---
title: "How to Plan a Successful Event"
date: 2022-01-21
draft: false
---

Note: This is not meant to serve as a definitive "how to plan" guide. This is
tips that I have collected on both sides of event planning - that of an event
team member, and that as a service provider and volunteer.

Over the past few years, I've had the opportunity to plan and service quite a
few events, including large multi-day events for a multitude of organizations.
Most recently, that took the form of the 2021 WAVE[^1] VEX Robotics Signature Event.
For that event, I was a sound crew chief for LNL[^2]. Since arriving at WPI, I
have also been a crew chief for several events totalling hundreds of hours of
work, not including preparation.

In November 2019, I also had the chance to plan a FIRST Lego League qualifying
event. As a member of the event core team for that tournament, I was in charge
of the technical production including scoring and A/V. Here are some steps to
take as you go through thinking about your event and how you interact with your
service providers.

## TL;DR
Write down *everything*. Even if you think it's not important. Make sure that
more people than you have access to it. Give as much detail as you can to your
service providers. Be prepared for sudden changes on the day of the event

## First Steps: Pre-planning (T-3 months)
The absolute first thing you should do is write down what your event will be at
a top level, something like "Winter Formal". Then, write down *why*. This
doesn't have to be anything complicated or more than a few sentences, but even
saying "to give students a celebration before finals and relieve stress" goes a
long way. This will set the tone and mood for your event, so it's okay to take a
little bit to get it right.

## Next: Planning and Preparation (T-2 to 1 month)
The second step you should take is to start deciding on some specifics. Pick a
venue and a date if you can. If you're waiting on a date, you can start to look
at venues, but don't let yourself get too set on one in case your date doesn't
work with it. As soon as you have a date and a venue, put in a reservation. Make
sure you tell the person making your reservation everything they ask. If you
don't know, make sure they know that you'll be changing your answer later on.

Pick one or two people to serve as the point(s) of contact with the reservation
manager and any service providers. Make sure that all communication flows
through them. I can't tell you how many times I've received conflicting
information because the planning team all emailed different documents. It's so
much easier to just have one or two people giving the same information.

Then, nail down what's going to happen at the event. You've got your theme, what
would go well with it? For each part, figure out:
- Why it's being included
- If it needs any special materials or equipment
	- If it does, who will be providing it?
- Who will be in charge of making sure it happens
- What needs to happen for this to be included

Try not to overload yourself or your team with too many separate parts. Try to
keep the total number of components to around 2 per planning team member. Any
more and you might get burned out teammates.

Your event should have a way for all volunteers to see the status of tasks
across the whole event and filter to certain parts. As tasks are completed, the
task owner should update the status and close it out. You can use a Trello
board, a spreadsheet, or anything else that might help you keep track of
everything. When I planned my FLL qualifier, myself and the rest of the event team had a Google Sheet that we would use to keep track of everything, with columns for the task, who it was assigned to, and when it was completed. We used the same sheet for every stage of the planning and execution process, with different tabs for "Pre-Event Tasks", "Event Setup", and "Post-Event Tasks". We also tracked the volunteers we had assigned to roles here.

This is the proper time to reach out to any service providers you may need. If
you need lighting or sound, figure out a good company or other organization that
will be able to provide those for you. If your venue needs a custodial fee or
contract, make sure that's budgeted for.

## Almost done! Final plans and promotion (T-1 month to 2 weeks)
By this time, you should be starting your promotion of the event. Make a poster
and put it up everywhere you can. Try and get your event onto weekly event
emails. Get people to know about your event well enough in advance that they can
generally avoid conflicts.

At this point (generally about 2 weeks before the event starts) be sure to
confirm with your service providers that they know about and are willing to take
care of your event. Run checkins with your teammates about their components and
ensure that everything's going according to schedule. Get a list of materials
from them for each component and purchase those. Double-check the task list and
make sure you haven't forgotten anything.

## Run the event (T-0)
Weeks and months of planning have hopefully turned into an actual event for you
and your participants to enjoy. If you don't have a job during the event itself,
sit back and let the people who do have a job work. Make sure to be on-call for
any issues, especially if you're in charge of an important component.

During the event, keep a running log of issues and successes. Anything that goes
wrong or really well should be noted down for the next step.

## Aftermath & Post-Mortem (T+3 days)
No more than 3 days after the end of your event, when the dust has settled a
little bit, gather your planning team again. Go through your lists of roses
(successes) first, and then your thorns (challenges) second. Compile all of them
into a post-mortem and share it with the entire team. Keep it around, so that
future teams can have a reference.

This is not at all tailored for a specific kind of event, but it is experience gathered over my time working on both sides of events.

[^1]: WPI Annual VEX Event
[^2]: Lens and Lights - a WPI club providing lighting, sound, and projection
services to the WPI community