Organising an event can come with a lot of pressure: you want to ensure your guests are happy, entertained, and of course you want to have fun yourself. I am one of those people that really enjoy planning and hosting events, but I always feel better when everything’s all booked in and ready to go weeks before the event. Whether you’re planning an engagement party, birthday party or a going away party, there are a few key things to keep in mind to be sure the event is a hit. Here are my tips for organising an event that people are sure to remember for years to come:
1. How to Manage Guests
It can be quite hard to get your guests to RVSP and give you a realistic headcount ahead of schedule, but thankfully there are some tools available to help make this a little easier, such as online event registration . Getting an inaccurate headcount ahead of the day can result in not having enough food and drinks for your guests, which can be extremely embarrassing! Using this fun tool you’re easily able to get people to let you know if they’ll be able to make it, you can also customise things to ask specific questions, in order to make an event that exceeds your guests’ expectations. This is a simple tool to collect as much information is as necessary from your guests, in an engaging way that results in much better compliance.
2. Food and Drinks
If you’re suppling food and drinks for your event, then it’s important to think ahead as to how much you’ll need for your guests. It may be worth considering looking into professional catering to minimise some of the stress. If the event is more casual, such as an engagement or birthday party, you can ask guests to bring a platter to help make it easier from a logistics and cost perspective. If it will be an evening event, it may be wise to provide alcohol for your guests or at least have a bar onsite so they can buy drinks. Be mindful of any guests who may be vegetarian, vegan, gluten free, pregnant or have any other assortment of dietry restrictions.
3. Entertainment
The style of entertainment you’ll need will depend a lot on what kind of party it is, for example if you’re having a children’s party, you’ll want quite different entertainment than you may want at a corporate event. At the very least be mindful of the music you’ll have; will you simply use a Spotify playlist, or will you be looking to have live music? I recently went to a wedding where there was an artist on site, creating cartoon images of the guests on paper that they were able to take home; it was fun and thoughtful.
