What are great idea! Let's have an event to benefit a charity! Sounds great when you say it. Sounds great when you write it down just like I did. Then the realization sets in and you say, " What in the world did I just sign myself up for." That's shortly followed up by feeling the anxiety of not knowing where to start. Is this what you get when you decide to combine your love for social gatherings and doing good for other people? If the Event Planning for Dummies book exists, please point me in the general direction...ASAP! Event Planning for Complete Idiots would be sufficient too.
What makes this even more exciting is...... I'VE NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE! Thankfully, this event will not be brought to you by Jim Jones' Event Planning Services. I definitely won't be doing business with anyone with a tag line of "Kool-Aid tastes great, but it'll kill ya." His last event in Jonestown didn't exactly go swimmingly.
I have learned some pretty good lessons thus far. I have learned you better have a good cause. Your venue is extremely important. You best have a trust-worthy, dependable caterer and have something fun for your guests to take part in while they are there.
In my limited experience, the most important part of this quite possibly is promoting it. Luckily, I would like to think that could be a potential strength of mine. If no one knows about your event, it doesn't matter how great it is. There are countless examples to give. Then you have situations like the Tampa Bay Rays. Everyone know about them, but they still don't have any fans in the seats except when the Yankees come to town. Cleveland knows how that works too. Are the people that market the Rays that bad or are there too many things to do on a random weekday in Tampa/St. Pete? I know I'd be busy with other things instead of sitting in that sorry excuse for a baseball park and I'm a baseball fan! Note to public officials in that market....If you build it, they will come!! Where I'm going with this is you need people to know about your event and it should be at a worthwhile destination. If your lacking either of the two, the chips are stacked against you.
I also would highly recommend having a plan B, C, and D when you go through your event planning process. Everybody wants their event to have all of the finest things, but maintaining a responsible budget is important to most. One of the benefits of having an event to raise money for a charity is that venues and caterers will give you a price break because they understand you are not profiting on your event. They also want to be associated with people that are trying to do good for the community. Another reason to have multiple options for your event is quite simply your prospective venues, caterers and bands might have prior commitments on the day(s) you want to have your event.
This truly has been an education and it has just begun! I can't wait to see what will become of all this hard work. As I continue to plug along, I get my motivation from the thought of touching someone's life and putting a smile on their face. That's how I measure success.
Written by Eric for sytesee.blogspot.com
"Success doesn't come to you, you go it." - Marva Collins
What makes this even more exciting is...... I'VE NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE! Thankfully, this event will not be brought to you by Jim Jones' Event Planning Services. I definitely won't be doing business with anyone with a tag line of "Kool-Aid tastes great, but it'll kill ya." His last event in Jonestown didn't exactly go swimmingly.
I have learned some pretty good lessons thus far. I have learned you better have a good cause. Your venue is extremely important. You best have a trust-worthy, dependable caterer and have something fun for your guests to take part in while they are there.
In my limited experience, the most important part of this quite possibly is promoting it. Luckily, I would like to think that could be a potential strength of mine. If no one knows about your event, it doesn't matter how great it is. There are countless examples to give. Then you have situations like the Tampa Bay Rays. Everyone know about them, but they still don't have any fans in the seats except when the Yankees come to town. Cleveland knows how that works too. Are the people that market the Rays that bad or are there too many things to do on a random weekday in Tampa/St. Pete? I know I'd be busy with other things instead of sitting in that sorry excuse for a baseball park and I'm a baseball fan! Note to public officials in that market....If you build it, they will come!! Where I'm going with this is you need people to know about your event and it should be at a worthwhile destination. If your lacking either of the two, the chips are stacked against you.
I also would highly recommend having a plan B, C, and D when you go through your event planning process. Everybody wants their event to have all of the finest things, but maintaining a responsible budget is important to most. One of the benefits of having an event to raise money for a charity is that venues and caterers will give you a price break because they understand you are not profiting on your event. They also want to be associated with people that are trying to do good for the community. Another reason to have multiple options for your event is quite simply your prospective venues, caterers and bands might have prior commitments on the day(s) you want to have your event.
This truly has been an education and it has just begun! I can't wait to see what will become of all this hard work. As I continue to plug along, I get my motivation from the thought of touching someone's life and putting a smile on their face. That's how I measure success.
Written by Eric for sytesee.blogspot.com
"Success doesn't come to you, you go it." - Marva Collins
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