We’ve all heard of Stephen Covey’s, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by now. The book presents seven habits that people do to become effective in achieving their goals. Sure, you can apply those principles to yourself and become an effective person. Here, however, we have a distilled version targeted specifically towards Event Planners. This is our take on The...
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  As an event planner, you know how stressful planning an event can be. Heck, even the job itself was listed as the sixth most stressful job of 2012 , right behind Police Officer and before PR Executive. So what exactly makes event planning so stressful? You often find yourself staying up late into the night, working on last minute items and figuring out logistics just days before...
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If you are having various sessions and streams for your event, it is most likely that you are organizing and running a larger event. Sessions can include various breakout meetings through the day(s) or meetings that take place at the same time (a concurrent session). Different sessions can have prices or charges associated with them or are a free item to go along with a main event...
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  Everyone from large corporations, to local businesses, to even possibly your mother, has a blog these days. So why has blogging taken off so rapidly? It’s because there are huge benefits, especially for an event planner. Let’s take a look at some of these benefits and why you, as an event planner, should start blogging.   Event planners can use blogging to share their expertise...
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  Some event planners choose not to display an attendee list due to legitimate reasons such as privacy concerns. However, if event planners can get participants to opt into an attendee list, there are many benefits that are offered to both parties. Let’s take a look at some of them.   One of the benefits of displaying an attendee list is that it could be used as an incentive...
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Most event planners have a pretty good idea of what their customers want from an event. There are, of course, lots of logistical challenges to tackle like venue, food, entertainment, registration and sponsorship. At the core of an event is the participant. More participants mean more revenue, more potential sponsorship, more energy at the conference and more word of mouth to continue...
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Accepting online payments for events can be a daunting task. There are many options for the everyday event planner when it comes to using your own merchant account, or a vendor’s merchant account. We will outline some of the features and benefits of both:   Having your Own Merchant Account   1. If you wanted to use your own merchant account to take and receive funds for...
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Three letters were made mainstream in the past year but have only been buzzing around the event planning industry recently. Even The Big Three (Google, Apple, and Microsoft) have been touting it at all their product releases. It is expected that all future mobile devices will support these three letters: NFC, otherwise known as Near field communication.     In its...
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    If you are still using a pen and paper to do all your work, in this day in age, then you have been making more work for yourself than is necessary. There are many benefits associated with going paperless for an Event, and here are a few of them   1. Getting registrants to register online removes all the hassle of manually taking registrations and reducing time...
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    If you have attended a conference or convention before, you’ve most likely received some sort of swag; whether that be t-shirts, pens, note pads, flyers, and postcards, among many other items. While it’s understandable that companies want to give away cool items to attract attendees and keep themselves front-of-mind, they also have to make sure to include items that will help...
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There are several things that an event needs to be successful: Great venue, fantastic speakers, agenda for all different kinds of people and the list goes on. One of the toughest things to do is gain sponsorship for an event. Whether it is a financial donation to help the event run, a prize donation for a golf tournament or a donation of a person’s time to speak at an event, all sponsorships...
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  Pinterest is rapidly gaining momentum among users of the social sphere. According to  Maximiser , a web optimization company, users pin pictures to express themselves, remind themselves of things to buy and places to visit, sharing and recommending things to others, and learning and discovering new topics.   So how can event planners use Pinterest for event...
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    Hosting an event can be tough, especially if you’re on a tight budget. So how can event planners reduce event costs without sacrificing quality? Here are a few ideas.   1. Events are happening throughout the entire year, but there are sure to be busy months and slow months. Plan to have your event in the slower months . Venues and vendors are more likely to give you...
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  Go Big Event is excited to announce the upcoming release of GBE 2.0!   What is GBE 2.0 and what is in it for me? After 5 years of helping event planners achieve success with their events, we are happy to reveal that we have been working on a modernized and revamped system to help run events easier than ever before. The new system, GBE 2.0, will allow you to setup, market,...
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With winter behind us and the busy season for event planners ahead of us, here are the top 7 event venues in Edmonton:   The Fairmont Hotel MacDonald   The Fairmont Hotel MacDonald’s state-of-the-art meeting facilities, along with on-the-spot office amenities, make it easy to conduct business. Every detail has...
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  Three months ago, I tossed away my paper notebooks, stopped printing emails and starting using an iPad, in their place, at work. Weighing plenty of options and deciding to make this transition was a no brainer, technology is there for us to use and take advantage of. At first, it felt very strange not having that pen or pencil in my hand to write down notes from meetings and phone...
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  We’ve all been there. We attend a networking event by ourselves and come to find out that everyone is already in their own tightly knit groups. This makes it difficult for somebody new to meet other people. As an event planner, this is something you want to avoid happening at your networking events. Rather than setting strict rules and guidelines for your attendees to follow, you want...
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  Advertising future events can seem like a daunting task to some event planners. Here are 8 suggestions to get the word out about your events. 1.) One of the most functional ways to advertise your event can be through an Online Registration Site. Pick a site that is easy to use and can capture all the information you would like for share about your event. The great thing about online...
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  Going to conferences and events can be a great place to meet and interact with other attendees with the same interests and goals in mind. For social media rookies there are several ways it can help you grow your network of contacts. From tweeting live real-time feeds about presenters, using event hashtags, sharing information on event Facebook pages and taking and sharing photos from the...
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  Go Big Event is seeing an increased number of events that are being streamed online. This is a way to increase traffic to your events and provide attendees an alternative to showing up in person to events that may be in a different city or at a time that is not convenient for them. 1. Webcasting an event provides plenty of benefits to event planners, including: 2. Creates...
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  The Go Big Event team recently created several videos to help walk clients through the back-end of Go Big Event’s online event management system. In the videos, we will provide clients with extra training to utilize Go Big Event to its fullest potential. We’ll also be throwing in a few tips and tricks you can use with the system. These videos are posted on the Go Big Event Wiki site...
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  With the use of an electronic abstract submission tool, an event planner or administrator of a healthcare or educational conference can let technology streamline this tedious and time consuming process. Before the electronic abstract submission tool, the administrative workload would be huge, from accepting paper submissions and sending them off to reviewers. The electronic abstract...
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  By now, the importance of social media in events has been made very clear. Not only can you use social media to market your event, boost attendance, and increase participant interaction; you can also use social media to connect with other event planners like yourself. Through this type of engagement with your peers, you can share tips and tricks of the trade, increase your reputation...
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  The most recent MPI Business Barometer indicates that the meetings and event industry is on track to make a come back. Although that may be true, event organizers and businesses alike are making several changes in response to the recovering social and economic conditions. The report shows that attendance for meetings and events are increasing at a gradual rate, up 4% from the...
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One of the main reasons why most events fail is due to the lack of planning. Too much attention is either placed in promoting the event, and/or making sure the event is executed no matter what. As a result, all the necessary details that go into planning for an event -that makes it successful- becomes an afterthought. Here are 10 quick guidelines on how to plan an event and make it a success....
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Ever since 2009 a fierce competition has broken out between the top two location-based services, Foursquare and Gowalla . In short, these services allow users to “check-in” at a local venue or event from an app on their phone. Attendees with these services gain access to tips (comments posted by other checked-in users) and photos. Based on the amount of adoption by users, it would seem...
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Now more than ever, event, meeting, and conference planners are integrating social media into their events. Social media has created an environment where events are becoming in a sense “more social”, where interaction occurs not only during the event, but before the event begins and even after the event ends. This provides a higher ROI not only for the event holder (in promoting the event)...
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