Planning an engaging digital event is no easy task, but an event preparation timeline makes it easier.
Depending on the nature of the event, the process can start months in advance and take a great deal of time and resources. An event planning timeline breaks those components into manageable chunks and helps keep the project on track.
Our recent blog shared an event planning checklist to help you identify and manage all the important tasks right up to kick-off.
Here, we’ve put deadlines for your primary responsibilities over six months, so you’ve got a comprehensive event planning timeline you can follow from day one.
Why Following a Timeline for Event Planning Is Essential for Success
Working to an event planning timeline makes it so much easier to:
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- Meet the deadlines for bringing suppliers, partners, and sponsors on board (they will need plenty of advance notice, after all)
- Create clear schedules for your staff and all third parties so they know what they need to do, where they need to go, and when they need to be available
- Better manage your own teams, as everyone will know what’s expected of them
- Adapt to any last-minute changes or challenges without derailing the event completely
- Stay on budget!
Event management timelines are beneficial from a logistics standpoint, but they’re also incredibly important for improving event attendance.
Increased registrations are a top priority for virtual event planners and this means leaving enough time to carry out promotional activities. An effective event preparation timeline ensures that promotional campaigns are executed strategically and not rushed.
6-Month Event Planning Timeline – Key Tasks to Ensure a Seamless Event
This six-month event planning timeline sample has been designed as an outline that you can adapt to your needs.
Two months might be long enough as a planning schedule for corporate events involving less than 100 people. On the other hand, in-person, hybrid or digital events with thousands of attendees may require a yearlong runway.
Our biggest piece of advice? Have a target date in mind, and work backward. As you develop your event planning schedule, figure out how much time it will take to complete each step in the process (and add in a little leeway, too).
Months 1-2
Dedicate the first few weeks to making all the big decisions that will impact your event.
Step 1: Decide on your event management team and delegate roles and tasks to everyone involved
Do these staff have the skills they need to project manage your event? Consider how you can ensure your employees play to their strengths throughout the planning process.
Step 2: Establish your goals for your event
Is the aim to raise awareness of your brand, launch a new product or service, or establish a strong partnership with another business? Either way, you’ll need to decide on your event objectives and the KPIs you will use to measure your event’s success.
Step 3: Define your target audience
Who are you talking to? What do they want, need, and expect from your brand? Knowing who you want the event to appeal to will help you create a clear theme and a winning agenda.
Step 4: Set a date
Ensure it doesn’t clash with public holidays or other high-profile company or industry events. Once you’ve decided on a date, you can assemble a timeline for event planning by working backwards.
Step 5: Choose a venue
It’s vital to confirm a venue ASAP if you’re planning a physical event — but you’ll also need to consider where you’ll host your digital event from, too. Review your options if you don’t have a digital event platform on hand. And, if you are looking, make sure you find a solution that collects in-depth attendee engagement data and integrates deeply with your tech stack.
Step 6: Bring Sales Into the Loop
Connect with your sales leaders to ensure they know about your upcoming event. Your initial focus with sales should be to lockdown event-related commitments and establish guidelines for tracking and qualifying any leads generated from the event.
This is also a good opportunity to review how marketing and sales approach virtual selling.
Step 7: Add in your anchor points
Write a list of all the tasks that must happen by a specific date, like paying the deposit for the venue, for example. This is one of the most crucial steps in your event management timeline, with very limited scope for flexibility.
Step 8: Speak to your third parties
Now is the time to talk to suppliers, partners, and potential sponsors about how they can contribute to your event. Find out how to get sponsorship for an event.
Step 9: Start developing your event marketing strategy
From setting up landing pages to planning blogs, creating e-shots and filming behind-the-scenes footage, your event preparation timeline should also incorporate how you will raise awareness of your event using all the channels available.
Month 3: Midpoint Check-In for Your Event Planning Schedule
The midpoint of your event planning timeline usually involves crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s.
Step 1: Send out save-the-date invitations
Emails or in-mails will usually do the trick — but you might want also to consider sending physical save-the-date cards or welcome packs to get your guests excited about what’s to come.
Step 2: Agree terms with your suppliers, speakers and sponsors
Now is the time to lock in agreements and fees with anyone central to your event — helping you to keep third parties from backing out at short notice.
Step 3: Settle on your tech
If you’re running a digital or hybrid event, you must decide which digital event platform to deliver your content and manage your attendees. If you’re planning a physical conference or seminar, you’ll need to consider your full production setup, and bring in contractors to handle this if it’s outside your team’s skillset.
Month 4: Fine-Tuning Your Event Management Timeline
Your event planning timeline should start bringing the finer details together at this stage.
Step 1: Review the fallback procedures at your event
Ensure you and your team know what to do if something goes wrong at your event. This is only usually necessary if you’re running an in-person or hybrid experience.
If you’re going fully digital, you could use this time to train your staff and speakers on the event platform you’re using and put together a Plan B in case you come across any technical issues.
Step 2: Get the final versions of your speakers’ presentations
Ask your speakers to send you their final presentation slides. You can use this content to finalize the timings for your agenda and steer any last-minute marketing materials.
Step 3: Review Follow-up Program With Sales
Sit down with your sales team to make sure they know the program for connecting and following up with attendees. Make sure your marketing and sales teams have aligned on MQL and SQL qualifications from the event for any virtual or hybrid elements.
Step 4: Explore features to make your event more immersive
ON24 offers an impressive selection of personalization tools to help you maximize engagement and collect valuable behavioral data from attendees’ interactions with your content.
Month 5: Preparing for the Final Event Day Logistics
Step 1: Start building your guest list
Look at the sign-ups you’ve had so far so you build a picture of who’s attending the event. You might want to consider drafting a seating plan for physical meet-ups at this stage. Name badges are also a good idea if you’re planning a corporate networking event.
Step 2: Collect and distribute your swag
Get a hold of any gifts, merchandise or prizes that will be handed out (or mailed out) to your attendees.
Step 3: Confirm your catering menus
If you’re supplying food and drinks for your event, you should always ask attendees if they have any specific dietary requirements.
Step 4: Book event security
It’s not always necessary — but if you’re running a large or sensitive event, you may want to consider having security staff on hand to keep things running smoothly.
Month 6: Executing Your Event Planning Timeline Successfully
Get ready to see all your hard work pay off!
Step 1: Confirm event timings and send out the final agenda
Get clear on what will happen and when — and let everyone know what to expect from your event. Send out a mailshot with the event’s date, time, and program, all in one place. If you’re hosting an in-person event, include details on the venue’s address and parking or public transport information.
Step 2: Finalize scripts and cue sheets for your hosts
These will be vital to prevent any mistakes and hiccups that might interrupt the flow of your event.
Step 3: Double-check your audiovisual and/or event-hosting setup
Test, test and test again!
Step 4: Rehearse the full event
Run through the entire agenda in their respective domains (physical, digital or hybrid) so everyone can get comfortable with how things will run.
It’s a lot.
Our handy event planning guide will help you keep your teams on schedule and deliver more value from your event overall. But as you can see, there’s so much to consider – especially if you’re organizing an in-person conference, seminar, launch, or networking session.
If you’re working to a smaller budget or haven’t got six months to plan your event, running a hybrid experience, through a hybrid event platform, could be a smarter option. Our recent webinar on planning and running a hybrid event can help.
And one final thing – there’s an extra step not included in our event timeline guide. This is, of course, what happens post-event. 92% of Forrester’s The Global State of B2B Events Survey 2024 respondents stated that they plan to improve their post-event attendee follow-up this year. If you’re putting together a corporate event planning timeline, it’s definitely something to consider.
