I’m back again, but this week I’m turning my attention to awards events and the organising side of them. Before I turned to providing the awards for the events, I used to work within the events industry. One of my main roles was organising an award event in Central London. What I want to do is give any event organisers some tips that will make your event a successful one.
Select Your Awards Categories Carefully
The first thing I think you need to approach with care is your categories. You don’t want an event with too many categories for your first event, as this is trickier to market. Having too many categories makes them harder to fill with quality, and credibility may decrease if your categories aren’t full enough, let alone with good quality. Don’t be fooled, if you don’t have enough categories, you may be losing good entrants and essentially good business. This may also make your event a lot smaller which may hinder your event growth.
Be Thorough In Your Preparation
‘Prior planning and preparation prevents a….’ you know the rest. But it’s so vital to putting on a well organised event and keeping your team ticking along like a very well-oiled machine. Getting a list of jobs to do in the run up to the big day may seem like a small job, but this small task is your key to an event with no slip ups. Write down all your tasks and put a deadline to them all. This will mean you keep on top of every aspect, not forget any little job and also avoid a banana skin in the last few weeks by leaving yourself too much to do. I’ve been in the situation myself and I can ensure you some nights will contain little sleep and stress levels will be bouncing off the roof!
Does Your Venue Suit Your Market?
You’ll also need to pick a venue, but this isn’t as easy as just picking something that fits the budget… Of course that’s a very important part don’t get me wrong, but there are some other little factors that you should think about when choosing a venue for your event. For example the calibre of your venue should match the calibre of your event where budget provides. A black tie awards event would fit nicely at a corporate hotel with a 3 course meal of fine dining. Whereas a more relaxed awards event may be able to be experimented with. Another variable that must be considered with your venue choice is the location. You want a nice central location so that your guests are more enthusiastic about coming. If the venue is right, but not the location, your guests will see the event as a pain, not a pleasure!
The Host Has To Engage The Guests
Last but not least my wonderful award enthusiasts are the host. This one person has the ability to make or break your event. They will either make it flow and make the whole thing worth listening to or they’ll make the local cab office a lot of money as your guests will be scuppering as soon as the last award is presented. If the host performs well then usually so will the event. The host should provide humour, suspense and natural flow to the presentation!
Well, there are my tips for a successful event. If you’re on the hunt for corporate awards to present at these wonderful events, it would be a pleasure to provide them for you.
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Ciao for now!
