The meeting planners oversee the execution and coordination of personal and professional events. The roles of meeting and event planners may vary as per the nature of the event, but the planners are always in charge of ensuring the guests about the positive experiences and reviews. If you talk about the process in a typical manner, an event planner, first of all, meets the potential clients for the consultation. This is when the representative or the client lays out all the needs for the event and asks out the questions of the planner. Once you are aware of the client’s need for a particular event, then you can ask the questions from the event and meeting planner. Once you’ve understood the needs of the clients, you can discuss the details including the location, preferred dates, number of goods and the other specifications. At the very first visit, you’ll explain the role during the planning phase of the event. You can also tell the client anything you want to, during the whole process and discuss the fees with the planner.
- Helps in selecting venue – In some of the cases, clients might select a venue or might have already lined up some. Most often, it’s the part of the duty of the planner to find out the right venue and reserve it as per the preferred date. The setting space, geographic location, and functionality are quite common considerations when it comes to planning an event. For meeting events, convention halls and hotels are the most standard locations.
- Transportation – The meeting planners also manage the transportation from and to the event all during the event for the guests. For instance, if there’s a conference that includes people who’re flying from the other areas, the event planner might coordinate very well with the travel agent to set up your flights. There are other things like shuttle services, buses, and other ground transports that he/she might use to coordinate well. There are few events that take place over for a few days in various different local venues. The planners might rent buses to transport the guests in and around during the events as well.
- Coordinates all the Details – The event and meeting planner is the one who helps in coordinating all the details of the staff on the day of the event. Coordinating all the schedules of floral, wait staff, catering, checking on the missing items and problems while guiding guests, participants all throughout the event are taken care of with the help of event and meeting planners.
Roles and responsibilities of event and meeting planner
- Helps in overseeing and facilitating all the aspects of meeting and planning from the site selection, event registration, vendor negotiation, onsite staffing, marketing, and post-event reporting.
- Helps in working on multiple national-level meetings, events, and large scale conferences.
- Helps in sending and creating event marketing communications via the web, email, print, and others. Sending out and tracking correspondence with the exhibitors, sponsors, and speakers is also one of the tasks that’s performed by the event planners.
- Helps in coordination and creation of the event publications along with the syllabus materials. The event and meeting planners also help in the preparation of BEO information of all the event venues. They also help in coordinating, lodging the travel expenses for all the participants who are traveling the world for meetings.
- The meeting and event planners also create and manage the budgets with the collection of registration plus sponsorship income and exhibit the fees as well. They also help in the meeting preparation, supply ordering, shipping/packing of event materials and others. There are various staff events that are managed with on-site event registration and other things.
- The event and meeting planners also take care of the staff events and various occasional travels, national meetings, regional meetings and so on. Along with this, the data entry and the daily administrative functions are always taken care of by the meeting planners.