Event Planning
An Event Planning Checklist for Any Event
Staying organized with an event planning checklist is key to success. From creating budgets to booking entertainment, discover thirteen key checklist tips.
The first step to planning a successful event? Creating a detailed checklist. Your checklist acts as your rulebook to keep your planning on track from start to finish. From creating a budget to organizing catering, our essential event planning checklist has thirteen key tips for a smooth-sailing event.
Key takeaways
The first step on your checklist should be defining your event goals and objectives
The right venue should facilitate your event’s goals and should cater to your target audience
Your event branding should be consistent across all visual elements of your event, from digital marketing to in-person decoration
The importance of an event planning checklist
A comprehensive checklist is the best way to ensure your event planning stays on track. Early preparation is key, so it’s a good idea to start creating your checklist early. Did you know that 48% of event planners start planning six to 12 months before an event?
Creating an event planning checklist is essential to making sure you cover all bases of your planning so that nothing is left out. Creating a budget early, for example, can help to save on unnecessary expenses and unexpected invoices later on, while gathering inspiration for your event visuals early can help you to ensure your aesthetic is exactly right.
In other words, a detailed checklist of what to organize before your event can help you streamline your planning and make sure your event runs as smoothly as possible on the day.
1. Defining your event goals and objectives
Setting goals and objectives for your event is the most important part of your event planning checklist — and it all starts with your audience.
When setting your event goals, consider these three steps:
Step 1: Define your audience
Who is your target audience? The best way to create your target audience profile is to focus on who will most benefit from, or enjoy, your event. Make sure to define your target audience by writing a clear, one-sentence description of their demographics — such as age group, lifestyle, job title — and tailor your future marketing communications to target this group.
Step 2: Define your purpose
What is the purpose of your event? The best way to think about this is in terms of what you want your audience to take away from your event — whether that’s an experience, an emotion, a discovery, or a skill.
The purpose of your event should also reflect its value and its USP (in other words, what makes your event unique and what it promises attendees). A compelling unique value proposition should pull the key elements of your event together into a single, memorable tagline to engage your audience.
Step 3: Define your goals
What are the goals and objectives of your event? What do you hope to achieve? The best way to think about your event goals is in terms of measurable (usually, but not always, quantitative) outcomes.
The key metrics you use to measure your event’s success should tie back directly to your event’s purpose, or at least support it in some way. It’s best to limit these to between one and three metrics for clarity — such as the number of attendees, press mentions, or funds raised.
2. Budgeting for your event
Next up on your event planning checklist: setting a realistic budget to keep your event on track. Depending on the type of your event, there are several costs you’ll need to factor into your budget, including (but not limited to):
Venue hire
Catering costs
Merchandise costs
Speaker or performer fees
Staffing costs
Technology or equipment hire
Marketing costs (printed materials and paid advertising)
Event management tools and software
To streamline your finances at the early stages of your event planning, it’s best to start with a breakdown of projected and actual costs in a spreadsheet or planning tool of your choice. There are three key stages to this:
Step 1: Projected costs
Consider your budget for each item needed to run your event (what’s the maximum, for example, you want to spend on catering?). In one column, input estimated costs — aligned with your budget — for venue hire, marketing and so on. These are your projected costs.
Step 2: Actual costs
Once you have decided on a rough budget for each item, it’s time to research. Obtain quotes from different suppliers to find one that fits with your budget, repeat this for each item, and input these confirmed costs in a second column. These are the actual costs you will be invoiced for at the end of the event; make sure to include VAT or GST on your total sum.
Step 3: Profits
Once you know the total sum of the actual costs for your event, you can now calculate how many ticket sales (or partner sponsorships, or donations, depending on the setup of your event) you will need to make a profit. You can create a separate column to track ticket sales, then subtract the actual costs from the ticket sales to calculate a profit figure.
3. Selecting the perfect venue
When choosing the perfect venue for your event, there are several factors to consider. Most importantly, the right venue should facilitate your event’s goals and objectives and should cater to your target audience.
Space: Does the space itself fit your requirements? For instance, do you need tables for a workshop, projection equipment for a film screening, or a stage for keynote speakers?
Capacity: Does the venue have the capacity to accommodate the number of people you’re hoping to host? Make sure to consider seating capacity as well as standing space so that attendees are as comfortable as possible.
Accessibility: Is the venue accessible for all of your attendees?
Technology: Does the venue have adequate technology and equipment? If you’re looking to host a hybrid event, make sure to consider capabilities to make the event as good for remote attendees as it is for in-person guests — so consider the venue’s internet connectivity and speed, as well as equipment like quality microphones and cameras.
