Key Items when Planning an Event

Planning an event is a lot of really hard work. Even the little events can be enough to drive you batty. In the aftermath of heading up the Halloween Festivities at my place of employment, I have become aware of things that are must haves for any event.

First, always plan in advance. Our Halloween even was pretty simple. We had a Costume and decorating contest. Basically all I had to do was determine what the categories were, what the prizes would be and how the event would work. It wasn't brain surgery. However, everything my committee does has to (and for good reason) be approved by our Executive Team at the college. This can sometimes take up to a month to get approval. With this in mind, I met with my HR liaison two months before the event. I came with details for a proposal already typed and in hand. We discussed those point and added some more ideas. After the meeting, she ran a few things by her boss, and then typed up a final proposal. I knew my event was approved at least a month in advance. This made the rest of the planning much less stressful.

The next thing is, if you have an exec Team, or another governing body of sorts that has to approve your event, make sure that you give them the information they need. Also, keep them in mind as you are writing your proposal. Yes, ideally, I would like free reign to make the staff and faculty Halloween festivities as grand as possible. Realistically, that just isn't going to happen. I needed to give the Exec Team a pretty realistic and accurate budget. I need to give them a detailed listing of how the process would work, and all pertinent information they need. Last year's festivities raised a few concerns. A few costumes were "not appropriate for the workplace." The Exec Team did not like that some many people were involved with the contest process. We went around with a digital camera and took photos of the people in costume. A job that could have been done by one or two people suddenly became a seven person job. This caused more disruptions than the Exec Team had anticipated. I made sure that the proposal stated that we would make it very clear that all costumes need to be workplace appropriate, and that only two people would do the pictures for the contest. I kept the judges to a handful, and they did all of their judging via the pictures we would post.

If something does go wrong, do not panic. If you are prepared, you should have a plan b or at least have an idea of how to fix things. About one week before the event, our committee chair suddenly ended his employment with the college. He was the one with access to the budget, and the one who bought the prizes. When I found out about this, I had a few options. I could freak out. I could wait and see what happened. Or I could be proactive and put an alternate plan in place. I went with being proactive. I knew by the end of the day how we were going to remedy the situation. Effective fixing things can be made much easier if you already have all your ducks in a row.

Watch out for the people who just seem to have this need to control EVERYTHING. You know these people. The are really well meaning, but if you let them, they will totally take over your project and make it their own. They will try and get you to do things their way and tell you how to do your job. The best approach is to be firm, but civil with these people. When I ran across this, I had my approved proposal on my side. The Exec Team had approved me and a person from Marketing to do the photos. They did not approve anyone else. That gave me the ability to easily tell her no. Still when I showed up at her location, she still tried to take control of the situation. She came up to me and kept telling me about all the people (people not on my list) who were dressed up and how I needed to go and find them. I gently referred her to the contest rules. I understood many more people may have dressed up, but I was not going to wander aimlessly around the building to find them. They needed to let me know if they were participating and where I could find them. If these people did not follow the instructions, there was not much I could do.

As you plan you event, have fun! However, also put things in place that will make your life and your job easier. Hopefully your event will go off like our Halloween. Everyone had fun, and it really raised the morale of the employees.