How to Plan a Conference
Listen to Chrystina discuss how to plan a conference in Episode 31 of the Party Ideas & Logistics with Chrystina Noel podcast, above.
I’ve been thinking about this post for a long time. Now that we’ve finished the third year of The Blog Connect Conference, I feel like I have a decent handle on how to host a small to mid-size conference, and I wanted to share it with you, in case you were interested in starting one yourself. The Blog Connect Conference is an annual conference in Philadelphia, PA focused on the networking and education of mid-level bloggers.
Listen to Chrystina discuss how to plan a conference in Episode 31 of the Party Ideas & Logistics with Chrystina Noel podcast, above.
Why would you consider planning your own conference? Well, I didn’t necessarily intend to start mine. I started a blogger community in Philadelphia back in September 2014 and began to plan monthly workshops; by September 2015 I found myself thinking that it could be fun to plan a larger event. What did larger look like at first? 50 people. We were aiming to get 50 people at the conference. And we did. The Blog Connect 2016 had 50 people. The Blog Connect 2017 had about 75 people, and the Blog Connect 2018 had about 70 people. I would definitely say that constitutes a conference, dare I even say, a successful conference.
So, yet again. Why would you plan a conference? Maybe it’s to make money. Maybe it’s to share knowledge on a topic. But hopefully, at least part of it is to bring people together, because otherwise you might as well just be running an online business. Which is fine, but a conference is a heck of a lot of work if you’re not going to be focused on bringing people together and taking advantage of all of the intelligence you have in the room.
Identify your theme
You should have your “why” long before you try to come up with your theme. Once you take your why, you can turn it into a catchy phrase that (a) people are going to latch onto, and (b) can apply to a wide variety of people. For example, the first year, our theme was Make it Happen. This implies that we’re going to help you reach your blogging goals, whatever’s at the top of the list, we’re going to help you get to it. The second year, our theme was Blog it Better. That meant that we were going to focus on something that was already good, hone in on what was working, and make it even better – while potentially even turning your content into a product, a book, or a podcast. The third year, the theme was Find Your Roots. We chose this because (a) we had actually chosen the graphics we wanted to do before we chose the theme and they were plant themed, and (b) we really wanted to help bloggers take it back to why they started what they’re doing, hone in on those habits that they had been building, and make it even better.
Once you have your theme, that will be the focus of how you build out your content, what type of visuals you’re looking for, and how you decide if something is a fit for the event you are creating.
Plan a conference budget
Admittedly, this is interchangeable with the first step, it just depends on which one is really going to light you up inside. Your rough budget should include numbers for: venue, food, speakers, and decor/day-of expenses.
Venue: This can definitely range in price. If you find somebody to partner with you on the event, it could be free. If you find a space that focuses on community building and really wants to get people in the doors, it can be cheap. And if you want to go all out and get a well-known venue in town, you could be paying a pretty penny. I’d plug in this number by making a few phone calls. A few ways to keep this cost down are to figure out what spaces are not already being used at the hours that you’re holding your event, choose a venue that is not usually used for events, offer a sponsorship slot to people who give you space (which means you’ll promote them throughout your conference), and avoid wedding season.
Food: This is probably going to be your most expensive cost of the day (unless you’re going all out on the venue). The number I plug in here is usually the cost of what it would be to get Chipotle because who doesn’t love a large box of burritos. This is always the first thing I try to get sponsored. Plus some money for snacks. My number one goal of every event I’ve ever planned is to make sure that no one is ever hungry. Hungry people can turn hangry. And nobody can have fun at a conference while hangry. I recommend making a Target or Walmart run for the snacks if you can’t get them sponsored. We also always try to have some healthy food and some junk food throughout the day. Just for variety.
Speakers: For our first year of the conference, we didn’t pay any of our speakers. It was a labor of love all around and we found people within our own community who were more than happy to share their skills and be given a platform to speak to a group of bloggers (and gain some public speaking experience). In more recent years we’ve paid keynotes and people traveling from out of town. I’d love to be able to give all of our sponsors some kind of compensation one day; we’re getting there. But to start off, I’d put down about $1000 per larger speaker you’re looking for, and/or $500 for travel expenses per person. Just to have something in the rough budget.
