The Ultimate Event Coordinator Checklist for 2024
“Expect the unexpected” is the unofficial motto for hospitality professionals — especially for event planners and coordinators. However, meticulous planning goes a long way to ensure successful events. Whether you’re a new event coordinator or a seasoned veteran, having a reliable checklist for every stage of the event planning process can help you better tackle the inevitable surprises that occur.
Leverage this comprehensive event coordinator checklist to keep yourself organized throughout the planning process and to ensure nothing important gets missed along the way.
6 Months Prior to the Event
While many virtual events may not require 6 months of planning, most event coordinators start planning in-person events 6-12 months in advance, depending on the size and scope of the event.
Define Event Goals
Before you get into the nitty-gritty details, first define the purpose of the event. Why are you hosting it in the first place, and how will you define success? The ultimate goal could be lead generation, revenue growth, brand awareness, and more.
All decisions you make after this point should relate back to your event goal.
Plan Foundational Details
Create an outline of the most important details of your event, which will allow you to accomplish future steps without scrambling.
- Event theme and name
- In-person, virtual, or hybrid format
- City and venue
- Event date, time, and length
Connect With Potential Featured Guests
Explore options for guest speakers, panelists, or entertainers (depending on the type of event). Create a short list of potential guests, their rates, and their availability. From there, you can book the guests or entertainers that most closely align with your theme, budget, and date.
Organize Budget
Create an event budget that aligns with your core goal. Create a detailed plan of how much you’re hoping to spend on the event, and then get cost estimates to see if you need to make adjustments. Some things you’ll want to get estimates on include:
- Speaker rates
- Food & beverages
- Venue rental
- Travel
- Insurance
- Event tech (microphones, live-streaming, etc.)
- Marketing and advertising
Solidifying a budget will also help you determine your registration goal and how much to charge for tickets.
Secure Sponsorships
Securing event sponsorship greatly alleviates costs and boosts visibility while aligning to business’ needs, whether you’re planning a paid or free event. You’ll want to have plenty of time to establish different sponsorship packages that you’ll pitch to prospective sponsors. Your packages should clearly outline the benefits of sponsoring your event.
Consider utilizing a modern sponsorship pitch deck like DIGIDECK for more impactful visuals and powerful analytics that give you insights into your prospect’s behavior. For advanced efforts, show prospects exactly what’s to come by transposing their brand logo on activation areas using real event imagery throughout your pitch deck.
Start pitching early on so that sponsors are finalized before you send out promotional materials.
3-4 Months Before the Event
At this stage, planning and coordinating starts to ramp up. Time to start executing on your preliminary planning!
Finalize Contracts
Of the short list of panelists or entertainers you reached out to, it’s now time to finalize exactly who will be participating in your event. Extend them a contract to lock in the partnership. This is also the time to start solidifying talking points, travel arrangements, and speaker bios.
Additionally, send out contracts to other vendors, such as:
- Caterers
- Photographers
- Merchandise suppliers
- Florists
- Transportation services
Launch Registration
Create and launch your online registration medium— whether that be through your personal website, a microsite, or a 3rd party registration platform. At this point, registration fees should be solidified, including if you’re releasing early bird pricing or not.
Start Marketing
Once registration launches, it’s time to start marketing so that people know your event exists! Your marketing strategy may include:
- Email campaigns
- Online ads
- Print marketing
- Social media
- SEO
- Influencer marketing
Hire the Event Team & Purchase Tech
Start hiring for critical event staff roles, and ensure you have everything needed to bring the event to life. Many organizations work with event staffing companies who provide catering staff, check-in staff, brand ambassadors, and more. This is an excellent option for taking some responsibility off your shoulders. The venue may also have event staff available.
Depending on the venue, they may provide all the tech and equipment needed, such as tables, chairs, microphones, and projectors. Be sure to confirm what is and is not provided by the venue so that you can coordinate renting or purchasing the necessary equipment at this stage.
Create a Backup Plan
This isn’t the most pleasant step to think about, but it’s incredibly important. In the event of something not going according to plan— a panelist or entertainer canceling, inclement weather, etc., it’s vital to come up with a backup plan.
Have other vendors on backup, come up with a rain plan for outdoor events, know who to reach out to for additional volunteers, and have a game plan for if you need to refund registrants.
1-2 Months Before the Event
The 1-2 month mark is more about executing and less about planning. All the hard work you put in earlier in the year will pay off as you finalize details in this stage.
Confirm With Sponsors
Sponsorship is one of the most important aspects of running a successful event, so you’ll want to maintain frequent, positive contact with your sponsors. Be sure to confirm their participation, gather the necessary sponsor promotion materials, and encourage your sponsors to promote the event themselves.
