Planning your Conference

1. Plan in advance
Depending on the size of your conference, planning should be made as early as possible. As much as a few months in advance.  If you have a specific venue in mind or if your speakers are hard to book, your timing should depend on these factors.
2. Set a time scale
Conferencing can be an ever‐changing environment, timely decisions and meeting supplier’s deadlines will ultimately lead to efficiently executed events and can save you money.  Try and respect your supplier’s time challenges, it will pay in the long run.
3. Plan the size of your conference
Conferences can vary in size. In the planning stage decide what sort of event you would like, how many participants, how many speakers, the length of the conference, etc. The main constraint would be your budget, and that takes us to the next point.
4. Set a budget
The ideal process is to define what will make your conference successful: Location? The speakers? The entertainment? The catering? All these elements can contribute to the success of a conference, but they also affect your costs. Plan two or three different budget levels and go for the one that is more likely to make your conference successful. 
5. Choose your speakers
No matter what your niche is, it is very likely that the quality of the speakers can make or break your conference. In many fields, speakers are the stars of the conference. If good speakers are hard to find, plan well in advance. You don’t want to end up with a superbly organised conference but with little content to share with your audience.

6. Choose the location
The location of a conference is very important. You need a place that can be easily reached, well served by public transport and with a good choice of hotels and restaurants in the area, if your conference is for 2‐3 days. 
7. Talk to the venue
If planning a successful conference seems like a daunting task for you, or if you don’t have great experience in event management, talk to your venue. They have tons of experience and they are more than willing to share it with you, because your success is the venue’s success too. Keyside can suggest bespoke solutions to maximise how the space and our services can work for you.
8. Choose your suppliers
Talk to your venue, chances are they have preferred suppliers. Recognise the experience and expertise your suppliers can bring; engage with them about your objectives and challenges, and they will work alongside you to find solutions.
9. Focus on visitor experience
Live events are still very relevant in today’s market; whilst advancing technologies have enhanced our industry, they can’t replace the element of human interaction. Careful consideration should be given to visitor experience and engagement to maximise ROI / ROO and drive customer retention".
10. Take a look at our conference offering
Keyside Conference & Events can help you plan and create a successful, bespoke conference. Our team will help you find the perfect fit and with our help planning a successful conference will be a much easier task.