Planning an event can sometimes feel like an absolute whirlwind, one minute you’re just starting your first notes, and the next minute you’re arriving on the day hoping you haven’t forgotten everything and the weather stays sunny.
With the changes in the world, economic pressures and of course rising inflating rates, we found 2024 to be full of last minute events, with crazy deadlines and shorter planning cycles than ever.
Look, we love a challenge as much as the next guy, but short turn around events can be where the extra stress, pressure and budget blow outs can lead to all sorts of dramas for your events. More so than ever, these short turn around events will only succeed when the event planning schedule is stuck to like glue.
It becomes more and more easy when the deadline is tight, and stress is high, to forego these timelines and just start working off a ‘when it’s ready’ timeline – which let me tell you, will become more expensive and will blow out your timelines.
When we send you something with a clear deadline, maybe it’s your run sheet needs approval, artwork needs to be sent off, or a final bill paid – trust me, we’re not just sending it for the sake of it, or to make your life more difficult. There are so many intricate elements that often flow on from, and rely on that one decision, and mean we can’t keep moving forward.
I could go on for days about why we need to stick to a timeline, after all, I am an Event Planner and timelines are my absolute jam, but for this blog post, I’ll be focusing on my top 5 benefits we see when we stick to a planning timeline and schedule.
- Keeps you on track
An event planning timeline almost serves as a goal tracker and checker, allowing you to assess if you have hit the phases of planning by those particular timelines, and is a good gauge of if you are on track, or need to pick up the pace.
2. Allows for problem-solving
The sooner we know about an issue, the sooner we can do something about it and find a solution, but without the added pressure and panic of a looming deadline. A problem weeks out from an event, becomes a manageable ‘do tomorrow’ to find the solution project, a problem the morning of because we didn’t finalise until just now, becomes an out of this world issue that needs to be panic solved with limited resources and time.
3. Enhances team coordination
It means everyone knows what’s going on and when, and means the team can move along the project timeline completing their individual tasks in a timely manner and clear expectations are set. There is nothing worse than your project at work being due, but you’re sitting waiting for your team member to finish his part, until you can start yours.
4. Optimise the budget
This is one I am often reminding clients of and is easily forgotten, when you leave things to the last minute, you will end up with late penalties and last minute rush fees on production and delivery. Something that could have cost $100, can easily blow out to 2,3 and even 4 times that price when your supplier is forced to produce on a short turn around. You are also more likely to have to pick a substitute because it cannot be delivered in time, or simply is just not available.
5. Makes the whole process just easier
Like anything, when you have more time to stop and smell the roses, consider all possibilities and then make rash and sensible decisions, you are going to experience a more enjoyable planning experience and ultimately a better product in the final event that won’t feel rushed or scrambled together.
Before you question the schedule as well, remember you aren’t our only client, we are managing your event around many others. So whilst physically, yes, you may be able to push a decision a few days and get it done, it doesn’t mean we literally have the capacity in the calendar to get allocate time to this element.
I am sure you can manage, if every client doesn’t follow our planning schedule, all of a sudden we have 10 run sheets back with changes on the same day, all for events in the following week – it makes it more stressful for everyone, and opens us up for a lot more potential dramas and missed elements.
Trust me when I say it’s easier for everyone if you just follow our planning schedule, if there are any issues of the schedule, just let us know in advance, and we can easily change and modify to timelines that suit you – but again, we need enough time to be able to make this happen!