial to remember to add enough setup time, interval time and clean-up time to avoid rushing the event at any moment.

Solution: Prepare a nicely planned out schedule with lots of flexibilities. You must be flexible as unpredictable events can occur. Try using a scheduler that can view all time conflicts, room conflicts and an overview of all activities to adjust the schedule in real-time when changes are necessary. 

✓ Mistake: Forgetting to follow-up

Problem: It is a natural behavior for humans to remember things and to forget things, as much as we wish everyone can remember everything, that’s a false reality. As an organizer, we must follow-up on orders made, bookings and on everyone’s process to avoid unprepared cancellation, or payments due to be collected. We want to make sure that a sponsor or a third person is on the same page to avoid future miscommunication or conflict.

Solution: One word: Reminders. Set yourself notes to remember and to also send follow-ups on changes made to a venue, sponsorship package or even for an order. It’s good to let a partner or provider know what you are planning.

At last, It’s never easy trusting others for work that can be done by yourself as we know what is best. Although this common habits can seem like nothing to you, it can cause a big fuss when you are taking more than what you can handle on your plate. Perhaps, with a little assistance from an event planner tool such as Grenadine Event Planner, you don’t need to hastily give responsibility to someone you might not fully trust but can count on this program to send you reminder and reports when necessary. 

By avoiding these mistakes, you can achieve a close-to-perfect event where the gist of the possible negative outcomes is avoided.