Thursday, May 14, 2009

Hiring an Event Planner 101

Good event planners are out there and the best ones have great organizational skills.

Naturally, huge amounts of planning can go into events such as meetings, grand openings, festivals, wedding receptions, conferences, home-based events like birthday parties, and anniversary party and retirement parties, so finding a planner with a cool head that can deal with a large amount of pressure and stress is important. Unfortunately, it can sometimes be difficult to know, in advance, if who you're hiring has these traits, but you should be able to ascertain this information by how they communicate with you.

Hiring an event planner, you're basically giving them carte blanc to speak for you, so how the planner communicates with you will be of key importance. You'll want (and need) your event planner to keep constant contact with you so that you're aware of how things are shaping up in whatever stage(s) they're in while working on your event.

While in "planning mode", your interaction with your planner should be a closely based relationship. Yet, on the day of your actual event - they should be practically invisible, and because the responsibility essentially comes down to you, it is extremely important that you have great communication from the start. A planner that you have to track down for an update is the wrong planner, of course. For a big budget event, I typically give a client the entire "game plan" for their event on paper; giving them what I call, a "treatment". Most planners don't do this, but I've found that doing so does two things:

1.) It lets the client know exactly what they're going to get, from A to Z.

2.) It allows the client to have an understanding what is being executed, which is a comfort to someone spending a large amount of money - they know exactly what they're getting, they know exactly what I'm working on. Clients love receiving a "treatment", and it's not uncommon for them to excitedly pass their treatments on for others to read and become excited about the party process with them.

If you've hired a florist, caterer or any other party support professionals, you'll want to know that your event planner is working well with them. It's not uncommon for a planner to recommend party support people, stemming from relationships that he or she has previously made. When a planner has a florist that "gets them" for example, it can be easier for them to work together on your event, and it might even garner you better pricing.

I've had clients that don't want to do anything but write their check - as long as they've given their approval of the"treatment", they're comfortable with bowing out of doing any of the actual work.

Event planners are hired to find a clients venue, or to be at the helm of designing (per your specifications) a space created especially for your special event. Finding a venue is easy. Designing and overseeing the design of a created space is a more arduous undertaking, but one that a good event designer/good event planner should be able to handle. Other event planner responsibilities can consist of: buying decor items, dealing with the transportation of the guests, while staying on budget and possibly even being involved in promotion of the event. These responsibilities are different for each party, so having great communication during the beginning stages of planning your party are of the utmost importance when initially hiring your planner.

Just because you're planning to hire an event planner, does that mean that "raising up" your event won't be any fun?

If you're a Type A personality or the type that some would refer to as a "control freak", you might have regrets after hiring an event planner. If you love to be catered to and have the ability to trust and relinquish control, you'll love the service that hiring a professional planner affords.

If you fall somewhere in the middle, and want someone else to do the work but want to get partially involved, then it's best to think of it as being a positive experience of being a "part of the party planning team". You're writing the check, so of course you should expect to get what you want - and your event planner will be there for you, to make sure that things will run smoothly while you relax and have a great time at your event.