6 Simple Tips for Organizing Your Small Event
Small events at cafes, school gyms, and the like are often more challenging than they seem on the surface. It can get dicey keeping things together for a get-together that you thought would be a rather modest affair. Here are a few things to make planning and organizing smaller events a little simpler.
1.) Expect fewer people to arrive than you invite
Don’t expect everyone who was invited to be able to make it, or want to make it. This may mean that you have to invite more people than you expected and anticipate a drop-out rate depending on the type of event you’re holding and where you’re holding it.
2.) Give fellow organizers identifiers
If other people are organizing the event with you, it can be useful to give them identifiers that make them easy to single out as point-persons and organizers at the event itself. Custom lanyards, custom lapel pins, and t-shirts can be handy, affordable items to make them stand out from the other attendees. Wristband Creation is a great place to start for these and other items, including the next one.
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3.) Consider wristbands instead of traditional wrist stamps
To make your event just a little more special, consider giving attendees silicone wristbands rather than just the traditional wrist stamp when they enter the venue. This will give them a keepsake of the event and make everything more memorable than it would be otherwise. They also have the advantage of being waterproof, so it means you can use them for events where guests are expected to get wet, like a pool or foam parties.
4.) Have specific goals in mind to measure an event’s success
This may be the most challenging thing to consider. Success is different for every person. Are you looking to profit off an event, or simply recover some of your expenses? Are you fine with the event not earning any money? Are there going to be follow-up events in the same vein? What kind of crowd do you want to attract? If you’re not basing the success off of profitability, how will you determine or monitor the outcome?
By answering these and other relevant questions, you can find out for yourself what goals you should have for your event.
5.) Target a specific audience
It’s important to take some time to understand the general habits of the people you reach so that you can use the right types of promotions. One problem many first-time event organizers make is that their promotions are often scattered and not focused on one set of people in mind. The people you want to reach for a poetry reading may have to be targeted in a different way from people you might want to reach for a disco revival night.
Take time to explore the methods or combinations of methods you might want to use for promoting the event. Are the people you’re reaching social media savvy? If not you might want to stick to phone calls or sending them an invite through the mail. If you’re going for a strictly local audience, you may want to focus on posters, flyers, and other similar print promotions as well as targeted social media posts. Think about your audience first before you spend any money trying to reach them.
6.) Invite speakers, personalities, or performers with social clout
Inviting people who have significant clout within the target audience you’re reaching is perhaps the most powerful way to get more people to attend your event. This holds whether you’re organizing your high school reunion or an exclusive house party at the Upper East Side. Of course, this can be expensive sometimes, as you will have to make it worth their time and effort to show up. You are effectively buying their influence to get more people to come, after all, so you better weigh this expense against your event’s overall goals.
Event organization is a tricky business, and even small get-togethers like family reunions can be emotionally and mentally exhausting. Hopefully, with these ideas, you’re able to make your next small event a big success.
Author: Carol Trehearn
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