Event planning

Event planning is the work of turning an idea for an event into a booked, scheduled plan before anyone arrives. The planner owns the event. As a local supplier, you own the part they asked you for, and your reply says what you can confirm.

Nearby terms to keep apart:

• Event management: SHMS’s guide to event planning separates the two: planning comes before the event, management keeps the plan working once attendees arrive. Cvent’s event planning guide treats them as the same work.
• MICE: meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions, a name for a kind of event business, not a stage of work.
• Virtual event: an event held online, one format an event plan can take.
• Request for proposal (RFP): the document a planner sends to ask suppliers for services and prices; your reply is where supplier-side planning starts.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics lists seven duties a planner typically does, from the event’s purpose to the final bill. They cover the planner’s whole job; planning is its first stage.

The checklist below follows those duties from the other side of the desk: what you have ready at each one.

The three marks for every line

1. Required or optional. Our MICE Manager states the rule: “An RFP distinguishes required from optional services.”
2. Proposed or confirmed. A line stays proposed until its supplier confirms in writing. Our Tourism Events Manager draws the same line: “Keep proposed and confirmed elements distinct”. Waiting for written confirmation is this page’s own rule.
3. Owner named. This page’s checklist asks for one named person per supplier. The MICE Manager coordinates DMCs, hotels, caterers, sponsors and local businesses “with defined deliverables.”

The request-to-event checklist

1. Understand the purpose. – Have ready: your questions on goal, audience, dates and who approves the plan. – Marks: open your line list here.
2. Scope time, location and cost. – Have ready: the dates you can hold, your capacity and how you price each service. – Marks: a held date stays proposed until the planner books it.
3. Collect bids from venues and service providers. – Have ready: a reply with required services first and optional ones apart, each priced on its own line. – Marks: each line proposed, each supplier with an owner and its deliverables.
4. Inspect venues. – Have ready: a site visit. The Tourism Events Manager says: “Visit shortlisted sites to verify setup, transport, equipment, queue and teardown needs.” – Marks: what the visit rules out comes off the list.
5. Coordinate rooms, transport and food. – Have ready: written confirmation from each supplier, filed with its line. – Marks: a line turns confirmed only with that confirmation.
6. Monitor the event. – Have ready: one current schedule, and each owner reachable. – Marks: attendee updates use confirmed lines only. The Tourism Events Manager says: “Prepare confirmed announcements, sponsor communications and attendee updates from one current schedule.”
7. Review the bills. – Have ready: an invoice that follows your confirmed lines, each optional item shown as taken or not. – Marks: nothing on the bill that was never confirmed.

How to read your checklist

• Confirm required lines first. An optional extra means little if the transport is not booked.
• No owner, no reply. Name the owner before a line goes out.
• Keep proposed lines out of attendee messages.

An illustrative example (not a real business)

A small tour operator in a wine region gets a request from a professional association. It wants a partner day during its annual meeting: a winery visit, coach transport and a lunch.

Its reply carries each line with three marks:

• Coach transport: required; proposed until the coach company confirms in writing; owner: [transport lead].
• Winery visit: required; proposed until the winery confirms in writing; owner: [guide].
• Lunch: required; proposed until the restaurant confirms in writing; owner: [food lead].
• Cellar tasting: optional; proposed; owner: [guide].

Before replying, the operator visits the winery to check where the coach can park, and adds the drop-off point to the transport line.

The coach company and the winery confirm first, so the welcome message lists only those lines:

Welcome to the partner day. Your coach leaves from [meeting point] at [time] for a guided visit at [winery]. Lunch details will follow once confirmed.

Nothing unconfirmed reaches attendees. When the restaurant confirms, an update goes out from the same schedule. The invoice shows the cellar tasting as taken or not.

Your reply becomes part of someone else’s plan. A service you list and cannot deliver becomes a broken promise in front of their attendees.

Our MICE Manager is told not to “claim venue availability, contracts, permits, safety compliance or live prices.” The same discipline protects a small supplier’s reply.

The required and optional split helps you too. It lets the planner trim the budget without cutting the core of your offer.

A destination can answer for several local partners at once. The Tourism Events Manager coordinates “local businesses, community groups, venue, tourism board and public services”. When one reply speaks for several suppliers, a line without an owner is a line nobody delivers.

Promise only what is confirmed, and say who delivers it.

1. Write your line list. Each service you could offer a planner, one line each.
2. Mark each line required or optional for the requests you get.
3. Name an owner per supplier, with what each one delivers.
4. Keep a proposed column and a confirmed column. Move a line only with written confirmation.
5. Draft your welcome-message template from confirmed lines only.

How we help. The MICE Manager drafts an event RFP, proposal, budget, run of show or supplier matrix. The Tourism Events Manager helps destinations and operators plan visitor-facing events.

The Events Proposal and Planning Guide builds an event proposal. It covers “objectives, audience, logistics, budget, impact measures, risk controls and a reviewable handoff”. For trade shows, the Event & Trade Show Planner covers the work before, during and after the show.

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