Catering: Does the venue provide catering or bar use as part of the venue hire? If not, are they happy for you to use external caterers and bartenders? Make sure to also consider factors such as the dietary requirements of your target audience when looking at menu options.
4. Designing the event aesthetics
First impressions count, so delight your guests with thoughtful visuals at your event. Whether you’re decorating with a specific event theme in mind or not, carefully curated and harmonious event design goes a long way. From color schemes to wall decorations, here are some tips for designing a memorable aesthetic:
Keep your event style front and center
The style, theme, and tone of your event will play a big part in your event’s aesthetic, especially when it comes to color schemes, decorations, and lighting. For instance, an 80s pop disco will likely have a playful, neon color palette — while a black tie gala may have a more subtle color scheme, such as golds and blacks.
Before planning your event aesthetic, make sure to stay consistent with your event’s style to create the right atmosphere, as well as audience expectations. Are your guests expecting a fun, playful aesthetic — or would a more sophisticated vibe appeal more?
Create consistent signage
When creating your event visuals, don’t forget to add a fun spin to the practicalities. Good, clear signage — including directions to the bar, ticket desk, or bathrooms — plays a big (and often overlooked) part of your event visuals. Get creative by making your signage in line with your event style with on-brand font choices, word choices, color schemes, and your event logo.
Consider your layout
Your venue layout is just as important as your décor and is a good way to add another visual element to your event. Whether you’re building a series of cozy seating areas with fairy lights, creating themed break-out rooms, or leading guests through a mysterious outdoor space, make sure your layout matches your event theme.
Prioritize your aesthetic by making your layout as Instagram-worthy as possible, as well as incorporating on-theme visuals (like colors, lighting, and signage) into every decision.
5. Organizing food and beverages
The next step in your event planning checklist is to consider catering. From delicious snacks to creative cocktails, delight your guests with thoughtfully selected refreshments. Here are some key things to consider:
Dietary requirements
When organizing food and drink for your event, catering to your target audience — and tailoring your food and drink menus accordingly — is vital. If you’re offering food, make sure your event is as inclusive as possible by offering a range of vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free options as well as meat and fish-based dishes.
At the bar, don’t forget to stock an array of alcohol-free drinks alongside beer, wine, and spirits. If you’re working with external caterers or vendors, make sure to check their menus to see if they can cater to your target audience.
Themes
Make sure every element of your event is consistent with your theme — right down to your food and drink menus. You might choose to create bespoke cocktails (get inventive with color themes, cocktail names, and ingredients) or themed snacks.
For instance, mulled wine and spiced cookies would work well at a Christmas movie screening, while Hollywood-themed cocktails would work well at a 1930s ball.
6. Entertainment and guest experiences
No event checklist would be complete without some exciting entertainment inspiration. Whether you’re hosting a pool party or a food festival, there are a plethora of options available to add a little extra buzz and enhance attendee’s experience on the day. Take a look at some entertainment examples below.
Music: Reach music fans with live bands, put together an incredible playlist to get everyone on the dancefloor, or offer breakout rooms with karaoke.
Comedy: Spark guests’ laughter with a line-up of professional comedians, or host open mic comedy sessions.
Theater: Delight guests with live performances on stage — or add an interactive element with immersive theater in an unusual venue.
Workshops: Teach attendees a new skill or get creative with arts and crafts workshops
Games: Encourage guests’ to get competitive with interactive games and contests — like board games, group quizzes, and scavenger hunts.
Refreshments: Add an entertaining twist to your food and drink offering with a dose of extravagance: think liquid smoke cocktails and baked Alaska desserts whipped up by bartenders and chefs.
Photo booths: Offer attendees a fun keepsake with themed photo booths — just add fun props like hats, glasses, and feather boas.
Beauty stalls: Get everyone feeling the fun with themed make-up artist stalls and mini nail salons.
7. Marketing and promoting your event
Next on your event planning checklist: it’s time to craft an engaging event marketing strategy that resonates with your target audience identified in step one.
Step 1: Create event branding
Compelling event branding — everything from your logo to your tone of voice — should reflect your event’s purpose and goals. To do this, think about what type of content, both written and visual, would most appeal to your target demographic.
As part of your event planning process, make sure to develop clear guidelines for all elements of branding, including logo, social media graphics, image choice, fonts, tone of voice, language use, and color palettes. These elements should be unique and easily identifiable as your event brand. For consistency, keep these elements in mind when creating any customer-facing content.
Step 2: Find the right channels
Finding the right audience starts with looking in the right places. Social media is one of the best ways to promote your event. Before creating your marketing strategy, it’s important to make sure you find the right social channels to reach your audience.