Decor/Day-Of: This number can definitely vary. Do you need to rent equipment to do AV? Do you need to rent a projector? Are you going to buy a projector screen? Do you want fresh flowers everywhere? (They’re beautiful, but definitely not necessary.) Are you going to make your own balloon wall, streamers backdrop, or flower board? You can price that out on Amazon. I’d throw about $500 down for this number, not including AV. You may also want to add the cost of a photographer to the day-of the event cost. More on that below.
Once you have this, you have your rough estimated budget. Then write down the number of seats you’re trying to fill. In my experience, about 30% of those seats are going to be given to people who get free tickets. They’re either photographers or speakers or emcees or sponsors or team members. That leaves you with 70% of the tickets left. To play it safe, don’t count on filling all of the seats to the event (remember, the more conservative you are, the higher the overall profit might be). I’d plan on filling only 70% of the seats the first time. 70% of the seats minus 30% of them being free leaves about 40% of the attendees will need to cover the total cost of the event.
Where does the number of attendees come from? Some of it comes from the type of space you’re thinking of doing it in. Some of it comes from the type of event that you’re having (a mastermind retreat is going to be way smaller than a regular conference). We had been hosting a lot of workshops that were getting about 20 people in attendance at the time, so we figured that 60 the first year would be good estimate. The second year we upped what we were hoping for to 100, but the market we were looking in just couldn’t support that. The third year we were aiming for 80. It was the perfect amount for the space we have learned to love, and about right for the network of people we know in the city.
Now. It might sound unfair that 40% of the people are paying for the whole conference, but that’s actually literally what attendees are paying for when they come to a conference. They’re coming to get information from the speakers. And to be honest, we’ve been able to work with some really awesome sponsors in the past and have been able to give attendees more than the value of their ticket in swag bag goodies for the way home. (Not to mention the knowledge and inspiration they were left with from the speakers.)
Once you have those numbers, you know your per person cost. Then you can lower that number a little bit for early bird tickets and raise that number a little bit for regular priced tickets. In our second and third years of the conference we had an alumni option. That means that the early bird rate was the calculated per person cost, the alumni rate was a little lower, and the regular price was a little higher.
You might notice that I didn’t actually factor profit into here. That’s a personal choice. PHLbloggers has always been a labor of love where we try to give our bloggers as much as we can at a reasonable cost. Our third year we were, however, finally able to make a small profit, but that’s because any sponsor costs were additional profit right off the bat. We definitely spent some of that to make our event even bigger and better, but it was nice to have a guaranteed profit for the first time – as opposed to other years where I literally worried until the day of the event whether or not we were going to break even.
This is why it’s important to get a rough headcount correct. Because the second year we had planned for 100, but only got 75, we were overpaying in food, we overpaid for swag bags, and we ended up getting a lot of product for 100 people instead of 75, which isn’t super fair to our sponsors. We’ve decided for our purposes it’s better to cap it at a reasonable amount of tickets rather than dream big.
(Don’t worry, I came up with the pricing methodology above between the second and third year, so it’s the one that works, not the one that leaves you worrying that you’re not going to be able to cover your expenses. I learned my lesson. I wouldn’t share something that hasn’t worked with y’all.)
Find speakers for the your conference
The first thing I would do here is think about what kind of layout you want to have for the day.
Do you want long sessions or short sessions? Long sessions can get very detailed and offer a lot of opportunities for speakers to share stories. Shorter sessions can pack a punch and help the day to feel like it’s moving along.
Do you want to have large group sessions or small group sessions? (I recommend starting with large group sessions as the small group session breakout traffic pattern can get complicated depending on your venue.) Once you know this, you’ll see approximately how many speaker spots you’re looking to fill.
As I mentioned above, the first year, we put a call out for speakers to our mailing list. And y’all. We came up with some excellent speakers. Right within our own group their were so many people who knew their niches so well. This all has to do with networking and building relationships in your own local community. Highly recommend this for the first year.
For our second and third year we put a speaker call out. We created a Google Form that asked people what they were interested in talking about, and let people go to town. This form includes name, email address, blog URL, and what they’d like to speak about. We also did some extra outreach to contact other local groups in the city that we thought would be a good fit for our people.
