15 Most Common Event-Planning Mistakes & How to Avoid Them
By Moradeke Owa
| Last updated:
Sep 05
|
11 min read
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As an event planner, allowing minor details to slip through the cracks can be disastrous. Leaving a single task out can cause your event to massively flop.
The last thing you need is for your events to fail; when they do, people can be downright vengeful, from warning their contacts not to do business with you to painting a negative picture of you on social media.
Whether you like it or not, people believe customer reviews far more than any promotion you put out there. So as an event planner, you need to get things right because your next job may depend on it.
In this article, we’ve compiled a list of mistakes to avoid when planning events, as well as measures to take to prevent them.
When planning an event, you must determine whether there is a competing event taking place at the same time as your event and whether this event will have an impact on your event.
Let’s say you’re having an open field baby shower in one part of the field, and there’s a memorial going on the other side not far away. You and your event attendees will be perceived as highly insensitive and annoying.
The example is a little extreme, but the point is clear: research the events that will be taking place around the time you’ll be hosting yours. It will help you choose the most suitable location and time.
Another example is having a block party during Thanksgiving. Yes, a few people may attend the event, but the majority of people are at home enjoying Thanksgiving dinner; they are not coming to your block party, and you are most likely disturbing the celebration with your speakers on full blast.
Murphy’s Law states simply that “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” It’s every event planner’s reality check to not leave anything to chance when planning an event.
When planning an event, this law allows you to account for all the negative “what ifs.” Instead of hoping for the best, Murphy’s law tells you that the best way to ensure your event’s success is to eliminate all potential points of failure.
Events check-ins are your guests’ first impression of the events, and you know what they say about first impressions; they are important, and you may never get another chance to redeem yourself.
One of the most horrifying consequences of an ineffective check-in process is having paying guest spots occupied by people who did not pay. People who paid will be irritated; some may throw tantrums, while others will simply give you the worst PR on social media.
Yes, an inefficient check-in process can turn your meticulously planned event into an unflattering social media meme. Of course, one way to prevent this from happening at your events is to ensure that your protocol staff is proactive and observant.
You could hand out event passes and scan them when guests arrive to make the process smoother and faster. Also, ensure there’s no avenue for people to enter the event space without being checked in first.
When organizing events, especially training events, a nice way to make the events memorable and engaging for your audience is to allow them to participate in the event.
Yes, your speaker may be an expert on the subject, but the audience may have very insightful views on the topic. This will boost both the speaker’s and the audience’s morale, making it a more enjoyable event.
So, when organizing these types of events, include an open discussion slot in your event time.
Here’s something most event planners overlook during the planning process. Having goals that you want to achieve will help you know where to focus your efforts.
Yes, it is important to ensure that nothing goes wrong during your event, but the first thing you should define is what you want to accomplish with your event. Your event goal is what will most often help you figure out what could go wrong.
For instance, you want a minimum of 100 guests and 130 guests for a pizza party. This goal will help you define the steps for your event to be successful.
First, you need pizza, and you’ll also need to make sure the invitation doesn’t exceed the maximum number of people for the event; you could leave a little wiggle room for people who won’t show up.
You may be an excellent event planner, but doing everything yourself will most likely leave you overwhelmed. Outsource some things to ensure your events run smoothly without plunging yourself into a deep well of anxiety.
It’s okay to need a little help to organize events. For example, you could hire more caterers or protocol personnel for your events to make things go more smoothly and quickly.
Sometimes you don’t need more people; you just need a tool that will handle the majority of the event planning details while you work your magic. For example, an event planning tool can help you keep track of your schedule, collect RSVPs for your events, and even design and send a seating chart to your guests.
Competing with other event planners or even events themselves can magnificently backfire. When people tell you to be unique and yourself, they are literally telling you what you need to do to be a successful event planner.
Should that stop you from drawing inspiration from other event planners? Definitely not. Attempting to replicate the success of another event may be counterproductive to your events because you are trying to recreate the results without the strategy.
Besides, as an event planner, you should be networking with other event planners rather than competing with them. If you want to outperform an event, keep your event goals in mind and focus your energy on them.
Having insufficient space for your guests is never a good look. What’s the point of marketing for a huge turnout if you can’t accommodate the people you invited?
The key to having enough event space is to strategically overestimate. Don’t overestimate 500 guests for an event where you invited 100 people.
If you’re concerned about exceeding the maximum number of guests, you can even set a registration limit; once reached, people will no longer be able to register for or pay for the event.
Food and beverage consume a significant portion of your event budget, but you have to keep it under control. You’ll have to pay for other important aspects of the event, such as space rental, decor, and so on.
