School event-planning checklist—essential questions to ask before you start planning
School events are a very important element of your school’s character, and can even be a reason your students and families are drawn to enrol. Unfortunately, they can also be time-consuming and difficult to get exactly right.
When you’re short on time, it can be so tempting to cut the planning and just jump right into the logistics of the event planning—calling venues, caterers, and florists and just booking them in. Or just recreating the same event you did last year (please don’t do this). Unfortunately, without proper pre-planning, events often end in disaster (and a lot of added expense).
Just like building a house, you need to have a smart and solid, well-considered event plan before you start to build. This will help your event run smoothly, minimise stress, and avoid wasting your time and money.
By considering the factors below before you start calling around, you will be well on your way to a successful event.
What are the goals of your school event?
Why are you doing this? Your goals should always support your school’s overall marketing and business plan and should be SMART--specific, measurable (where possible), achievable, realistic and timely.
Do you want to celebrate your students? Engage your families? Fundraise a certain dollar amount for a new school project? Increase community awareness and boost next year’s enrolments by 10%?
Write down your goals and share them with all stakeholders. Keep referring back to them throughout your planning, and use that sheet as a measuring tool post-event to evaluate the success of your event and make any future changes required.
The all-important budget question—what is realistic and will still tick all the boxes?
If you aren’t sure, try looking into past events to see where the biggest costs were and create an overarching financial plan for your event.
This is where a professional event planner can add a lot of value, working exactly to your budget and using experience and contacts to create exactly what you need (and what you don’t!) so you can tick your boxes and stay within your set budget.
Who are the stakeholders for this event?
At the end of the day, your event is about the people. How it makes them feel, what they take away, and how they remember it. Who are the people involved in your event? Not just the attendees, but anyone who will have an interest.
Does your event plan accommodate them? How can you go above and beyond to wow them with unexpected special elements?
Have you really considered the venue and timing for your school event?
Your timing should slot in well with any other events on your school’s social calendar. What else will be going on for your attendees at that time? You want your attendees to be able to relax and have fun.
Evening and day-time events have a very different feel, as do summer and winter, and they all come with their own weather considerations too.
The same is true of your venue—the same event held in your gym or a Melbourne ballroom will feel completely different. You need to know how many people will be attending, any permits you may require, and what infrastructure will be needed.
Do you have an event marketing strategy?
It doesn’t matter how perfect your event is if no one shows up!
So how will you tell people of your event? Social media, print flyers, emails, school channels? Create a small schedule to be sure you know when you are promoting your event and how.
This should form part of a mini event marketing plan to be sure your event invitation ends up in the right hands and your attendees book in. Be very clear on how you will get people to attend or book tickets, that you have allowed ample time for them to get it in their diaries (but not too much), and made their registration process as simple as possible. You can also include another pre-event follow-up as needed to boost attendance and engagement.
Now you’ve built a solid foundation, and you’re ready to start with the logistics of vendors, staff, and event documents (don’t forget your risk assessments and contingency plans!)
