Looking for a little more than an event management description—something that not only answers “What is event management?” but also provides everything you need to know about successfully managing events? Look no further!
This blog will cover everything you need to know about managing events, from the steps planners take at every stage to the event management technology that will make your job easy.
What Is Event Management?
Event management is the process of planning and executing an event or an entire event program, from the beginning stages of planning to post-event reporting. This can include any size or type of event, whether in-person, virtual, hybrid, or webinar.
Event management is often synonymous with event planning or meeting planning, and just like those other terms, the scope of each event and the nitty-gritty details vary depending on your industry, event goals, event format and size, and more.
Breaking Down the Event Management Process
The event management process includes everything from designing the initial event concept to post-event ROI reporting, which means there’s a lot an event manager needs to know and even more they have to do!
Let’s break down the event management process, including the tools planners use to make their jobs easier every step of the way.
Phase 1: Event Planning and Design
The foundation of any event begins with these two questions: what are your event goals, and what is your budget? With these two vital pieces of information, you’ll begin piecing together your event design and formulating a logistics strategy to make it happen.
Lay the Foundation
By outlining the goals for your event and establishing a workable budget, you’ll be able to start making important decisions about your event’s theme, format, date(s), location, size, content topics and delivery methods, and target audience. At this stage, think “big picture” and ask yourself, “What do I want my attendees to gain from this event?” “What does my ideal version of this event look like?”
Budgeting and Workflow
Throughout the entire event management process, but especially at the start, you’ll be knee-deep in spend and workflow considerations, holding meetings to nail down key details and building out an event budget management strategy that works for your needs. Every meeting and event looks different, so your budgets and workflows will, as well.
Venue Sourcing
Once you have your budget nailed down, if you’re managing an in-person event, it’s time to start venue sourcing. This phase can be a major challenge, as the venue can be the most expensive and elusive piece of the puzzle.
Planners must consider so much beyond just budget when hunting for the perfect venue, including:
- What type of venue will work best (hotel, convention center, sports stadium, golf course, etc.)
- What size meeting room(s) you’ll need for your event or sessions
- Whether your venue must have on-site guest rooms
- Whether you’re flexible on your event location
Of course, knowing all these things and finding a venue that’s a good fit still doesn’t tell you whether it’s the right venue. To know for sure, you’ll need to visit prospective venues or, if travel costs are a concern, take a 3D venue tour to help you choose.
When you think you’ve found the right venue, you can also use event diagramming software to visualize different seating arrangements and room sizes to make sure your attendees will be comfortable.
Vendor Sourcing
An event is nothing without amazing vendors. Whether you need A/V professionals, food and beverage caterers, creative services, or otherwise, you’ll need to search for event vendors at your destination who are well-respected by event professionals.
Room Block and Travel Management
If you need guest rooms for your event, you’ll need to start booking room blocks as soon as you have your venue locked in. Whether your venue has rooms available or you have to work with a neighboring hotel, room block management software is your friend here! It can help ensure you’re meeting your room minimums, update you when you need to add more rooms, and allow attendees to instantly book rooms when they register for your event.
At this stage, you’ll also need to start thinking about your travel management strategy. How will your staff and attendees will travel to your event, both to the destination and between your venue and their accommodations (if there aren’t guest rooms at your venue)? Are there hotel or airline partnerships that can improve the cost and ease of travel?
Phase 2: Event Promotion
Now that you’ve gotten through the bulk of your planning, it’s time to begin promoting your event and preparing your agenda!
Event Website and Registration
First impressions matter, and your event website is no different. Attendees will turn to your website to learn about your event, view the agenda, and (hopefully) register for your event.
What’s more, if you connect your website to your event registration software, attendees can seamlessly register for the event, and you’ll be able to closely track registration rates in real-time.
Event Marketing
When it comes to event marketing, the best strategy is a connected strategy. You should be able to track all your event promotion efforts in one place to ensure you’re tracking engagement, making informed decisions about campaigns, and collecting marketing data across all your events.
Keep in mind that your brand voice and event theme should be consistent across all marketing materials, including your event website, social media channels, email campaigns, etc.
Speaker, Exhibitor, and Sponsor Management
Your speakers, exhibitors, and sponsors are a huge part of what makes your events a success, and it’s important to understand not only the value these three stakeholders bring but also their unique needs.
- Speakers: Event speaker management requires managing calls for papers, external communications, negotiations, content creation, travel, and more.
- Exhibitors: If your event requires exhibitor management, you’ll be responsible for communications, booth management, exhibit hall layouts, setup and teardown logistics, and more.
- Sponsors: Your event sponsors can make a huge impact on your bottom line, not only providing instant revenue to pay for their sponsorship but also boosting your marketing efforts by promoting your event across their own marketing channels.
Content Management
Once your event website is live and you begin promoting your event, it’s time to invest your time into coordinating your event content. Prospective attendees want to see an agenda as soon as possible, and the earlier you advertise your speakers and content, the earlier your registrations will start coming in.
Your content should be curated with your event goals, target audience, and sponsors and exhibitors in mind. Whether you host lecture-style sessions, panel discussions, technology demonstrations, or otherwise, your content should be designed to entice prospective attendees and ensure all stakeholders gain something from the experience.
Phase 3: Day of Event Management
After all the buildup to plan and coordinate your event, the day is finally here! Now, it’s time for all your plans to come together, from logistics to content.
Day of Event Logistics
Before your event kicks off, you will have worked out a logistics strategy to ensure your event runs smoothly, including coordinating a plan for staffing, timetables, transportation, technology, vendor setup, and more.