After you’ve established your F&B minimum, it’s always a good idea to leave some wiggle room in your budget (create a second minimum).
Another good way to stay within your F&B minimum is to agree with the people organizing the event that attendees will be responsible for any additional costs if their guests exceed the minimum.
When planning an event, ensure that the event space is large enough for guests and staff to move around freely without bumping into one another. This will help you avoid spilled food and drinks.
Also, if there is an emergency, having a large event space will allow you to easily evacuate people without causing a stampede.
Always put your audience at the center of your plan.
Imagine hosting a vegan event where the only foods available are seafood and steak. That’s a nightmare for your guests, and it’s safe to say the majority of them will be livid.
Why would there be so much meat at a vegan event? It’s more than an event blunder; it’s just being careless with your guests’ preferences.
A good way to address this is to create polls to determine what your audience likes and dislikes. You can plan the specific food, music, decor, and other aspects of the event based on the results of this poll.
Design a marketing campaign that will keep your audience interested and engaged in the event throughout the year. Campaigning for events all year is a great way to increase event turnout.
For example, if you’re organizing a concert and want event tickets to sell out fast, you need to build momentum for your events. You can’t just invite people to a concert the day before and expect them to pay for something they didn’t intend to attend.
You’d need to launch a proper campaign that allows you to attract your target audience and persuade them to buy event tickets.
For instance, you could send a friendly reminder to people who registered for the events about when the tickets go on sale. You could also create social media content to attract attendees and keep them excited about the event.
When guests book events, collect their emails, so you can contact them about the event details or invite them to future events that match their interests.
If your event plans change, such as the venue or the date, you can easily notify your guests. They may be unhappy about the change, but they’ll be grateful you saved them from attending an event that is no longer taking place or is taking place in another location.
Also, when hosting another event, you don’t have to start sourcing for an audience; all you have to do is filter your email list based on their interests and send invitations to people whose interests match the event.
Building a community for your event is a flawed strategy because you’ll have to look at attendees each time there’s an event. Even if you already have a database of potential attendees, your relationship with them will determine whether they will attend your event.
You can’t just buzz people you haven’t spoken to in months and expect them to show up to an event. Staying in touch with your audience via emails, social media, and other means is one of the best ways to build a community for your events.
For instance, if you’re sending emails, they shouldn’t just be about the event you’d like them to attend; personalize the emails.
Not personalizing your emails or only sending promotional emails all the time will give your audience the impression that you’re mass recruiting for upcoming events. That’s a bad look any day of the week.
The same thing applies if you’re using social media to stay in touch with your audience, your page shouldn’t just be about promoting events; instead, provide some value to your followers.
When events are over, make sure everyone is appreciated, from vendors to staff to performers. This allows you to end your event on a friendly note and increases the likelihood that you will be able to contact them for future events.
You already have their contact info; send them well-crafted personalized messages that will make them happy they came to your event.
You should also ask guests and staff to rate your events and tell you what they would like you to change; it will help you improve your planning strategy for future events.
When planning events, one of the most important things to look for is that your tickets sell out or sell the majority of them. Use formplus to securely collect payment from your audience, and the receipt will be emailed to them automatically.
You can also keep track of the number of event tickets sold by the number of people who have responded.
As an event planner, you have to stay in touch contact with your audience and event to plan future events. When people register for your events on formplus, you can collect and securely store their contact info.
Your data is securely stored in your formplus account, and you can also sync your responses to your preferred cloud storage (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc).
When you plan your events with formplus, you can keep track of your audience’s preferences for an event by creating a poll about their preferences.
It helps you visualize the data of people who chose a specific option and plan your event to fit your audience based on this.
You can estimate the size of your audience and the amount of space you’ll need for them using the submitted responses on formplus.
You also have a comprehensive list of event guests and audience preferences, which will allow you to effectively plan the resources you’ll need for the events, such as food, music, seats, and more.
Creating an event with formplus allows your guests to easily reserve their spots for events.
For example, if you’re planning an event and need to know how many people will be attending the vents, send out an RSVP form and ask people to tell you if they’ll be there, if they’re unsure, or if they’re not coming at all.
Curiosity is the mother of improvement for event planners. Create an event satisfaction survey to collect feedback on how your attendees, event space owner, vendors, and anyone else involved in making the event a success feel.
Planning and managing events is a tough process, but by avoiding the mistakes listed in this article, you can avoid full-blown event disasters.
A great way to accomplish this is to use an all-in-one tool that allows you to remove the grunt work of event planning and management. It will greatly increase the likelihood of your events running smoothly and keep you from constantly worrying about how your event could go wrong.
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