Whether you are a trader, a scientist, an academician or a businessman/woman, a common part of your work line is to attend and plan conferences. Conferences are the perfect platform to gather around your colleagues and talk to them about anything and everything. Whether it be the presentation of your research findings, a project or a workshop, a conference is always the perfect way to go.
The main purpose of any conference is to interact with a large gathering, which is why it is not always important for a conference setup to be extra lavish or fancy. What is important, however, is to know the basics of setting up a conference because you never know when you might need to plan your conference. These small steps will help you in your struggle.
HAVE THE ESSENTIALS; SET UP A PROJECTOR
Every task that you carry outcomes with a set of essentials with it. In planning a conference, the essentials are to have the proper stationery, documentation, and photography of everything and course projectors.
No conference is complete without setting up a projector, and it is something you cannot mess up with. It is why you should opt for party equipment rental services like Projector Hire in Sydney. A projector ensures picture quality and a smooth flow to your conference as it is the easiest way to get people to pay attention to what you need to show them. It also doesn’t take up too much of your place and is manageable. Moreover, it not hard to acquire and has models that come in a range of prices.
HAVE YOUR TEAM
‘’Alone, we can do so little. Together, we can do so much’’. These words are what you need to live by when you start planning your conference. Planning a conference is hard. You will need to do a lot of work and overcome a lot of obstacles. It might be very hectic for you, which is why you should have a team always there to help you. In this manner, you can speed up your work.
The next step after assembling a team is to assign them tasks. Distribute tasks of administration, marketing, planning, and gathering up sponsors amongst your team members and relax a little once you start sharing your burden with others. Give each person a specific time limit to finish their tasks in and ask them for updates on every matter. Help each other out in your tasks and give each other advice and help each other relax.
SET UP A PLACE
For any conference, you need to come up with a perfect venue. Finding the perfect venue is no easy task. A venue comes with a complete package. You need to find it in a good, safe, accessible area. Your venue needs to have the perfect acoustics, lighting, size, and so many more factors.
Your venue should be big enough to host all of your audience. A great tip is to always have a venue bigger than the expected size of the audience because it is better to have some empty seats than have people standing at the back! The next step is to find the perfect amount and intensity of lights in your venue. You need to have lights bright enough to lighten up every nook and cranny. But, keep in mind that too much of anything is bad. You don’t want the lights to be so bright that the audience isn’t even able to open its eyes! Another obstacle you might face is that of acoustics. The conference involves a lot of verbal communication. You don’t want there to be an echo that drowns out your voice. Neither do you want your voice to be too loud? Therefore, adorn your conference room with just the right amount of mics and lights.
CATERING
The way to anybody’s heart is via their stomachs. If you want your conference to be a success, you need to charm your audience with food as well as your words.
Research and find a good catering company. Decide on a menu with them. Settle for something that is not too extreme and would likely suit everybody’s taste buds. Keep a large variety in your menu to please all of your audience. Make sure to mention the menu beforehand to prepare the audience in case any of them has allergies with specific ingredients. Keep the refreshments coming and have enough stock of every item, so you don’t run out of anything and be embarrassed. Depending on the duration of your conference, keep an appropriate number of breaks for food and refreshments. Keep your audience as relaxed as possible.
SET UP A DATE
Once you have prepared for everything else. You are officially ready to host your conference. The only thing left to do is to set the date. Now you need to keep in mind that the conference is for your audience. You need to plan everything according to them. Which is why you must schedule the conference for a date when the majority of your audience would be able to attend.
Check the forecast and set a date for a pleasant day. You don’t need your audience to be drenched in the rain once they get to your venue. Keep a time that is away from rush hour. Ignore any holidays, school days, nationally important days. Keep your conference on a weekend and let the date known to the public at least a week prior so that you can host a majority of your audience.
Conclusion
Planning your conference is not easy. However, it is not impossible. You need to take these steps and be alert and have good reflexes. Keep in mind that even after extensive planning, some things might still go wrong, which is why you need to be able to make last-minute changes and decisions. Best of luck!