We found that letting people apply for what they’d like to speak about for this conference was better than us strictly dictating what people should speak about. We definitely gave some ideas of what we were looking for so people we’re completely off base, but when people were allowed to come up with their own ideas they came up with things that were way more creative than we were going to come up with.
For keynote speakers, we always try to look for someone who is going to appeal to everyone. Our attendees are pretty diverse. There is diversity of age, diversity of race, diversity of blog topics, diversity of gender – so we want to make sure that whoever we invite to keynote is going to be able to reach all of those people in their speech.
Once our speakers are accepted, we always have them fill out a speaker acceptance form. We ask about blog name, blog URL, handles they would like shared, how they got started, the name of their presentation, a short description of the presentation, 3 fun facts, and a verification box that they read all of our “terms and conditions.”
Find a conference venue
I talked about this a little bit above. The reason I found the speakers the first the first year is because I wanted to make sure that I had people that were going to be willing to speak before I tried to plan a conference. Admittedly though, this is another chicken or the egg situation because the venue might dictate the date, and then you need to lock in the speakers for that date. In all honesty, this stuff is kind of happening simultaneously the first year. Questions to consider when looking at your venue include:
Is this the right vibe?
Will it hold the right amount of people for the event and will the space look full enough?
Are there the right amount of breakout spaces?
Is it close to public transportation and/or is there parking nearby?
Do they already have AV equipment in house?
Will there be somebody there the day of the event in case things go wrong?
Will you be able to get in ahead of time to drop things off for setup?
Are you able to bring in food and drink, or do you need to use their caterers?
Is there a food and beverage minimum?
Also remember that you’re going to need to rent the venue for longer than the actual event for setup and breakdown.
Plan a conference agenda
Once you have a theme, venue, and speakers, you can start putting your agenda together. Block off some time for registration at the beginning. Block off a solid amount of time for lunch in the middle. And make sure to put plenty of breaks in throughout the day. The less breaks there are, the more ridiculous the bathroom line is going to be when you do finally have a break. Also, just sitting and listening to people talk all day is draining. Letting people get up and move around allows them to (a) re-energize and (b) run into people they weren’t already sitting next to.
I would also recommend alternating between people being spoken at, panels, and workshops. This will help to keep people on their toes.
If you’re going to have an emcee, make sure you factor in time for them to talk. (Admittedly, I forgot to do that this year, but it turned out fine.) You will definitely need to have someone keeping track of speaker times throughout the day to keep everything moving along. I highly recommend giving this job to the emcee as they’re definitely going to have their eyes on the stage throughout the day.
Create your conference marketing materials and website
Once you have a schedule you can start making your marketing materials, website, and event page. You will want to make sure that the visuals and the tone of voice that you are using when talking abotu the conference remain constant from the beginning of marketing through the day of the conference (and even after).
Our first two years we had a creative director on the team who handled all of this. She was wonderful. Not everybody is this lucky though. Our third year, we unfortunately did not have a creative director on the team, but we decided pretty early on to buy a set of graphics off of Creative Market. It was the best suggestion I’ve ever gotten. We used these plus Canva to design all of our social graphics, the programs, the name tags, and more.
Make sure to put as much information on the website as you can about the event. As well as why people should want to come to the event and what they can plan to get out of it. If you already run a community and this is an extension of that, show the success that you’ve already had there to entice people. And talk like a real person. Nobody wants to feel like they’re reading a sales pitch.
Build your conference event page to sell tickets
We’ve been using Eventbrite for our ticket sales for the past three years. I’ve looked into some other platforms, but all of the fees have seemed similar in past years. That said, the fees, terms, and conditions are changing all the time, so I highly recommend checking a few of the ticket sites out before choosing for sure.
Eventbrite has been great because we’ve been able to have multiple ticket types, to customize questions that each attendee needs to answer upon purchasing a ticket, and has a continuous payout option so that you don’t need to wait until the end of the event to get paid. (If there’s anything I’ve learned about planning events it’s that cash flow is challenging. The first two years, before I found out this continuous payment thing was an option I was fronting the entire cost for the conference. I’m not sure if that option was there the whole time and I just didn’t see it, or if it’s a new feature. You live, you learn.)
What kinds of questions do you want to ask your attendees upon the purchase of their tickets? In our case we asked for: name as they would like it to appear on their name tag, blog name, blog URL, twitter handle, instagram handle, dietary restrictions, breakout preferences (which we finally mastered year 3 – 1 breakout, no rotational component), are you interested in having your blog name and handles shared with other attendees, is it okay to share your name with sponsors for a one-time email with specific PHLbloggers promotions, and a photo release verification.
I haven’t quite figured out the best way to tell free-ticket holders to get their tickets. In past years I’ve done a 100% discount code that people can use on any ticket type, but that makes it very unclear how many “alumni” tickets were actually alumni (because some of them were just people who got their tickets for free at that time). Next year I would try to have a password unlock a hidden ticket type that was only for free-ticket holders. I would love to hear more about how you do this for your own conferences if you have any ideas.
Reach out to sponsors
We have an entire team (of two fabulous ladies) dedicated to reaching out to sponsors throughout the entire conference planning time frame.
We reach out to sponsors with a packet of information on what the conference is, who attends, what they will get out of it (social mentions, blog post features, shout outs, etc), and the package options. We have divided our sponsors into a few categories: monetary sponsors, vendor sponsors, donated goods sponsors, and swag bag sponsors.
Monetary sponsors give you money. This sounds obvious, but the first year I didn’t even realize that was an option. When my accountant looked at me the first year and said, are you looking for sponsors for the conference, I can write you a check. I tried my darndest to pick my jaw up off the ground and nod politely while muttering words of thanks and you won’t be sorry. (She’s been one of our few three-years-in-a-row sponsors and she’s wonderful.)
Vendor sponsors provide a venue. A huge cost that if you can avoid having in or minimize for your budget, you should do. We had vendor sponsors for the conference, for a kick-off party, and for a speaker dinner. Working with these sponsors is always a lot of fun, and it gives them a chance to show off their own spaces and styles.
Donated goods sponsors include food, snacks, drinks, notebooks, speaker gifts, etc. We always divide our donated goods vendors into two tiers, the ones giving a huge amount of product and the ones giving a normal amount of product. We like to make sure that we do a little somethin’ somethin’ for the folks who are really adding a lot of value to our attendees.
And of course, swag bag sponsors. We’ve learned through the years that we don’t like to accept too many postcard/flyer sponsors because then you just end up with a super non-eco-friendly bag full of stuff. So over time we’ve moved specifically into stuff only, unless they’re a donated goods sponsor. Actually, even the person who made our swag bags was a sponsor. My tips are to curate items that fit the vibe, that you know that people will use, where your attendees are their target audience, and that are all inclusive. Sure, it’s great to have a million makeup samples, but if there are some folks are your conference who aren’t into that, you want to make sure there’s something for them as well. (Although, I have heard in the past of some of the attendees giving items to their husbands or wives or co-workers and then loving the products so much that they went out to buy their own. So sometimes swag is just fun.)
You might be thinking at this point. Alright Chrystina, I hear you on the logistics of this, but how do you actually get the sponsors? Honestly, just ask. The worst they can tell you is no. If you have a small conference, start with smaller brands. If you have a larger conference, reach out to larger brands. We ran into a problem where the first year we reached out to brands who were huge and had no idea who this little local group was, and then the second year we niched down to reach local folks, but at that point we were aiming for 100 attendees so the local businesses couldn’t afford to sponsor us.
We’ve found that once we have a sponsor who is interested in supporting us that it’s best to think about them on an individual level. What are that brand’s mission and goals? What do they have to offer? What kind of products do they sell? How can that fit into the day of the conference? For example, a make-up line might like to have a booth setup during the day so they can really show off how to do makeup with their product. A crafty company might like the opportunity to make something. A beverage company might be interested in sponsoring the happy hour. Think about what the company has to bring to the table and find a way to work it into your day so that everyone can benefit from the collaboration.
