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Events: Forward planner or more last minute?
What you need to know about planning for events.

Events serve a multitude of purposes, to share knowledge, build business performance, facilitate social engagement and bring together people for a common cause or interest. Whatever the occasion, forward planning is essential.

Building a solid relationship with your event planning team is key. As costs and overheads are increasing, being cute with getting more bang for your buck is the name of the game and your event planning specialist can help to unlock this for you.

Creating and delivering events is part and parcel of the LZ DNA. To be creative and develop new ideas and concepts that bring an event to life is something our team relishes. We recommend getting the right physical environment for your event and balancing this with exciting production and meaningful content.

Event spaces that can adapt to your needs and offer flexible modular space, available in the right location, at the right time and for the right price are becoming increasingly difficult to find – especially without forward planning. Giving yourself a longer lead time to organise and plan any event will open up more opportunities for you. I’m not saying turning around an event in a shorter time scale isn’t possible, just that longer lead times are commonplace now, not only with venues but also with other services. As an example, one venue we use with flexible space, accommodation on site and reasonable day delegate rates is booked up for prime mid-week dates for the next 18 months.

Another example of why planning is a must is that during and after Covid many event businesses had to adapt their offerings and scale back on elements that weren’t delivering (at that time due to the complex restrictions that were imposed). As a result, the event supply chain has changed. No longer is there unlimited access to those specialist skills and equipment, at least for the time being. Once readily available resources, props, technical equipment and technical expertise are now in high demand with a shorter supply. The impact is that all of these elements need to be planned, sourced and booked – with longer lead times – or risk being disappointed or paying premium rates with little room for negotiation.

Gone are the days when you can book such venues/spaces specific to your requirements with short lead times. Venues now have capacity constraints and are playing catch up after the pandemic. This doesn’t just apply to venues. Support services are changing too. For example, when thinking of a guest speaker to pull your event together and provide thoughts and ideas and inspire the audience, we are beginning to see more thinking outside of the box, looking outside of the norm. Those speakers traditionally associated with a particular sector/topic are becoming less desirable. But you won’t get what you want or deserve if you don’t plan ahead.

You need to be prepared to make the big decisions up front by planning your calendar in advance. Get those dates (and prices) locked in.

Choose your event & production suppliers carefully and understand how they can enable you to maximise your opportunity and get a better ROI. I recommend you speak to them and understand the specialist services and equipment they have access to and the connections they have through the supply chain that will help to negotiate better choices.

If you have any comments, thoughts on the topic of forward planning, supply chain issues or recommendations please comment below, or get in touch with me directly louise@lemonzestevents.co.uk