Now, it’s time to watch all these pieces come together (and deal with any hiccups that arise). Of course, every event will have its fair share of mishaps and hurdles, so it’s important to have a risk management strategy in place so your backup plans have backup plans.
Webinar or Virtual Event Management
The event management process differs for every event, and particularly if you’re hosting a virtual event or webinar, your day-of duties will look much different than they would for an in-person event.
In many ways, virtual events are simpler to manage than in-person because of the decreased logistics, and hosting webinars can be as simple as pre-recording content and overseeing streaming quality and attendee communications on the day.
Event App and Attendee Engagement
An always-on approach is key to attendee engagement, which means you need to capture and keep your attendees’ attention before, during, and after your event. An event app is critical here, connecting attendees to crucial event resources like:
- Personal agenda building
- Session and speaker details
- Appointment scheduling
- Attendee and exhibitor profiles for networking
- Session polling, Q&A, chat, and surveys
- Push notifications for session and appointment reminders
- On-demand content for continuous engagement
Onsite Check-In and Badging
Onsite event check-in and badging has always been a major pain for event managers and attendees alike—but it doesn’t have to be! These days, you can do so much better than a table full of badges that take hours to alphabetize, only to get shuffled around once attendees start checking in.
Now, you can automate this process with self-service check-in kiosks and on-demand badge printing! This makes walk-in registrations and replacing lost badges a breeze, and with the right tech, you can even track attendance rates by scanning badges when attendees enter a session.
Attendee Networking
In addition to setting up designated times for networking, attendees and exhibitors can build connections throughout your entire event by scheduling appointments directly in your event app. Not only does this make things easier for attendees, but sales appointments are also a great metric for exhibitors to measure when determining their ROI for attending.
Phase 4: Post-Event Management
That’s a wrap! Or… is it?
When the curtain closes on your event, there’s still so much work to be done, from measuring its success and connecting with leads to extracting data that will inform future event planning.
Lead Capturing and Follow-Up with MarTech Integrations
Lead capturing is often a primary goal for hosting events. Sales qualified leads can be a key performance indicator (KPI), as they’ll travel down the sales pipeline and, hopefully, turn into revenue.
Of course, to make the most of your leads, your event technology must have the martech integrations you need to ensure your data flows seamlessly into the SaaS solutions you use for sales and marketing. This allows for cleaner data collection and reporting as well as more targeted post-event email marketing.
Attendee Engagement Scoring and Post-Event Surveys
When your event has wrapped, you should have a ton of great data that tells you how successful your event was and what improvements you can make next time. This can include direct feedback from post-event surveys as well as attendee engagement score data that helps you qualify and attribute scores to attendees based on their unique event activities.
Calculating and Reporting Event ROI
The final step in the event management process brings together all the data we’ve discussed to measure and report on your event insights. This is where you’ll determine your event’s return on investment (ROI), report this information to stakeholders, and distill actionable insights that inform future events.
Core reporting data might include:
- Session attendance and survey data
- Attendee tracking data
- Registration and check-in data
- Lead capture data
- Comparison reports across multiple events
Building Your Event Management Strategy: There’s Tech for That
As you build out your event strategy from top to bottom, you’ll find that event management software is your best friend. At every stage of the planning process, you’ll find event technology can save you time and money—two major wins for planners, who are often working with tight budgets and lean teams.
| Phase 1: Event Planning and Design Technology | Phase 2: Event Promotion Technology | Phase 3: Day of Event Management Technology | Phase 4: Post-Event Management Technology |
|---|---|---|---|
What Are Event Management Skills?
Successful event managers need a wide range of skills—not the least of which is the ability to handle high-stress situations. Here are the main soft skills planners must have to thrive in the events industry:
- Planning and Organization: There’s a lot that goes into planning and managing an event, which means event managers need excellent time management skills, attention to detail, and an ability to keep projects on a tight schedule.
- Creativity and Design: Event planning is not all about logistics—it's fun, too! A creative streak is critical for designing engaging events.
- Budget Management: Your budget dominates the decisions you make while event planning, which means you need the skills to allocate funds appropriately and pivot when necessary to stay within your budget.
- Communication and Interpersonal Relations: You’ll be communicating with so many people who all have different priorities and perspectives, including internal stakeholders, venue staff, vendors, attendees, exhibitors, sponsors, and more. It’s up to you to manage each of these relationships and communicate effectively.
- Negotiation: From venue pricing and room block contracts to food and beverage minimums, there are plenty of opportunities to save money—if you have effective negotiation skills!
- Risk Management and Problem-Solving: Things will go wrong during your event. Big or small, any issues that arise will be up to you to solve, so you’ll need a risk management plan in place and an ability to adapt and problem-solve on a whim.
FAQs
Still have questions about event management? Check out our FAQs!
What Is the Role of Event Management?
An event manager’s role is to organize and execute events, from the initial planning stage to running each event and conducting post-event evaluations.
What’s the Difference Between Event Management and Event Planning?
Event management and event planning are often used synonymously, as most event planners are responsible for the entire event management process. However, depending on the size of a planner’s team, the scope of their role, and individual event requirements, a planner might only be responsible for event planning, design, and promotion, while an event coordinator or event manager oversees day-of-event logistics and post-event processes.
Why Do You Need an Event Manager?
Managing events is a huge undertaking that requires months of planning, communication with stakeholders, budgeting, and so much more. To achieve all this, you need a dedicated event manager with a wide range of interpersonal, creative, and project management skills.
How Do I Choose the Right Event Management Software?
To choose the right event management software, make sure your platform has all the tools and integrations you need to effectively plan and execute your events as well as a reputation as an event technology leader.