What else do we do? We keep running lists of our favorite brands. We list all the different types of swag we’re looking for and list as many brands under the type as possible, and then focus on the ones that we think are the best fit for our group. We reach out to people that we’ve worked on sponsored blog collaborations with in the past. We reach out to the PR firms in the city that we’ve worked with in the past. We reach out to people we know from the community. We reach out to people we’ve met at networking events. It’s all in your network and who you know.
You also need to believe that your event is worth sponsoring. You need to know that with the people that you are bringing together through the social media shares that you are going to gather, that it is going to be worth it for the companies signing of for this. If that’s not the case, you should maybe reconsider asking for sponsors. If you’re not confident in your event you’re not going to be able to convince other people to be confident in your event either.
And don’t forget to follow up. If you don’t hear back from someone right away, reach out again and check in. You never know what was going on in life when you sent the first email.
Hire a photographer for your conference
There are very few vendors you actually need for an event. The only one that I think is absolutely necessary is a photographer. (Something that was pointed out to me by our creative director year one, and I’m so glad she did.) Why? Because they’re going to take photos of how awesome your event was so that you can sell it next year. This is absolutely not something that you want on your plate the day of the event, no matter how good you are with a camera. These photos can be used in blog posts, on social media, and to send to your sponsors as social proof that their brand was prominently featured and loved during the day.
Admittedly, we didn’t start being able to pay our photographers what they deserved, and to be honest, we’re still not quite there. But they’ve stuck with us, each year we’ve been able to give them a little bit more, and that makes me feel like we’re doing something right. Our goal is to be profitable enough to be able to pay the people providing a service what they deserve. We’ve got some other goals too, but that one’s pretty important. We want to be able to pay small businesses what they deserve, especially because as bloggers we’re constantly involved in the conversation of it being important to get paid for the value you’re bringing to the table.
All of the photographs on this page were taken by our wonderful photographer, Tim Becker.
Promote your conference to potential attendees
We’re still working on getting this part right. We reach out to our Facebook community, we reach out to people we know in real life, we reach out to other networking groups in the area that have a similar purpose to let them know the event is happening in case their attendees want to join, and we usually try our hand at Facebook and Instagram ads. I’m sure there are other websites that are better for this information, but for now, just know that it is an important step.
To be 100% honest, I’m not sure I would start a conference without a kind of built-in community of people ready to go to attend your event. (Even if you have a type of person in mind and they don’t already know each other and you’re just trying to connect them, that’s still a built-in community of people.) Those people are already interested in your thing and are going to have the highest change of conversion to actual conference attendees.
Prepare for the day of the event
Phew. You’ve done all that work already. The hard part is over, right?
Eh. I’m not sure. I actually think I plan just as hard for the day of the event (in the three weeks leading up to the event) as I did with all of the months of prep leading up to it. But I promise the work up front will all be worth it in the end. (The first year we planned the entire conference in four months. We’re now up to a slightly less crazy six to eight months.)
I create a run of show, a script, and a million to do lists.
The run of show is a document that includes everything that’s happening the weekend of the event from setup through breakdown. It explains what needs to be dropped off where and when, who is going to be doing what, and what needs to be happening at every moment in time. This is the document that says that who’s presenting when, but also who needs to meet the lunch person at the loading dock when, who’s working the registration desk, and what little tasks need to be done along the way.
The script is what is going to be said throughout the actual conference. This year I incorporated it into the run of show, but in past years it has been its own document. This includes a listing of speakers, speaker intros, speaker facts, breaks, commercials, lunch facts, and more.
And then comes the million to do lists. There are million things that need to be done in preparation for the day of the event such as make the decorations, stuff the swag bags, create way giving signs, design the program, sending communications to attendees, send separate communications to speakers, make the name tags, getting all the presentations onto one computer, and make sure that all of the social media mentions have occurred (or are at least listed on the plan for during/after the conference). Then there are all the physical setup items that need to be done including getting things to where they belong, setting up chairs, setting up the snack station, setting up the registration table, setting up vendor tables, making sure the photo walls are good to go, blowing up balloons, setting up and testing the technology (including the sound), setting up any workshop spaces, and decorating any areas that need it.
