The event industry is growing rapidly. Today we have more events to attend than ever before. Art galleries, music tours, cultural festivals, sports of all kinds, corporate events, product launches, conferences, exhibitions and so on. The list is endless. This growth has led to a competitive market where each an event is competing for our attention against other events and activities. This competition has put pressure on event organisers to simultaneously produce more elaborate events while cutting the admission and running costs. This requires a systematic event management process while constantly thinking of creative ideas that can make your event stands out from the competition.

Events by their very nature can be quite demanding to organise. It is always a team work bringing a lot of unrelated processions together to serve an objective; to satisfy an audience’s needs. Event management has grown to become a comprehensive field borrowing from the creative industry, project management, leadership, logistics management and management of technical stage equipment. This course aims to prepare delegates for the role by covering various aspects of an event management through examples and step-by-step detailed techniques. As there can be many types of events to organise, this course focuses on a common subset of them to increase clarity and make it easier for delegates to absorb the content quickly. Events include conferences, corporate hospitality, product launches, charity gala dinners, awards, exhibitions, team building, reward and appreciation events, fundraiser and workshops.

The course covers fundamental project management techniques as well as providing useful guidelines and tips on strategic management, handing event operational issues, choosing venues and scheduling. Throughout the course, examples and case studies are provided so delegates can understand the nature and complexity of various parts of event management better. Numerous exercises are also provided to help delegates immediately apply the techniques to a particular event that they plan to manage. The course can be run for 1 day or can be extended to 1.5 days as it covers a large range of topics with various optional exercises. Guidelines are provided on how to extend the course if desired. The course is suitable for those who are new to the field or those who have some event management experience, but look forward to a more structured training.

In this highly practical course participants will learn:

Managing Events

• What is an event?
• What is involved in managing an event?
• What is a life cycle of an event and what does this mean for an event manager?

Define Your Objectives

• What should you consider before making any plans?
• How to systematically screen various ideas for your event
• How to filter out ideas based on what you want to get out of your event

Planning and Budgeting

• What is a budget?
• How to use Work Breakdown Structures for planning
• What is Work Package and what should be included in it?
• What is an ideal budgeting process?
• What parameters should you consider to budget an event?
• How to carry out a cost-benefit analysis
• What is an ideal contingency plan?
• How to avoid common budgeting mistakes

Timing and Risk Management

• How to use a Gantt chart to plan the preparation of your event as well as the event itself
• How to carry out a Critical Path Analysis to identify risky parts of your schedule
• How to create a Risk Analysis Sheet

Venue

• How to choose an ideal venue
• What issue are important I regard with catering?
• How to choose an ideal seating layout

Strategic Planning

• How to carry out a feasibility study on various operational ideas
• What is an Event Manual and what should it include?
• What should you include in your event program?
• How to benefit from storyboarding to streamline the event preparation process
• What is involved in the shutdown process?

Promoting the Event

• How to make your event competitively attractive
• What is involved in pre-event publicity?
• What is involved in at-event publicity?
• What is involved in post-event publicity?