Is your target demographic most likely to be found on TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook? Email is also an effective marketing channel: does your audience subscribe to emails or newsletters? Do they typically engage with video best, or do they prefer written content?
Understanding your target audience — and where they are most likely to discover events online — is key to spreading the word effectively.
Step 3: Leverage other channels
In addition to social media and email channels, you can also get creative with your marketing — as always, making sure your strategy aligns with your target audience. If your audience is likely to read specific publications (for example, music magazines or local arts and culture publications), you may want to craft a compelling press release to increase the visibility of your event with media coverage.
If your target demographic likely follows influencers in your space or industry, it’s worth reaching out to them to team up on event partnerships, sponsorship, or exclusive giveaways. As well as giveaways and competitions, you might also choose to create a buzz for your event by offering early bird tickets or other discounts and ticket packages.
Step 4: Craft your marketing messaging
The secret to an effective marketing strategy requires staying focused on your audience — and knowing the best ways to reach them. These should be your guiding principles when creating your marketing communications.
Once you have decided on several channels to use to promote your event (for example, a series of compelling TikTok videos, Instagram reels, an engaging press release to amp up local press coverage, plus strategic Instagram influencer partnerships), it’s time to create your content, remembering the branding guidelines above.
8. Managing vendors and service providers
Whether you’re liaising with partners, technicians, external event teams, vendors, or caterers, communication is key to maintaining good working relationships. Here’s how to maintain open channels of communication so everybody stays informed at all stages of the planning process.
Set clear expectations
Make sure to set clear expectations from the beginning of your planning process. Discussing expectations around communication — specifically the frequency and the format (according to one survey by Harvard Business Review, 95% of people said that face-to-face meetings are essential to building long-term business relationships) — will help everyone understand when and how they will hear from you throughout the event planning process.
Provide regular updates
In your discussions, it’s also a good idea to set out when you will deliver important updates about the event on a regular and consistent basis (ie, once a week or once a fortnight). You may also want to set different expectations depending on the nature of the update.
For instance, you may agree to update stakeholders immediately if there are ad hoc changes or obstacles (such as a venue issue or weather forecast problem), while progress or status updates (such as booking performers or additional vendors) may be best suited to a weekly meeting.
Offer prompt responses
To maintain good working relationships, make sure to respond to inquiries and feedback as promptly as possible. Whether you’re addressing concerns or answering questions, this can help to ensure everyone is satisfied with each stage of the planning process as well as the delivery of the event itself.
9. Preparing for the unexpected: contingency planning
A crucial part of your event planning is preparing for the unexpected, whether that’s a guest speaker canceling their appearance, or a last-minute technical glitch. In other words, contingency planning is vital to navigate tricky situations.
Make sure your plan includes a problem-solving toolkit — so you and your team have clear, actionable steps to take in the face of last-minute issues. The details of this section may vary depending on the nature of your event, but might include:
Technical: This section should include what to do if you experience technical issues, such as broken or lost equipment like microphones or card machines. You might choose to test equipment early on the day of the event, or carry extra backup devices with you.
Performance: If a guest speaker or performer cancels their appearance due to illness, it’s important to have a backup plan in place. If the event features a multiple guest line-up, you might choose to extend the breaks between performers (while contacting guests with a notice of line-up change), or you may choose to reschedule the event and offer refunds.
Weather: This can be one of the most common setbacks event creators face when using outdoor spaces. You might choose to put measures in place to weatherproof your event as best you can: many festivals, for instance, sell waterproof ponchos in the case of wet weather, or keep extra gazebos or coverings handy.
10. Creating a detailed event schedule
An event schedule — or run sheet — is key to making sure everything runs smoothly. Your event program should be distributed to all team members ahead of time so that everybody has a clear picture of what needs to happen, and when.
The first thing to tick off your event day schedule checklist: allocating time efficiently. Make sure to leave plenty of time for both preparation (including setting up rooms, bar spaces, or other facilities) as well as clean-up after the event finishes. If your event has a very busy schedule, you may also want to delegate specific tasks to certain team members and indicate these on your agenda.
The schedule below is an example of a timeline for a film screening event with a Q&A:
16:00: Projectionist to test the film and audio equipment for post-screening Q&A (three microphones, plus speakers)
16:30: Bar staff to re-stock the bar with drinks and popcorn
17:30: Audience begins arriving, floor staff to guide them to their seats and manage guestlist
17:55: Filmmaker makes short introduction
18:00: Film starts (90 mins duration)
19:30: Break for audience to purchase refreshments
19:45: Interviewer begins Q&A with filmmaker
20:15: Audience questions
20:30: Q&A ends
23:00: Bar closes
11. On-the-day event management tips
On the day of your event, it’s important to make sure everything goes smoothly. Your on-the-day setup will vary depending on the nature of your event, but might include:
Staff: Make sure to have staff on hand to facilitate guests’ experience at your event, whether that’s answering questions or giving directions. Supply each team member with a run sheet and clearly delegated tasks to ensure everyone knows the event schedule and their part in its delivery. You’ll also need to supply door staff with a guest list, if applicable.
