ePly Event Planning Blog

A healthy sponsorship program relies on keeping your sponsors satisfied with the value they’re receiving in return for spending their time and money on your event. Sounds simple enough, right? Theoretically, you should just be able to focus on fulfilling the details in their agreement - but in practice, it doesn’t always happen that way.

Unfortunately, despite your best efforts, some sponsors walk away from events dissatisfied. Whether it was a hard-to-please on-site rep, a venue problem that was out of your control, or you simply made a mistake (we’re all human!) your next task is to do what you can to turn that relationship around. Here are some steps to take:

Concert, fundraiser, conference, or 5k - no matter what type of event, your main goal is to get people to show up. That’s a LOT of pressure! Even if it’s an event you’ve been hosting for years, there’s a lot about event planning that makes attendance unpredictable.

To ease your mind, I recommend creating an event promotion plan - but treat it more like a guideline. You’ll want to be flexible and make changes as needed, but having a blueprint will keep the momentum going and make the whole promotional process feel a lot less hectic.

That all said, here are the four steps to take toward building your event promotion plan:

The size of your event venue can really make or break the entire attendee experience. Those dimensions define exactly what you can use the space for - not to mention, how many people can actually fit in it!

Now with a space that’s too large, you can usually add extra furniture to fill it up or use some kind of divider to “get rid of” square footage. But small spaces? Those get tricky. You want to make sure that your attendees will be comfortable and able to engage.

Luckily, there are ways to make do with a small space, depending on the type of event. Here are some suggestions:

One of the biggest mistakes you can make with online event registration is not absolutely scrutinizing your form before releasing it to your audience. The only way you’ll truly know if it’ll be a seamless experience for registrants is by getting in there yourself! And if the experience isn’t seamless, there’s a good chance they’ll abandon registering altogether.

By following these seven steps, you’ll be able to identify and quickly eliminate any online event registration hiccups:

Whether they invest on a high level, commit to covering specific costs (food, badges, supplies, etc.), or are part of a trade, engaging sponsors is a smart way to add some extra padding to your event budget.

That said, it’s important that your partnerships make sense - after all, money is involved! And that doesn't just mean for you and the sponsor. Anyone you invite to have a presence on-site should make sense for your attendees, too. But why, exactly, do sponsorships need to make sense on so many levels?

Small details can have a big impact on the number of people who will attend your events. That especially holds true when it comes to your online event registration form! In fact, certain things can even cause your potential attendees to leave, and never return to the form at all.

You already know that a post-event survey is a MUST. Attendees, vendors, sponsors - everyone who was on-site will have valuable feedback you can use to make your next event better.

But knowing what to ask can be a challenge, and having a mile-long survey will deter most from filling it out! Here are our go-to questions for a quick and easy survey that are bound to give you the feedback you’re looking for:

We’re willing to bet that you’ve noticed a difference in driving event attendance over the last few years. Online event registration systems, social media, and other advances in technology have really changed the game!

When used wisely, these platforms can also give you a big leg up in the event space. Using a robust online registration solution, modern event website, and personalized event app can all make a huge difference in driving and engaging attendees - especially when they work together! A few thoughts on why:

One advantage of using online event registration is getting the ability to automatically send event confirmation emails. While the main purpose of this email is to confirm that a registration has been received, it is also a perfect avenue for providing event participants with additional information and reminders.

Here are a few details to pay extra attention to on your event confirmation emails:

The answer to the question “What should a registration form do?” might seem obvious, but if you respond with “Collect registration data,” chances are you can improve your registration forms to increase conversions and put on memorable events.

From our experience, here are eight things your registration forms should be doing in addition to collecting data: