ConfTool: Guide for Local Event Organizers

Table of Contents
1. Planning & Budget
2. Promotion & Registration
3. Programme
4. On-Site Operations
5. After the Event

This guide summarizes the basic tasks and steps for preparing and organizing an event, with hints on what not to forget. It focuses on the tasks of the Local Conference Organizer (LCO). For the tasks of the programme chairs of a scientific meeting, please see Phases of Conference Preparation.

Some Basics
Benefit from Experience: Try to get as much information as possible from the past organizers.
Deadlines: When planning for deadlines, allow at least one week's leeway to prepare for unforeseen problems, such as fewer submissions than expected or missing reviews.
Breaks: 30 minutes for a regular break (45 minutes if finger food is served), about 1.5 hours for lunch.
Budget: reserve at least 10 % for unexpected costs.
Early-bird payment: usually due within 4 weeks, otherwise the discount is lost.
Sponsors: Try to get sponsors for the event. Try to host some social events by them.
Registration desks: about one regular desk per 75 participants during the main arrival time, plus at least one extra desk for special cases.
Open the registration desk the afternoon before the event starts – it works as a test run and reduces stress on day one.

Conference Date and Location

• When deciding on the conference date, check whether a conference with a similar theme takes place elsewhere at the same time, and gather information about holidays, other conferences, fairs and events in your city. If a lot is going on, participants may struggle to get hotel rooms at reasonable rates and affordable travel.
• If more people want to attend than expected, can the location handle this?
• Consider the distance between the different rooms / locations. Attendees might want to move from one talk or room to another during a session.
• Can you provide free internet access that scales to many users? Local network infrastructure may collapse with several hundred participants.
• Clarify the safety conditions (maximum number of persons) and the fire-safety precautions.
• Is the location accessible for people with disabilities (e.g. step-free and usable by wheelchair users)?

Technical Equipment

• What internal resources and technical support can be provided, and at what price?
• Does the location have binding contracts with suppliers? If not, find the best local suppliers.
• From what time before the event until what time afterwards are the rooms at your disposal, and are they accessible at any time?
• How much do extra rooms cost, e.g. for a spontaneous meeting of an interest group?
• Are the required transport and lifting gears available?
• Where is the technical equipment usually kept, and what safeguards must be considered?
• What kind of electricity supply exists? Where are the sockets, and do you have all required socket and/or power adapters (e.g. for the presenters' laptops and equipment)?
• Do you have to pay extra for electricity, water, light or support?
• Where and how do you control lighting and the public-address system?
• Does the local fire service have to check the installation?
• Are certain materials forbidden? If yes, which?

Calculation of Costs

Create a financing plan to calculate the costs and revenues of your event. It usually helps to obtain the plan of the preceding event.

Typical cost items, grouped by category:

• Venue & rooms: the event location and any extra rooms.
• Catering: coffee and drinks during the breaks, social events (excursions, dinner, etc.).
• Programme & people: invited speakers (travel and hotel expenses), prize money (e.g. best-paper award), the student-volunteer programme, and other staff (cloakroom, night watch, catering, technical emergency team, etc.).
• Print & materials: proceedings; conference programme, reader, agenda booklet, tickets for meals and special events, badge blanks and holders, handouts, banquet menus; plus office materials (computer, phone, printer, paper, flip chart, copier, etc.).
• PR & design: public relations, designers, website, software.
• Fees & insurance: banking fees, credit-card transaction costs, insurances.
• Taxes: do participants have to pay VAT / GST, or is your conference VAT-exempt? Ask a tax expert about your case and the laws in your country. Your finance department may also have specific guidelines for tax and invoice requirements.
• Decoration: flowers, banners, etc.
• Contingency: reserve at least 10 % of the budget for unexpected costs.

Potential savings:

• Talk to organizers of previous events to find out where money can be saved and where extra spending improves the event.
• Get several quotes, e.g. for different evening-event locations – prices can differ enormously.
• Look for local, regional or European subsidies.
• Can your university / organization provide some of the required services (for instance printing the booklet)?
• Sponsors are often indispensable. It has proven useful to offer different "sponsoring packages" with appropriate compensation (e.g. advertising space in booklets, programmes and mailings, exhibition space at the conference, free entry for the sponsor's employees). You can also name an evening event after its sponsor.
• Sell conference souvenirs (T-shirts, mugs, etc.), but ask for the required quantities during registration so you avoid a surplus.
• Beverages: skip dry snacks, choose house wine, keep track of empty bottles, limit free alcoholic drinks (and display prices for extra ones at the evening event), and order pots of coffee/tea and bottles of water for self-service.
• Food: limit the choices, prefer buffets (usually cheaper than served meals), provide filling side dishes, and set a budget.
• Ask participants whether they will attend the evening events – even if these are included in the registration – to plan the required food and beverages.

But do not save in the wrong place. 
Do not provide insufficient drinks, food and services – this is exactly what participants notice.

Public Relations

• Remember to promote your event, finding the right balance between attention, costs and effort.
• One key element is the conference website. We generally recommend hiring a professional designer for it. (See the forum note on whether ConfTool GmbH provides the main conference website.)
• Maintain the digital channels your audience uses – social media, an event hashtag, and, where useful, a conference app or digital programme.
• Send invitation e-mails to authors and participants of preceding events, but do not "spam" them, and synchronize such mailings with the conference chairs. (See the forum note on sending announcement / bulk mails with ConfTool Pro.)
• Start early, as authors need time to prepare and write their submissions and to plan their trips.
• Plan the PR during and after the conference in time: send out press statements and invite journalists. Good PR also makes the work of the follow-up event's organizers easier.

Registration Options

• Define different participant groups: students and academics usually have a smaller budget than participants from industry, and some people will need to be invited.
• Define time discounts: this motivates people to register early and gives you early information on the total number of participants.
• An early registration should usually also require early payment. Since you have many up-front costs, collect payments as early as possible; if people do not pay after a deadline (commonly 4 weeks), they lose their discount.
• Define the available options for your registration form before registration starts. For example: only "full conference registration", or also day tickets, extra tickets for the conference dinner (e.g. for accompanying persons), and special events such as workshops, tutorials or excursions?

A note on VAT 
Whether you have to charge VAT depends mainly on the tax laws of the country where the event takes place. If VAT applies, it usually applies to all participants (including those from overseas), because they "consume" the service in that country – it is not "exported" to their home countries.

Payment Options

Identify the required payment options in time – it can take weeks to obtain all documents needed to open a bank account and/or a credit-card merchant account.

Regular Communication

Do not only send mails to promote your event – also send reminder mails to the people registered in the system for submission deadlines, review deadlines and payments.

Conference Scheduling

• Plan breaks between the sessions (see below).
• Try to synchronize the talks in the different sessions so people can switch between sessions.
• Review the available rooms and their sizes early. Estimate how many people will attend the different sessions (for instance by asking about the participants' main interests on the registration form), and assign sessions to rooms according to the expected numbers.
• If a speaker does not show up or cannot present, have a backup plan – this is especially important for the main sessions.

Breaks

• If their location is not obvious, provide extra signs for the bathrooms.
• During breaks, always offer beverages (including water, tea and coffee) and smaller snacks such as small pastries and fruit.
• Remember that some guests have special dietary requirements (e.g. vegetarian or vegan, religious restrictions, or medical ones such as allergies).
• An exhibition (art, design, etc.) that fits the conference programme is a welcome diversion. Placed close to the catering, it makes the breaks even more enjoyable.

Catering is what people remember. 
If the catering is not satisfying, it is the one thing people will remember about an event. Plan it carefully.

Social Programme

• Have an opening reception with snacks and drinks to welcome all participants.
• Every conference should offer at least one social event where participants can get together in a less formal setting.
• If your event lasts several days, find sponsors for extra social events hosted by them.
• Offer excursions, trips and/or guided tours so participants can see interesting locations near the venue – ideally ones that suit the subject of the conference.

Student Volunteers (SVs)

• For most events, a student-volunteer programme brings many benefits: SVs help at the registration desk, take pictures, watch the session rooms to check that everything runs smoothly, and answer participants' questions ("Where are the restrooms?", "When does Session B5 start?", "Where can I prepare my talk?").
• The cost is low compared with the value: SVs usually receive a free registration, free lunch and/or a special evening event; some larger events even provide accommodation.

Registration Desk

• The registration desk is the first place participants go, so put up signs that help people find it.
• As a rule of thumb, provide one regular desk per 75 participants during the main arrival time. An event with 300 participants should therefore have 4 regular desks plus one desk for special cases (people who have not paid, need to change their data, etc.).
• If possible, open the registration desk the afternoon before the event starts, so people can check in early. This works as a test run and reduces stress during the main registration phase.
• Prepare as much as possible: pack the bags participants receive on arrival, and print all name tags (but let participants insert the badge into the cover themselves).
• Order the name tags by surname or by user ID. Ordering by user ID lets you simply append tags for later registrants at the end.
• If people have not paid when they arrive, be ready to take payment by cash (have change!), card or similar, and know where the nearest bank / ATM is.
• Print attendance-confirmation statements for participants who pay very late, to be signed by them to confirm their payment.
• Brief your staff and student volunteers on network access, breaks, bathrooms, etc. People also ask the "obvious" things printed in the conference leaflet.
• Keep extra maps and programmes at the desk (at least on request).
• A separate, reliable internet connection for the desk is advisable, since hundreds of attendees can slow shared Wi-Fi considerably; keep a mobile hotspot as backup.
• Keep backup information about the participants (e.g. printouts of all lists) in case the network fails.
• Keep a list of all key organizers with their mobile numbers at the desk.
• Student volunteers in colourful T-shirts with the conference logo are easy to recognize and can guide attendees who are looking for a specific place.

Participant Support: Travel and Accommodation

• Provide information on how to travel to the conference location. If possible, arrange special rates with an airline for your participants.
• In most cases it is not advisable to make hotel reservations for participants – cancellations and changes cause a lot of trouble. It is usually far easier to contact the tourist board in time, negotiate special rates with some hotels, and pass this information to your participants.
• Exception: it can be appropriate to help invited speakers with their hotel reservation, especially if the organizers pay for it.
• Acclimatisation: foreign participants will appreciate the location much more if you inform them in advance about local customs and traditions and about sightseeing options.

Signposting & Further Hints

• Act sustainably – we have only one world. Prefer reusable or recyclable badges, minimise printing (a conference app or digital programme helps), reduce catering waste, and encourage the use of public transport.
• Remember that you might need to provide interpreters for certain sessions.
• Provide clear signposting: how to get to the venue ("How to Find Us"), the registration desk, car parks, bus stops, taxi stands (with phone number), the social-event location, bathrooms, etc.

Conference Wrap-Up

Always remember: "After the conference is before the conference." Either you or others will organize another event and can benefit from your experience.

• Collect feedback from participants, e.g. with questionnaires at the conference or an online tool.
• Things to analyse: achievement of objectives, revenues and expenses, the participants' evaluation, your team's opinions, the ups and downs, budgets, and the return on investment for all involved parties.
• Material to distribute: photos of the conference and the social events, thank-you letters to helpers and organizers, and press reports and conference statements.

Keeping these points in mind helps you to successfully organize a conference, meeting or educational event while avoiding common pitfalls.

If you feel we have forgotten vitally important information on this page, please write an e-mail to info@conftool.net.