ePly Blog

College students. There’s hundreds of them on campus, working on homework, drinking coffee like it’s water, and hanging out with their friends. You see them all the time, but how do you actually attract them to YOUR events?

When planning an event for university students, there are a few important components to keep in mind. It can be a little confusing to figure out what makes college students tick and how to appeal to them. Luckily, we have some tips today just for YOU to help with this dilemma (and they’re from a recent college grad too!). 

Event planning is a fun and exciting process, but it has lots of components you have to be on top of! All these details, when given enough attention, will help make your next event a true success. One of these important components is picking a venue for your event. 

While this may seem like a simple task, there are a lot of things to keep in mind when selecting the perfect location. So… how do you do it?  Not to worry! We here at ePly have a few suggestions to help you along the way.

Who doesn’t love getting some free swag at events?? We know we do! Handing out company swag is a great way to promote your company, especially at events like trade shows that have an expo hall. 

The question is however… how much swag is TOO much swag? What items are even worth bringing?

These are important things to consider when preparing for your next event. The general rule of thumb should be that your promotional items should be both unique and useful to the attendees. Still confused on what items that actually constitutes? We can help! Check out some specific examples below of some of the best swag to bring to events. 

When it comes down to it, event planning is a details game. That’s because there are SO many to keep track of. Between your multiple audiences (vendors, volunteers, attendees, sponsors, staff) and their various needs and wants...it’s enough to make even the most veteran event planner’s head spin!

But whether you ARE a veteran or a total amateur, juggling all of that makes it easy to forget something. So, what details in particular tend to trip event planners up the most? Here are seven to keep in mind:

If you’ve never built sponsorship packages before, it can seem a little overwhelming at first...

“What should I include?”

“How MUCH should I include?”

“How do I make my more expensive packages worth the investment??”

Well, I’m going to let you in on a little secret...it’s all up to you! And if that makes it even more overwhelming, don’t panic. The trick is to create a few basic packages that you can use as guidelines, and then tweak them depending on the sponsor. Here’s how to go about that -

As the event planner, it can be easy to forget that conferences can feel extremely busy for attendees, too. A few days of bouncing in between sessions, grabbing quick lunches, networking, etc. is a lot of work!

That’s why you want to be strategic about how you gather feedback. Surveying attendees just after sessions means the content will be fresh in their mind, but the surveys should be short with questions that are easy to answer and get straight to the point. Here are our tips for post-session surveys:

The thought has probably crossed your mind a few times...“Does my event really need its own website, separate from my organization’s??”

The short answer is yes, absolutely! We get it, though: With everything else you’re managing, adding a website to that list can feel overwhelming. But the benefits are so worth it.

“Benefits, you say?” Of course! There are a lot of reasons why your event NEEDS its own website, but here are four of the biggest:

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: