How to successfully organize a professional event?

Successful organization of a professional event: the pre-event

The suc­cess of a pro­fes­sion­al event, wheth­er it is organ­ized in Deau­ville or else­where in France, depends on rig­or­ous plan­ning of every detail before, dur­ing and after the event. The suc­cess of your cor­por­ate event depends on the many people involved and the prop­er sequen­cing of the organ­iz­a­tion­al steps. First of all, it is import­ant to clearly list the inten­tions that motiv­ate you to organ­ize your busi­ness event. You will then high­light the key per­form­ance indic­at­ors that will allow you to meas­ure the achieve­ment of the object­ives of your pro­fes­sion­al event.

Determ­ine the object­ives of your cor­por­ate event
Through­out the year, you can take advant­age of many oppor­tun­it­ies to gath­er or bring togeth­er your teams, part­ners or a tar­geted group of people who inter­act with your organ­iz­a­tion. But before defin­ing the main lines of your pro­fes­sion­al event, you must ask your­self some import­ant ques­tions. The answers to these ques­tions will allow you to define the object­ives of your pro­fes­sion­al event:

• Why are you hold­ing a cor­por­ate event?
• What goals are you try­ing to achieve?
• Is the pur­pose of the busi­ness event to encour­age change? To devel­op a cor­por­ate culture?
• Is the pur­pose of the busi­ness event to train? to per­suade? to encourage?
• Is this pro­fes­sion­al gath­er­ing an oppor­tun­ity to cel­eb­rate an event? To cre­ate emu­la­tion around a product or ser­vice launch with high added value? Cel­eb­rate a com­pany anniversary? To thank your teams?
• The organ­iz­a­tion of a pro­fes­sion­al event can also allow you to con­vince or reas­sure invest­ment funds
• etc.

The answers to these dif­fer­ent ques­tions will allow you to define clear object­ives that can be pro­fes­sion­al, human, fin­an­cial. The suc­cess of the organ­iz­a­tion of your pro­fes­sion­al event is intim­ately linked to the defin­i­tion of clear and real­ist­ic object­ives. The CID Centre de Con­grès de Deau­ville event team advises you to have ambi­tious but attain­able objectives.

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Con­grès dans les halls du centre des con­grès de Deauville

Formation of the steering committee for the professional event

Once you have your object­ives in mind, you must form a steer­ing com­mit­tee that will share your vis­ion and work towards the goals to be reached. One of the keys to suc­cess in organ­iz­ing a pro­fes­sion­al event is the involve­ment of the employ­ees. The per­son in charge of the organ­iz­a­tion of the event, assisted by his team, will be able to think about an action plan with the dead­line in mind: the D‑day of the pro­fes­sion­al event.
The per­fect team to serenely organ­ize your event will be made up of people of dif­fer­ent sens­it­iv­it­ies, if pos­sible with all hier­arch­ic­al levels, in order to con­cen­trate all the ener­gies and share the dif­fer­ent views. For a suc­cess­ful cor­por­ate event, make sure to form the most har­mo­ni­ous team possible.

Make the retro planning of the professional event

The organ­iz­a­tion of a sem­in­ar or any oth­er pro­fes­sion­al event can­not be impro­vised. The key word is: ANTICIPATION. To make your event a suc­cess, give your­self enough time to organ­ize it. By fol­low­ing a back­ward plan­ning, your man­age­ment team will be able to con­trol the dif­fer­ent key stages of the event’s organ­iz­a­tion on a daily basis. This roadmap will allow you to focus on the object­ives of the day to avoid any unne­ces­sary delay and stress as the D‑day approaches.

What is the target audience of your professional event?

In order to deliv­er the right mes­sages at the right time and to the right people or par­ti­cipants, it is essen­tial to clearly identi­fy the dif­fer­ent guests for your cor­por­ate event. Indeed, depend­ing on the type of event you are organ­iz­ing, it may be use­ful to restrict your tar­get. When writ­ing the guest list, you must ask your­self this ques­tion: What is the interest for each guest to par­ti­cip­ate in your event? This ques­tion is linked to the event object­ives you have pre­vi­ously set.

How to get the interest of the participants of the professional event?

To get the atten­tion of your guests, col­lab­or­at­ors, and part­ners, it is import­ant to think about their poten­tial return on par­ti­cip­a­tion, a kind of ROI — return on invest­ment -. Before respond­ing favor­ably to your invit­a­tion, guests and par­ti­cipants will prob­ably ask them­selves the import­ant questions:

• What is the value of my par­ti­cip­a­tion in this event?
• What will I gain by attend­ing the event?
• What will I gain by par­ti­cip­at­ing in this event?
• Why should I spend my time at this event to which I am invited?

If you identi­fy the poten­tial bene­fits of your vari­ous tar­gets, this can help you to devel­op the best list of par­ti­cipants: A large num­ber of them will then respond favor­ably to your invitation.

THE ECO-RESPONSIBLE EVENT 

What is the budget for your corporate event?

Once the reas­on for the event and the object­ives have been clearly estab­lished, you will think about the budget. You must estim­ate all the expenses. Below is a list (not exhaust­ive) of the needs to be fin­anced that you must think about for the suc­cess of your cor­por­ate event:

• Rent­al costs of the place or the room where the event will take place
• Travel expenses: for how many people? what are the pre­ferred means of trans­port­a­tion? etc…
• Accom­mod­a­tion costs in case the event takes place over sev­er­al days or accom­mod­a­tion costs if one party has to stay at the event loc­a­tion for the pre­par­a­tion of the D‑day
• Cater­ing costs: morn­ing cof­fee to wel­come par­ti­cipants, snacks, lunch break, drinks, aper­itif, etc.
• Staff costs
• Tech­nic­al and mater­i­al expenses
• Cost of the event animation
• Cost of activ­it­ies (if included in the program)
• Mar­ket­ing and com­mu­nic­a­tion expenses
• Con­tin­gency mar­gin: this envel­ope will be used to deal with unfore­seen events (because there will almost always be some).

To help you, down­load the typ­ic­al budget for an event organ­ized at CID Deauville.

TYPICAL EVENT BUDGET

Organ­iz­ing a pro­fes­sion­al event: plan a con­tin­gency fund

Even with the best plan­ning, the best anti­cip­a­tion, you will nev­er be safe from the unex­pec­ted. With this in mind, it is import­ant to set aside a fund that will allow you to deal with any sur­prises. Don’t hes­it­ate to dis­cuss these points with your insurer to ensure that you have the best cov­er­age for the unexpected.

What is the best time to organize a professional event?

How to choose the right peri­od to organ­ize a pro­fes­sion­al event, a com­pany sem­in­ar or a pro­fes­sion­al meet­ing? This ques­tion often comes up when you are pre­par­ing your busi­ness event. Should you organ­ize your busi­ness event at the begin­ning of the week? Is organ­iz­ing a sem­in­ar on the week­end the best option?

Organ­iz­ing a cor­por­ate event at the begin­ning of the week

Organ­iz­ing your cor­por­ate event at the begin­ning of the week can be an excel­lent oppor­tun­ity to start the week well by reboost­ing the employ­ees. How­ever, you must take into account the week­end activ­ity of your par­ti­cipants who may show signs of poten­tial fatigue. After a week­end, com­pany employ­ees also appre­ci­ate a quiet time at their work­place to answer “urgent” requests and plan their week.

Organ­ize a cor­por­ate sem­in­ar on the weekend

Organ­iz­ing a pro­fes­sion­al cor­por­ate event on the week­end can be a good option to end the work week. Teams and par­ti­cipants are often more relaxed. The week­end is also one of the best times to carry out team build­ing activ­it­ies to strengthen the cohe­sion of the employees.

The week­end option to organ­ize a pro­fes­sion­al event

There are sev­er­al reas­ons why com­pan­ies may choose to organ­ize a sem­in­ar or a pro­fes­sion­al meet­ing dur­ing the week­end. Just keep in mind that you need to have sol­id reas­ons to gath­er the assent of the par­ti­cipants dur­ing the week­end. You will spend energy and budget to pre­pare a pro­fes­sion­al event: without an appro­pri­ate date, you risk hav­ing many empty seats for the occasion.

Check your com­pet­it­ors’ event cal­en­dar for the same period

Before choos­ing a date for your pro­fes­sion­al event, it is import­ant to take a look at your com­pet­it­ors’ event cal­en­dar for the same peri­od. This pre­cau­tion will avoid you to com­pete unne­ces­sar­ily, espe­cially if you have the same part­ners or guests likely to be inter­ested in both events.

Check the event cal­en­dar of your partners

If you have to invite part­ners to your cor­por­ate or pro­fes­sion­al event, it is a good idea to check if the part­ners in ques­tion do not already have events sched­uled for the same peri­od. If you still need to hold your busi­ness event the same week as your part­ners, make sure you have a few days of spa­cing between the two events.

Avoid the trap of large sport­ing events

Sport­ing events bring a lot of people togeth­er in front of their screens or at the sta­di­um. Organ­iz­ing an event dur­ing a big UEFA Cham­pi­ons League even­ing, dur­ing the World Cup final or dur­ing a big ten­nis match, is the insur­ance of not being unan­im­ous for your pro­fes­sion­al event. Taking into account the sports cal­en­dar is very import­ant if you want a good par­ti­cip­a­tion rate at your com­pany party for example.

Polit­ic­al moments can be det­ri­ment­al to your busi­ness event

Polit­ics is a reg­u­lar occur­rence at dif­fer­ent times of the year in the life of a nation. Tak­ing into account the major polit­ic­al moments is one of the pre­cau­tions to take when organ­iz­ing your pro­fes­sion­al event.

Organ­iz­a­tion of a pro­fes­sion­al event: tak­ing into account the school calendar

For employ­ees, part­ners, cli­ents, pro­spects… some of whom are also par­ents, it is of utmost import­ance to take into account the school cal­en­dar. If you have to invite par­ti­cipants from oth­er depart­ments to your event, you must take into account the cal­en­dars of the dif­fer­ent school zones in France. This routine check will pre­vent you from schedul­ing a nation­wide event dur­ing the school vaca­tions of cer­tain zones.

Avail­ab­il­ity of sup­pli­ers for your pro­fes­sion­al event

Cater­ers, sound engin­eers, secur­ity agen­cies, event agen­cies are all sup­pli­ers you may need for the smooth run­ning of your cor­por­ate event. To avoid hav­ing to find last minute altern­at­ives that are usu­ally more expens­ive and stress­ful, you should check in advance the avail­ab­il­ity of the main sup­pli­ers for your pro­fes­sion­al event. Note that the event ven­ue you will choose has a pan­el of pro­viders: it will be able to offer you their ser­vices, this is even more true if it is a “delo­c­al­ized” event: the know­ledge of the loc­al eco­nom­ic fab­ric of the des­tin­a­tion will be use­ful to judi­ciously select the best providers.

How to choose the place for your pro­fes­sion­al event?

Choos­ing a ven­ue for your event is not always easy. The chal­lenge is to find the right ven­ue for your event and your budget. To do so, you must take into account sev­er­al cri­ter­ia to val­id­ate and book the right place to organ­ize your pro­fes­sion­al event, com­pany sem­in­ar, incent­ive, etc. .… Here are some points to check:

• Clearly identi­fy­ing the nature of your event and the type of guests will allow you to draw up a short list of pos­sible locations.
• Check the dif­fer­ent capa­cit­ies and the avail­ab­il­ity of the dif­fer­ent rooms.
• Make a tour of the pro­posed ser­vices to put them in par­al­lel with your needs: the hotel capa­city will be a cru­cial point if the guests will have to stay in the chosen destination.
• In order to put your guests in the best con­di­tions, you must check before­hand, the ease of access of the place where your pro­fes­sion­al event takes place.

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Catering: an important element for the success of a professional event

Wel­come cof­fee, lunch break, cock­tail are all pleas­ant moments appre­ci­ated by the guests of a pro­fes­sion­al day, a team build­ing, a sem­in­ar… Just like the choice of the recep­tion room, the cater­ing is an ele­ment not to be neg­lected. Anti­cip­a­tion is the key to find­ing qual­ity cater­ers. Once again, if it is a nation­al event, a con­ven­tion cen­ter or any oth­er recep­tion ven­ue will be able to recom­mend the best cater­ers. Keep in mind that cater­ing can be an import­ant part of your budget.

Communication to make your professional event known

A web­site ded­ic­ated to the event

To give a good web vis­ib­il­ity to your event, it is recom­men­ded to ded­ic­ate a web­site to it. Well optim­ized for search engine optim­iz­a­tion, this web­site will be able to broad­cast valu­able inform­a­tion about the event, provide inform­a­tion and answers to pos­sible ques­tions from participants.

Invit­a­tions, mail­ings and or letters?

To invite guests to the event, sev­er­al solu­tions can be used. It is pos­sible to send invit­a­tions by post or to use e‑mail or mail­ing. Whichever meth­od of invit­a­tion you use, don’t for­get to include the pro­gram of the event with your invitation.

DOWNLOAD THE SAMPLE PROGRAM OF AN EVENT

The vis­ib­il­ity of your pro­fes­sion­al event on social net­works is important

If you want to expand your audi­ence, social media is an essen­tial tool to pro­mote your event. Be sure to choose the social net­works that match your event’s object­ives. Define the hasht­ag that will allow you to com­mu­nic­ate online about your event. Depend­ing on the size of your event, you may need to ded­ic­ate a team to man­age the vis­ib­il­ity and the anim­a­tion of the com­munity around your event on social networks.

Press and media com­mu­nic­a­tion before the event

Know­ing that event organ­izers final­ize their press kits 2 to 3 months before the event, you must take into account this delay to con­tact journ­al­ists and send them your press release.

Search­ing for part­ner­ships for a pro­fes­sion­al event

Call­ing for spon­sor­ship is an excel­lent way to fin­ance part of your event. Moreover, the par­ti­cip­a­tion of renowned part­ners will give a spe­cial touch to your pro­fes­sion­al event. To do this, you must tar­get your part­ners and value all types of spon­sor­ship. Cre­ate a part­ner­ship grid for your pro­fes­sion­al event: each line will include the dif­fer­ent options for high­light­ing the poten­tial part­ner: web­site vis­ib­il­ity, social net­works, fly­er, pro­gram, exhib­i­tion stand…

The word of the end

Bring­ing your employ­ees togeth­er dur­ing a cor­por­ate event is an oppor­tun­ity to break away from the hier­arch­ical rela­tion­ships of every­day life between employ­ees. Know that in a pleas­ant and friendly set­ting such as the Pal­ais des Con­grès de Deau­ville, your entire team will be able to relax, share spe­cial moments and open up to each oth­er. Deau­ville is an excel­lent des­tin­a­tion for par­ti­cipants to meet and get to know each oth­er bet­ter, and to bet­ter under­stand the evol­u­tion of the industry and the sec­tor in which they operate.

The diversity of activ­it­ies offered by this excep­tion­al sea­side resort on the Côte Fleur­ie, only 2 hours from Par­is, is a real oppor­tun­ity to strengthen the unity of your teams. This is espe­cially true today: work­sta­tions are mov­ing away from the com­pany in a vir­tu­al­ized envir­on­ment. Cor­por­ate events are a great way to show your employ­ees how much they mean to the com­pany. It is also an oppor­tun­ity that nev­er goes unnoticed and con­trib­utes to the dynam­ics of your com­pany and its sec­tor!

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