Sending those communications out the week of the event to speakers and attendees are some of the most important communications of the entire conference. That’s where you want to make sure you transfer all the logistical knowledge to attendees so that they don’t have a problem getting there and no what to expect when they show up. You want to include details like what to wear, what to bring, what to expect when you walk in the door, how to get there, and where to park. The email to speakers should include when to arrive
Our team always plans a few meetups the week of the event. One day for decor. One day for product photos (because we’ve learned that if we want to start posting them before the day of the conference we actually need to take photos of the sponsor products, novel, I know). One day for swag bag stuffing. And a phone call to do an out-loud run through of the plan. This is one of the best ways to catch anything that you might have missed. Especially if you’re working with a team because they might ask how you got from step 1 to step 4, and then you realize that you forgot to add any of those steps to your list and hadn’t factored in the time to make them happen.
In addition, I’ve found that the best thing to do in preparation for the event is take the two business days leading up to the event off of work and the business day after the event off of work. This will allow for plenty of time to get your week-of to-dos done, and make sure that you have time to clean up at least most of your mess the day after the event is over. That day after the event my to do list included dropping off the projector, dropping off clothing donations, dropping off helium tanks, and organizing my basement and living room.
One saving grace for this event (that I’ve found anyway) is that at a certain point you just need to say to yourself, this conference is going to happen no matter what happens between now and the day of the event. If you have speakers booked, a venue booked, and anybody at all has bought tickets to the conference, it’s going to actually happen, no matter how many of the details you have time to tie together. Your conference can happen without name tags. Your conference can happen without giving everybody pens when they walk in the door. Your conference can happen without sponsors. To be honest, your conference can even happen without lunch planned because you can always send people out to get their own lunch for an hour and then come back. (I still recommend having snacks though.) I always found this thought a little bit comforting, so maybe you will too.
Execute the event
If you’ve done the preparation part right, this part isn’t so bad. I recommend wearing something decently nice because you will be in photos. I recommend making sure that you’re standing up straight throughout the day (yet again, because of photos). And I recommend that if you have a team that you remember that you can rely on them and it’s not all on your shoulders (something I didn’t realize the first two years).
A few things you want to make sure to do during the event:
Tell people the logistics. Where is the bathroom? When are the breaks going to be? What can you expect when and where? Where are the snacks? This definitely helps put people at ease throughout the day.
Get people excited. You can get them up and moving. You can ask them questions. Just make sure that you’re keeping them excited. And actually, at one point throughout the day I could tell the room was really exhausted and so I snuck an impromptu break in the middle of two sessions. The audience seemed pretty grateful. Remember, it’s your schedule, nothing’s stuck in stone.
Promote the hashtag. One of your best sources of proving your event was a success in the following year is to see how many times the hashtag was used throughout the event. So promote it as much as you can. This year we actually used a live social media wall app so that as people were posting, their tweets and instagram photos would appear in-real-time on the screen. It was a really cool idea, but next year I would want to make sure that we had a bigger wall to display it on. You live, you learn.
Other than that. Just try to stay sane. Stick to your run of show. Smile. And have some fun.
And maybe buy a bottle of champagne to drink after you’re done breaking down everything.
Follow up and tie up loose ends
Even though the conference is over, it’s not really over. There’s a lot of work you still need to do as the conference planner. But it’s good work. It’s thoughtful work. It’s work that’s going to make it way easier for you to host a conference next year.
Gather your metrics on the conference within the first few days of the event. There are some websites out there that will help you grab those metrics for free, but only for a few days after the event, so don’t wait too long.
Write a blog post to show off how cool your thing was so that everybody wants to come next year.
Create a survey to find out how things went. We always like to find out what sessions were people’s favorites, how they felt the event went overall, what they would like to see more of, what they would like to see less of, and what they thought of the venue. The key is to ask questions that are actually going to provide useful data to plan the next event. Also. Ask for testimonials, these will also help sell the conference next year.
Send thank you and recap emails to attendees. This always includes links to photos, links to speaker presentation, a link to how to sign up to be a member of PHLbloggers, a survey, any upcoming event information, and the attendee list for the event.
