How do you manage the buzz of events?


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July 15, 2019 / Posted by Cheryl Brunwin / in Event planning / 1573 Views

Are you busy?

Whether you’re the company Event Manager, Marketing Executive, or Executive Assistant, you’re likely to have your hands totally full. That’s why it’s always a hive of activity at First Choice Conference & Events; we’re here to help lighten your workload. We asked a couple of our clients just how busy they are…

Managing multiple suppliers

Ross Millward (aka #RossGoss), FCCE’s Events Consultant told us, “I’ve got a client who has the most unbelievably busy days at work. She’s an Executive Assistant and manages the day-to-day diaries and needs of five board members. We first started working together ten years ago. We organise her company conference, annual sales review, and summer family fun day. She is thrilled that she doesn’t have to deal with all the events’ third-party suppliers such as AV, entertainment companies, caterers and photographers. For the fun-day, she still gets to do the things she enjoys, like suggesting ideas for the theme and picking her favourite from the multiple options we give her. But she doesn’t have to find the suppliers, pay them, deal with their questions, or sync their diaries for regular planning calls. We do it all for her.”

Managing delegates’ needs (before during and after):

Milly Pickles, Event Coordinator: “I work with a marketing company which organises quite a few events on behalf of their own clients. It’s not part of their main service offering so they work with us on the bigger events so they can concentrate on managing the overall marketing strategies and campaigns. My main contact is a lovely lady who manages several big events and her main frustration always used to be delegate registration. I can’t tell you how happy she was to have our help. Before she contacted us, she had three, one-day client events overlapping in the same week, with over 500 attendees in total. By pulling her colleagues off their own work, they just about managed to get stuff sorted before the event. As experts in our industry, we’re super organised and help make the event a huge success.”

Budgets and financial planning

“If there’s one thing that craves attention in event management, it’s the budget,” says Magdalen Smith, Senior Event Consultant. “It needs constant care, and unless you find spreadsheets and financial systems exciting, it’s not for you. Ironically, the client who most likes us to handle her event budget actually works for a financial services company. She fully appreciates how important it is to keep on top of the finances for her event, but she’s the Director of Human Resources. She doesn’t have the time for identifying and tracking all event costs – anything from electricity, to rigging for the lighting! We’re professional events planners and it’s our job to negotiate hard, get better rates, and make sure our clients aren’t paying or contracting for things they don’t need, including T&Cs that aren’t beneficial. My client also relies on me to forecast the budgetary impact of any of her unplanned ideas.”

What’s YOUR event bug bear?

Whether it’s venue-finding, negotiating, keeping up with the changes, last minute messaging amends from your board, travel, logistics, the most fitting entertainment or speakers, or the whole lot and more, it’s what our team of superhero’s do best. So, let us do the hard work while you bathe in the glory of the buzz we’ll create for your event!