One of the most important aspects of planning an event or a conference in its early stages is scheduling. For most events, it is the locking of an event schedule that allows room for other facets of the event management process. Such is the importance of placing your event sessions and activities at the right places and into the right pockets of time throughout the day.
When building an event schedule, it is easy for even experienced organizers to fall into some predictable traps that can effectively derail even their best efforts. In this blog, we’re highlighting some of the most common mistakes that event professionals make when finalizing an event schedule. Additionally, we are also helping you correct these errors once and for all.
Don’t Start Planning Your Event Schedule Too Late
Many organizers underestimate how much lead time they need. A full-scale conference might take you anywhere between 3 and 6 months of planning, and yet teams often begin when they are only about a month away from the event. Working under this sort of compressed and constricting timeline inevitably pushes your team to make decisions that are rushed. It also limits your planning of other logistics, such as your venues.
The solution to this challenge is straightforward: simply start early. As much as you would like to procrastinate working out some challenging parts of your big day, remind yourself that it has to be done nevertheless. And then pick it up today, rather than pushing it indefinitely. The next thing you know is that your event is less than a month away, and you go through the familiar last-minute rush.
Spare yourself the jitters and start early and by working backwards. You may begin with first identifying the date of the intended event approximately and then map out every other logistical task from there. Check in with all your chosen venues and narrow down on ones that are available on your intended days of the conference. Work with everything progressively thereafter: venue contracts, speaker confirmations, catering arrangements, and marketing campaigns. Do not put off a single task for later, deeming it to be a simple affair that can be sorted in no time. Nine out of ten times, you will find yourself mistaken.
Do Not Ignore Attendee Availability When Planning Your Event Schedule
If you are scheduling your event for a date that works for you and your associates but fail to consider if it will sit well with your audiences, you are making a grave mistake. If you are not considering important implications such as university exams, holiday seasons, or even things like voting days, you are doing your attendees a great injustice. As an event planner, it is your duty to ensure that you comfortably accommodate the interests of your audiences to the fullest capacity.
Research your target demographic’s calendar constraints and check for any conflicting events, industry conferences, religious holidays, school schedules, or seasonal patterns that might put off attendance figures. If feasible, you may even run a survey amongst your potential attendees on the dates and times they’d prefer. You can ask them to pick a date that is most comfortable for them from a pre-selected pool of plausible dates already locked by your team, as per your convenience.
Do Not Fail to Account for Time Zones
If you are hosting an event or a conference that is open to attendees around the world, it is important to make sure that you create an environment that is welcoming to them. Be it virtual or even hybrid events, scheduling events that roughly accommodate most common time zones is non-negotiable.
When you are planning multi-timezone events, decide who your primary audience is and optimize for them, or rotate timing between events to share the inconvenience fairly. Use timezone converters and clearly communicate start times in multiple zones.
For international events, consider recording sessions for those who cannot attend live. Some organizers schedule key sessions twice at different times, accommodating various regions without forcing anyone into unreasonable hours.
Do Not Overload Your Event Schedule
The temptation to pack maximum value into a limited time often backfires. Back-to-back sessions without breaks exhaust attendees, reduce retention, and eliminate networking opportunities that often provide the most value. A jam-packed agenda looks impressive on paper but creates a grueling experience in practice.
Build breathing room into your schedule. Plan 15-minute breaks between sessions for people to process information, use facilities, and even just connect with one another. Try to stretch lunch breaks for meals; a little longer for rushed lunches only kills your attendees’ focus in the afternoon.
Do Not Neglect Setup and Breakdown Time
Your event doesn’t start when the first attendee arrives; it starts when your team begins setting up. Likewise, it also doesn’t completely draw its curtains once your last guest has left the room. There are multiple logistical facets to consider both before and after your event or conference. Organizers frequently book venues for just the event duration, and they are often panicked to realize that they forgot to account for extra time for prep and cleanup.
When reserving your venue space, mention your setup time before and breakdown time after your official event hours. A two-hour reception needs at least one hour of setup time, sometimes more for larger arrangements. Similarly, account for cleanup, equipment removal, and final walkthroughs. Confirm these extended hours in your venue contract to avoid last-minute complications or additional fees.
Do Not Underestimate Your Activity Duration
It is common for sessions to regularly run over their allotted time. Smart event planners simply make amends in advance so that delays don’t affect the beginning of another scheduled event in the same venue.
It helps to build realistic time estimates based on the activity type and allows for similarly realistic buffer time. Award ceremonies, for instance, often take longer than expected when you’re honoring many people. Add buffer time between major segments to absorb minor overruns.
Assign timekeepers who can give polite reminders to speakers at predetermined intervals. For critical sessions, rehearse beforehand to gauge the actual duration. When something does run long, have a plan to adjust. You can perhaps shorten the breaks or combine segments together rather than letting one delay affect the rest of your event.
Do Not Make Your Contingency Planning Inflexible
Weather delays, speaker cancellations, technical failures, and medical emergencies just happen. There is perhaps no foolproof way to control or prevent these mishaps. Therefore, when you have an event schedule with zero flexibility, you contribute to worsening your problems. In effect, you make small problems catastrophic. When everything runs on razor-thin margins, any disruption will derail your whole day.
Build padding that can absorb unexpected problems into your event schedule. Identify which elements about your event are fixed and cannot be worked with (venue availability, vendor commitments, etc.) and which ones are fairly flexible (break lengths, optional activities, etc.).
Then, create backup plans for all plausible scenarios. Have at least one substitute speaker ready. Make a mental note of which sessions you could shorten should you have to. Prepare indoor alternatives for outdoor activities in case of bad weather. And most importantly, designate a team member who can effectively handle these schedule adjustments in real time.
Building the Right Event Schedule
By avoiding the common mistakes in event scheduling that we’ve highlighted in this blog, you are setting your big day up for a smooth beginning and stable running throughout. What you do prior to an event or conference matters just as much as how you handle things during.
An event schedule that sits close to perfection is one that can cleverly strike a balance between your event ambitions and reality. We want a schedule that is structured but is flexible enough to give your attendees the best possible experience, placing their needs ahead of all else. When you get event scheduling right, your attendees can focus on what matters.
For event planners presently hoping to maximize their event scheduling and overall efficiency, Dryfta offers a comprehensive solution that will manage every aspect of conference organization within a single platform. Visit our website today and sign up for a free demo.