Without wanting to admit our age, it’s fair to say that we’ve been working in events for a fair while now! With this comes experience, both good and bad – and one thing we’ve learnt both the hard way and through the stories of those around us is that, no matter how hard you pre-plan, not everything always goes as expected!
Whether you’re planning a large-scale event, conference or team meeting, it’s important to cover all your bases as much as you can. You need to confirm numbers, dietary requirements, plan payment dates and ensure the venue has all the information they need in good time. These are all the elements that are in your control – but, what about the bits that aren’t?
For example – you’ve planned a summer conference with outdoor activities and an overnight stay. You’ve confirmed all dietary requirements, the rooming list, everything is paid for and you’re ready to go. However, you wake up on the morning of the event to a thunderstorm. There you have it, elements completely out of your control that are hazardous to the event. You’re prepared, though, because you thought ahead and made a contingency plan!
Nobody likes to think that things will go wrong, but having a backup for these kinds of scenarios is so important. In this case, you could have already had a chat with the venue about what to do in case of rain – cue an indoor room ready to go, and the activity supplier prepped for this too for being able to adapt the activity to an indoor space.
If you haven’t pre-planned for things to go wrong, that’s when you get caught out – but we understand that this can be overwhelming. With this in mind the Sheer Edge team offer full event support where we can help come up with contingency plans for you, from initial venue finding to ensuring the day itself runs as smoothly as possible.
The most important thing to remember is that any event is all about you and your guests feeling relaxed and enjoying themselves – as long as you have that at the forefront of all planning, everything will go great!
Still stuck? Here are our top tips for contingency planning:
- Consider if changes in the weather would affect how your event runs and plan accordingly if it does.
- Keep some budget to one side for those inevitable moments where you’ll have to spend that little bit more to accommodate everybody’s requirements.
- Check all possible routes to your venue and have a plan in case one route is suddenly unavailable, for example if there are train strikes.
- For high-profile events, consider if there are any potential security risks that could arise and ensure budget is there for security support should you need it.
- Make sure communication is clear and easy through specified channels on the day. If anything does need checking or changing, the team should be able to easily alert everybody to put a plan in action.
- Speaking of teams – have regular meetings and keep them fully trained on all potential hiccups and what the back up plans are. That way, everybody knows what to do should it happen.
- Plan for potential staffing shortages. It’s always a possibility that someone could be unwell on the day. To plan for this, make sure that nobody is solely responsible for one task and somebody else is trained to complete that role.
- Keep paperwork in check. It sounds obvious but keep yourself covered. If there are photos being taken, make sure you have all the relevant permission forms signed. Any agreements with clients and suppliers have written out, signed and safely stored so that they can be easily checked in case of any incidents.
- Technology is great, but it brings its own difficulties. Make sure you have other options should our initial tech fail you and have back up devices with presentations stored on them just in case.
Assess all risks in advance. Once you’ve chosen your venue, make sure you do conduct a thorough site visit so you can be sure of accessibility and any other potential hazards that can be planned around.
If you would like Sheer Edge support, please reach out, we would be delighted to work with you to create your own event contingency plans for your future events.
Email us: hello@sheeredge.co.uk or Call us: 0330 223 3176
