When running a recurring event, you may find that scaling up is necessary due to increased brand awareness and public interest. This is good news, as it implies a desire to attract more attendees and create additional buzz around your event.
However, scaling an event can be challenging. Much like expanding a business, it requires allocating the right resources and adopting the correct strategic approach. The way you scale your event will significantly influence both your guests’ experience and the success of future editions.
Here’s what you can do.
Conduct Internal and External Research
Before you commit to a comprehensive event strategy, you need evidence that scaling up is a viable move. It’s wise to review attendee satisfaction reports from past events and conduct interest surveys with your attendees, partners, and other internal stakeholders.
For example, if you have an annual flagship event that currently meets all your event goals and leaves your attendees satisfied, does it make sense to hold more events? You should consider several key questions:
- Are there any additional objectives that could be achieved through more events?
- Do we have the budget and resources necessary for expansion?
- Are our attendees looking for more from our events?
- What are the current industry trends that might influence our event strategy?
- How could additional events help other departments meet their goals?
Choose the Right Event Software
Since event management software often forms the backbone of the event planning process, taking the time to find the right solution that fits your budget and goals is crucial. Your software partner should provide comprehensive, future-proof, end-to-end event management capabilities, whether you’re organizing flagship conferences, webinars, internal training sessions, investor relations meetings, or something entirely different.
Make Way for Automation and Repeatability
The less manual work required in organizing and running your event, the easier it will be to scale. This principle also applies to creating repeatable processes. Identify which parts of your current event planning process require the most hands-on time and start devising ways to automate these tasks. This will help make your events consistent, scalable, and repeatable.
For example, you might use third-party automation tools to streamline processes or employ event management software to automate registration, ticketing, sending reminder emails, etc. Or, you might standardize your event planning method so it’s easier to replicate from one event to the next. Whatever your approach, ensure that automation and repeatability are prioritized at every stage—from planning through execution to post-event evaluation.
Document Everything
As you develop a scalable event strategy, it’s essential to document every detail and best practice and share this information extensively with all relevant stakeholders.
When planning events, remember that overcommunicating and ensuring transparency are the gold standards. Document and store the following event information so you can easily replicate successful strategies from event to event:
- Event production checklist
- Email invitation, follow-up, and reminder templates
- Event plan template
- Event run of show template
- Event responsibilities
- Speaker production and script walkthrough template
- Speaker kickoff template
- Event budget and sponsorship template
Prioritize Brand Consistency
One of the challenges associated with hosting a high volume of events is maintaining your overall event vision without diluting your brand. To overcome this challenge, create a unified brand identity under which all your other events can align.
Wrapping Up
While scaling an event may seem daunting, a well-planned strategy that utilizes automation can lead to successful and impactful large-scale events. By focusing on these strategies, you can ensure that scaling your event not only meets but exceeds guest expectations, enhancing both current and future event success.