Send a recap to all of the sponsors you worked with. Include photos from the event, include how many times the hashtag was shared, include the impact that they had on the event overall, and links to other recap posts attendees wrote. And say thank you. Definitely say thank you all the time.
Memorialize your website so people don’t think that they can still buy tickets to the conference.
Pay all the people and reconcile all of your revenue, expenses, and receipts.
Have a meeting with your team to talk about what went well, what could have gone better, and what they would like to see for next year. This is a good place to share the metrics from your attendee survey as well so you can all think about how to address challenges moving forward.
Celebrate. Don’t forget to celebrate. You did it. You hosted a conference. Take your team out for dinner. Thank everyone personally. Have everyone give a toast. Scroll through the hashtag to energize yourself and remind yourself all the cool things you did. Have some fun with it.
Admittedly, this part is probably the most exhausting because you’re not running on adrenaline anymore. You also need to figure out what to do with all the left over stuff. There will be leftover swag bags, there will be left over donated goods. No matter how well you estimate these things, you’ll still be coming home with stuff. As I said, good luck. Admittedly, my living room still doesn’t look like it’s supposed to and it’s almost been a month.
Things you need to manage conference logistics
Yet again. I’ve given you a lot of the what, but you’re probably wondering about the how. What tools do you need in order to put a conference together successfully? Here’s the list:
A great team and weekly update calls
Now. Do you need a team to host a conference? No. This is something you can do yourself with the right time, energy, and resources.
But I’m an extrovert who loves working in teams and running things by people before making decisions who still has a full-time job, it definitely made sense for me. It’s also just in general been way more fun with a great team.
How do you find a great team? Well, first you need to find people with the same vision you have. It was a little bit easier for me because I could look and see who was already super active in my blogging community that I could rely on. Also, we found a team of people who were looking to use a different set of skills they have outside of their day jobs for their own fulfillment. This combination has been clutch. While I haven’t been able to pay my team yet, I do hope to start conversations around that with them soon. Especially since it’s not uncommon to spend 10-20 hours a week on conference planning as the day gets closer. Easy.
Once you have a team, there are some systems that can be put in place to make things easier, but one thing we’ve found that works well is having weekly update calls. We use these calls in addition to emails. Emails are more of an FYI and calls are a place for discussion. We kept notes of what happened on each calls and the action items so that we could start with that on the following call. Which brings us to –
Google docs and drive
Google docs and drive have been a life saver. We have a folder setup that has sub-folders for communication, decor, branding, head shots, meeting notes, product photos, social media, speaker presentations, sponsor logos, and sponsorship documents. Having everything in the same place has been incredibly useful. Anytime you need something, you automatically know where to look.
Communication templates
Communication templates have been most important in terms of sponsorship. We have letters that we send out to sponsors to find out if they are interested in collaborating. Those things are all templates with spaces for us to customize the ask. It has made it so much easier.
Contract and form templates
Contract templates have also made things way easier, but I still don’t have a great handle on from a legal perspective. The first year I think we just used emails. The second year we created a detailed Google Form to have sponsors fill out when they were interested in working with us. And for some of the larger sponsors we came up with a contract that we send over using Hello Sign (a great online signing tool, but in the free version you only get three free signatures per month).
This system is not the greatest yet because people can’t upload files to Google forms (like logos or head shots), so it’s always a multi-step task. Especially if they need to buy a ticket to the conference as well, then it’s a three-step ask. Hoping to minimize this effort in the future. And get things reviewed by a lawyer eventually. Suggestions are welcome.
What do we put in the contracts? (This is not legal advice in any capacity.) But we at least make sure to write down the day and logistics of the event, what the vendor is expected to contribute, and what PHLbloggers is expected to contribute. We get down to the nitty gritty questions, for example, for the food vendor, are they bringing the napkins, or are we bringing the napkins?
Mailing lists
The first two years we did the conference I was emailing attendees from the PHLbloggers email address. This was the first year that we used Mailchimp and created a mailing list just for conference attendees. I thought it worked really well because our team was able to create emails with really pretty formatting using a lot of the graphics that we had created already. We sent a combination of pretty graphic-heavy emails and wordy logistical emails. It seemed to work pretty well.
