conference-planning

Part 6. Final Lessons Learned

17 Dec 2013

Use email effectively — We could’ve used email better. Reaching out to past attendees should’ve happened earlier on. We could’ve reached out to attendees earlier as well, and enlisted their help in advertising the event. Email user groups. Email businesses. Create things that can be easily shared by user group organizers. Delegate — Don’t try…

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Part 5. Conference Day

17 Dec 2013

Nothing will prepare you for the day of the event, especially if you’ve only organized local meetups. Having a team you can depend on is essential for your event to be successful. You’ll need a game plan. You’ll also need to accept that you won’t think of everything. You will make mistakes. Roll with it.…

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Part 4. Pricing Your Event

17 Dec 2013

Do you charge for your event or do you make it free? Calculate any hard costs you have: Travel, Accommodations, Venue, Catering, etc. to determine the approximate cost of your event. Sample Event Budget Travel $1500 Accommodations $2500 Venue $2500 Catering $1000 Other Expenses* $1000 Total $8500 * Other Expenses might include paying a photographer,…

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Part 3. Securing a Venue & Setting a Date

17 Dec 2013

While you’re trying to nail down who to have speak, you’ll need to nail down when and where to have your event. (When you have your event will impact speaker availability.) Lesson 8 — Before you decide on where (and when) to hold your event: Research, research, research. The last thing you want to do…

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Part 2: Really Getting Started

05 Dec 2013

Without _____, you don’t have an event. It’s damn near impossible to market a first year event without a lineup. And you can’t have an event without a venue. And you can’t get a venue without having a date. And getting speakers to commit relies heavily on when your event will happen. (!) This’ll post…

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Part 1: Thoughts from a first-time conference organizer

22 Oct 2013

This is the first part of many. I started writing this back in May, right after Web Afternoon Augusta. I’ve been to a number of conferences as an attendee, volunteer/staff and once as a co-organizer of sorts… but this was the first time I really tried to pull a conference together as a lead organizer.…

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