A Guide to Planning Large-Scale Events

Mary
Authored by Mary
Posted: Sunday, July 19th, 2020

The bigger the event, the more complicated it becomes. Party planning on any level can be a stressful experience for those who have never arranged any sort of event before. The more heads that will be attending, the more complicated logistics can become. Here are some of our top tips for ensuring that your large-scale event goes off without a hitch.

Find the Right People to Back You

There are so many professionals out there that work tirelessly to make sure that the hospitality industry is the best that it can possibly be. You can find a wide range of premium party suppliers at houseofpartyplanning.com. They will have experience working in events of all sizes, and they could prove invaluable.

Party event planners might seem like they do everything themselves, but they are actually masters of delegation. By having the right team behind them at all times, they will be able to get things done before you anticipate them. One of the worst things a party planner can do is try to micromanage. You need to make sure that you have the best possible team together, from the florists to the catering staff to the DJ, so you can be certain that each one will play their part flawlessly throughout the whole event.

Plan and Confirm Early

One of the best party planning tips out there is simply to be as organised and as efficient as possible. The last thing you want to be doing in the run-up to the event is searching for centrepieces for the table when they could have been sourced months ago.

When you decide to have the event, you need to sit down and work out a list of everything that is needed for the party. Do not leave anything off, no matter how small it might be. If you do, there is always the chance that it will be forgotten, and it could be a crucial part of the whole day.

Once you have the list, it is time to start planning. The first key decision that needs to be made is the guestlist as this can dictate other important details like the size of the venue. There is no point in booking a pavilion for 100 guests, only to be unable to get the guestlist under 150. Every time you book something for the event, make sure you get a written confirmation of the booking – even if you have not yet paid a deposit. Try to build up as much of a paper trail as you can so there is always something for you to fall back on if a supplier is not being as communicative as you would like them to be.

Keep the Reason at the Heart

Everyone always puts on a large-scale event for a reason. Some of the most classic include weddings, anniversaries, or significant birthdays. If this is the case with your event, you need to make sure that you have kept the idea of this event at the absolute heart of it. It can be so easy to get carried away with planning – especially with all the amazing ideas out there – but you do need to keep a focus somewhere.

For example, at the heart of a large wedding will always be two people who met and fell in love. They could decide to have the craziest themed wedding ever, but it will still be a celebration of their love and all its facets. If you are celebrating a significant birthday, you are most likely going to look at that individual’s achievements thus far in their life.

Big events can also be held as fundraisers or to bring awareness to a certain issue. There is always something that will drive it forward, and this needs to be wholly celebrated over the course of the day or evening. If you feel like it is getting lost amongst some of the pageantry that a big event can have, you need to take the time to orientate things once more so it is at the centre.

Trial as Much as You Can

A big-scale event should be a fun and engaging party from the moment it starts up. Whether you are the host or just the event planner, you need to make sure that everything will run smoothly. As we mentioned earlier, much of that can come from surrounding yourself with the right group of helpers. However, you need to also make sure that those different components are going to work well. This is why trials are useful.

Trials are most prevalent in a wedding. The bride and groom will try on their outfits several times to make sure the fit is correct, they will taste the food and wedding cake before they confirm on what they want, they may listen to the music from a band like https://www.dexterband.co.uk/. Take the lessons learned from wedding planning in this way and make sure that you are also applying them to planning other events.

If there is going to be a set element in this event that needs to go smoothly, like a performance, consider running this section of the event with a dress rehearsal. It could be just the thing to ensure that there will be no issues on the actual night.

Have Fun with It

Party planning can be stressful, and we can get so wound up that we don’t actually relax and have fun at the actual party. This just isn’t the way to go. Instead, we need to make sure that everything is taken care of so we can enjoy the hard work that has been done to bring everything together.

No matter what the event might be, there is always going to be a way to make sure that it runs as smoothly as possible. Take every experience as a learning curve, and keep your mind focused on the enjoyment of the guests. This event that you are planning should soon be ready to start, and it will go without a hitch.