A running to-do and question list
As you can tell, I’m a fan of running to-do and question lists. Why? Because the second you get all of that information out of your head and onto paper (that you will remember to look at) you can clear your head to move onto other things and actually get stuff done. Also, it makes it way easier to assign tasks to people.
Bonus things to consider when planning a conference
So let’s say you’ve got all of this under control. Where do you go from there?
Figure out how to make people feel special
There are a lot of ways to spoil people throughout your event. You’re already giving them a swag bag, which is pretty nice. You can buy them some extra food throughout the day as well. You can send them snail mail ahead of time. You can send out personal emails to check up on people to make sure they’re feeling okay about the conference and find out what they’re hoping to get out of it. You could hire a masseuse to come in. This is where that Maya Angelou quote comes in. “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Add in more decor
If you’ve got some extra budget, time, or creativity, you can definitely add in more decor to make people feel like they’re indulging in something fancy. Pinterest is great for that type of inspiration.
Start with a party
The first year of the conference we just had the conference. The second and third years of the conference we added a kick off party the night before. This has worked well to bring people together ahead of time in a more casual setting where they can get to know each other. It’s also a great excuse to take selfies and use the hashtag.
Give people a platform
We haven’t done this yet at The Blog Connect, but I’ve been to a few conferences that have done it and I’ve really liked it. At some point during the event the emcee hands over the reigns to the crowd as sort of an open mic where people can promote things they’re working on, ask for help with certain things, or offer help with anything. It’s a cool way to bring people together.
Do some social good
If you’re bringing all of these people together, you might as well find a way to support a good cause. Take donations, let your favorite volunteer organization come in and do a pitch, have some fun with it. Find a cause that aligns with the mission of your organization and make it happen.
Get yourself some PR
If you’ve got the budget or connections for it, it never hurts to get some PR for your conference. With bloggers it’s a little bit different because you already have a lot of “media” at your event, but you can look to bigger news outlets to see if they can cover it, or the team, or your social-good component, or the fact that you’re bringing a large keynote speaker in from out of town.
Use a CRM
This year, the sponsorship team started using Hubspot as a way to manage our sponsorship relationships. From what I hear, it worked really well and it allowed them to create templates and systems to send customized emails that were easy to put together.
Bring on the technology
If you have a decent amount of money that you’re looking to spend on the conference and give an extra bang for your buck, there’s a million ways you can bring technology into this. I already mentioned the social media live stream. You could broadcast the conference live or record it. You could have setup stations where people get to sample the newest technology. I heard somebody on a podcast recently say that their inspiration for their conference was Cirque de Soleil. And I always picture what it feels like to walk into Epcot. Dream big. Create some kind of walk through experience for your attendees. Have some fun with it.
Three final pieces of advice for planning a conference
Keep it simple
You don’t need to start with everything. You can keep the decor and technology to a minimum. People are just looking for a day of new knowledge, interesting people, and relaxation. That could be 10 people sitting around the back of a comic book store listening to 3 people give presentations on something that means a lot to them and then eating take-out lunch together. The more simple you keep the schedule and run of show, the easier of a time you will have executing, and the more your attendees will understand what to expect.
Keep it inclusive
When you’re choosing your speakers, your sponsors, and your swag items, make sure you’re keeping it inclusive. You want to make sure that the people and content that you are curating for this event represent the attendees that you want to be attending this event. Sometimes it specifically involves reaching out to people or brands with that inclusivity in mind, that’s your job as a curator. There’s more about this topic in the post I wrote after my first year of planning the conference.
Make sure everyone is well fed
I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again. No one likes to feel hungry. You can’t focus on anything else when you’re hungry. So please, make sure there are enough snacks and meals around that your attendees feel well fed.
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And that’s it (she said after typing 7900 words). It sounds complicated, but really it’s just a lot of to do lists and diving right in. If it’s something that excites you, just start. You never know what can come from it or the the people that you will meet along the way.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out. Always happy to talk shop!
Interested in hearing more? You can also listen to Season 2, Episode 6 of Gatherings Podcast where my friend Jessica Marcy from Old Wisdom Wellness interviewed me about how to plan the conference.