Execute Your Publicity Plan
Continue to follow-through with your marketing and publicity efforts. Go beyond general details of your event and get more specific by featuring the speakers or entertainment, sending out press releases, and personalizing invitations to partners and prospects.
End Early Bird Pricing
If you decided to promote early bird pricing for your event, you’ll want to end that promotion around the 1-2 month mark prior to your event. At this point, change all ticket fees to their regular registration cost. Be sure to provide ample communication before the price change so interested attendees have a chance to purchase lower priced tickets.
The Week Before
Final touches, incoming!
Finalize Scripts
If your event is one with speakers, make sure that all scripts are finalized. It’s also wise to schedule practice sessions for speakers— ideally in the same space as your event, but if that’s not possible, book a room in a convenient location for their prep.
Polish & Finalize the Presentation Slides
If your event is one that features speakers, panelists, or another type of presentation, make sure the presentation slides are ready to go at this stage.
Whether you’re using a simple free tool like PowerPoint or a dynamic, interactive, and custom presentation platform like DIGIDECK, make sure the correct people have reviewed the design and content so that the presentation is ready to go on event day.
Check the Registration List
Depending on when you close registration, you may not be able to do a final registration check until the day before, or even the day of. But as soon as registration closes, finalize your list, print name badges & table place cards, and send the final numbers to your caterer.
Confirm Details With the Media
If photographers, reporters, or other media professionals are attending your event, confirm their arrival time, their day-of contact, and other details they can expect.
Send Finalized Schedules to Guests & Speakers
Finalize your event schedule and send it out to attendees, speakers, and entertainers. Schedules for speakers and entertainers should include their call times and will differ slightly from the schedule sent to attendees.
Finalize a Seating Plan
If this is an event with assigned seats, be sure to finalize a seating arrangement a week before. Create a large seating chart so attendees know which table or seat they’re at, and set up place cards on the right seats.
Distribute Work & Volunteer Schedules
Create and send work schedules for employees and volunteers that include the shift length, when they need to arrive, where to park, where to enter, dress code requirements, and who their point of contact is.
The Day Before
The day before the event may feel a little (or a lot) hectic as you get everything together before guests arrive. Lean into the excitement and energy to focus on solidifying the final details.
Put Signage & Merchandise in Place
Place signage around the venue that points to important places people need to go, such as:
- Restrooms
- Event space
- Entrances and exits
- Parking lots
Additionally, make sure you have all swag, promo items, and other merchandise in the right places.
Test All A/V Equipment
No one likes technical difficulty during an event. While these complications are often a fluke, it’s still wise to test all the technical equipment to potentially catch any issues in advance.
Set the Tables
Set all tables and registration tables with the necessary items, such as dinnerware, pens, paper, and paper.
Day-Of the Event
It’s finally time to put your hard work in front of your attendees. Remember the backup plans you made a few months ago? These might come in handy on event day!
Finalize Details
On event day, it’s most important to simply be present in order to address the many little details that inevitably arise.
- Greet attendees
- Assist speakers, entertainers, and sponsors as needed
- Check in with catering, employees, and volunteers
- Have copies of important documents (directions, schedule, parking permits, seating charts, guest list, etc.)
After the Event
Congrats! You’ve made it through a successful event. But even though the event is over, the responsibilities of an event coordinator aren’t done quite yet.
Pay Final Invoices
If you haven’t already, wrap up any outstanding invoices and make final payments.
Thank Your Sponsors
Your sponsors played a huge part in bringing your event to life. Be sure to extend a thoughtful “thank you,” and consider sending a thank you gift.
Send Surveys
In order to ensure your next event is as successful as possible, send out surveys to your attendees, speakers, entertainers, and sponsors. You may even consider offering an incentive like a gift card for people who participate in a survey.
Share Event Content
If you have videos and photos from the event, repurpose that content and share it on social media for the next few weeks to keep your audience engaged even after the event has ended.
Leverage Tech in the Event Planning Process
While this checklist is a great place to start, it’s not meant to be an exhaustive list of every task that may come up. Feel free to take this checklist and customize it to your specific needs!
To streamline the event coordination process, leverage technology to help you through the process. Consider things like AI note takers and meeting summarizers for notes, DIGIDECK for trackable sponsorship pitch decks, registration microsites, and event presentations, and event registration software for automated registration bookkeeping.
Interested in seeing how DIGIDECK presentations can help you throughout the event coordination process when pitching to sponsors, creating registration microsites, communicating know-before-you-go details, collecting invoices, presenting on event day, and more? Schedule a free demo today!