Stock: Make sure all vendors and bar staff have adequate stock to serve guests food and drink. You’ll also want to make sure you have other ad hoc supplies. This will vary depending on your event, but might include things like napkins, card machine receipt rolls, name tags, pens, brochures, and so on.
Setup: Make sure the venue is cleaned and all spaces — such as the ticket desk, bar, refreshments tables, seating, and staging areas — are set up before guests arrive.
Tech: Make sure all tech (such as microphones, card machines, speakers, lighting) is tested properly, and that those using it (like guest speakers or performers) know how to operate the equipment correctly. If you have performance elements of your event, like live music, you may also want to conduct a sound check before guests arrive.
Socials: Make sure to document your event on social media with photography and video on the day — as well as reposting content posted by your guests.
12. Post-event follow-up and analysis
How well did your event go? After the event, there are several key things to do. Firstly, make sure to follow up with event performers, vendors, and speakers — as well as your team — to send a thank-you note for their time and help in making your event a success.
Next, a post-event review is an important final step in the process. The ways you might conduct your review will vary depending on the nature of your event, but might include:
Asking for feedback
What did attendees think of your event? Using attendee feedback can be a hugely valuable tool not only to measure the success of your event, but also for future planning. On your survey, make sure to thank guests for attending, and include questions on what attendees enjoyed as well as what they would improve. This can help you to improve the attendee experience next time.
Ratings are a great way to gauge reaction to specific features of your event — such as music, catering, or atmosphere — while open-ended questions give guests the chance to offer more detailed feedback. Gathering data from this stage in the form of short testimonials is a great way to collect promotional material for your next event, so keep a note of any wonderful feedback.
Conduct a team review
How do your team members feel about the event? Just as attendee feedback is a valuable insight into your event’s success, so too is an internal review and debriefing. Make sure to gather each team to discuss everybody’s experiences of planning, promotion, and running the event, asking what went well and what could be improved. If you worked with sponsors or partners for your event, make sure to reach out to them to ask similar questions.
Revisit success metrics
One of the essential steps in your post-event review is revisiting the goals you set out in step one. Whether you hoped to measure success by press coverage, donations received, or attendee numbers, revisiting your metrics is a useful way to gauge the success of your event. Did you meet your goals? If you didn’t, are there ways you could work to meet them next time? Should your goals have been more realistic, or more ambitious?
Assess budget
Going back to your budget is another key part of your review. Evaluate your ticket sales (or donations, or sponsorships) against the costs of running your event. One useful metric to look at in your budget is your marketing ROI: where did the majority of ticket sales come from compared to where you spent the most?
Did you invest adequate time, money, and resources into that channel? Did your guests begin their ticket purchase journey from unexpected sources? Could you invest more in those sources next time?
13. Utilizing event planning tools and templates
The final step of your event planning checklist: making sure you have all of the tools and templates you need.
From event budgeting to programming, our event planning templates are a great way to gather inspiration for your event. Below, discover a range of templates designed to kick-start your planning and boost your efficiency.
Templates
From setting your event goals and objectives to utilizing event planning templates, this thirteen-step checklist is key to covering all bases for event success.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a checklist for event planning?
A checklist for event planning is a list of items needed for organizing your event. This checklist should include everything you need to do before your event — such as setting event goals, deciding on a budget, selecting a venue, booking entertainment, and so on.
What should be included in an event checklist?
13 key things should be included in an event checklist: defining your event goals and objectives; setting a budget for your event; selecting a venue; designing the event aesthetic; organizing food and drink; marketing and promotion; managing vendors and service providers; creating a contingency plan; creating a detailed event schedule; setting up on-the-day event management; creating a post-event survey and utilizing event planning tools and templates.
What are the six As of event planning?
For the execution of a successful event, six elements should be taken into account:
Anticipation: building excitement and creating a buzz
Arrival: creating an easy, comfortable entry to your event for your guests
Atmosphere: creating a positive ambiance in keeping with the style of your event
Appetite: organizing themed food and drink catering to your guests’ dietary needs
Amenities: offering guests a memorable experience in the form of experiences of keepsakes
Activities: booking exciting entertainment for your guests, such as live music or photo booths
What are the benefits of using an event planning checklist?
Having an event planning checklist is essential to guarantee that your event goes smoothly, and so that you can keep track of all the necessary steps at all stages of planning.