Organizing a conference is seldom a one-man job; assembling a team of talented, hardworking individuals is necessary to bring your conference to fruition. It's equally essential that conference organizers delegate tasks strategically, according to merit, and guide their team members in accomplishing those tasks on time. For maximum efficiency, teams can be divided into, but not limited to:
Finance, Budgeting, and Treasury
Once a budget is set, your finance department needs to be informed so the necessary funds are allocated and released when needed. Assign some of your team members the responsibility of maintaining a cost spreadsheet, keeping track of the remaining budget, collecting incoming payments from participants or sponsors, and updating the rest of your team accordingly.
Design and Production
While the designing and production of invitations, ads, catalogs, kits, décor, booths, merchandise, and more can be outsourced to a third-party service provider, there still needs to be some in-house personnel to communicate the desired design details and features as well as approve of those designs before they head into production.
Bookings, Services, and Vendor Management
Finding and making arrangements with the right venue, hotel, transportation providers, caterers and other service providers can be a tiresome task that requires good negotiating skills; your ideal candidates for this would be personnel with experience in procurement, vendor management, and Logistics.
Marketing, Social Media and PR
An experienced team to handle marketing, social media management, and PR is needed to deliver the right messages about your conference to your target audience. The marketing team should be in charge of email dissemination, telemarketing, and advertisements (if any) to secure sales. Similarly, a social media content creation and management team is needed to create and maintain your conference's online presence as well as manage customer feedback. If your conference expects media coverage, then have an experienced PR executive handle media kits, news releases, and invitations.
Registrations Management
Sales personnel are needed to keep track of registrations, resolve any issues related to participants, and provide them with any needed documents, such as invoices as well as visa letters, for participants visiting from abroad.
Stakeholder Management
Your sponsors, VIPs, and speakers have a financial as well as a reputational stake in being associated with your conference, which is why they should be given a higher degree of exclusivity. See that team members with PR experience handle all processes of your sponsors, VIPs, and speakers, which include approaching them with proposals, collecting sponsorships, handling any requests, and taking care of their travel, accommodation, as well as entry and other arrangements on the day of your conference.
IT / Tech Support
An IT / technical support team is needed onsite during your conference to facilitate the audio-visual elements as well as handle any technical issues, such as equipment malfunctions, immediately.
While manpower is needed regardless of the size of your conference, it can be significantly minimized with the help of user-friendly event management software such as MeetingHand. Click here to learn more about this cost and time efficient platform.