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If you’re eager to exploit events as the key tool for revenue growth that they truly are, you’re not alone: 80% of UK businesses are set to maintain or increase current spending on company events between 2025 and 2026. This means that smart and strategic events planning is at the top of the agenda.
Here, at Only Lanyards, we know all too well that starting as early as possible and remaining flexible throughout the process can cut out unnecessary stress and last-minute changes – and if you’re reading this, you’ve likely nailed the former.
Now, whether you’re laying the roadmap for an exhibition or simply coordinating your office end-of-year do, here’s an overview of the core planning stages, ways to promote your event and practical considerations to infuse into your blueprint.
Before I dive right in, though, make sure to download our blank event planning checklist so you can keep track of your progress.
Contents:
- Key Highlights
- What Is Events Planning (and Why It Matters)
- The Core Stages of Events and Planning
- How to Make Your Event Stand Out
- Planning Events in the UK: Practical Considerations
- Quickfire Dos & Don’ts
- Conclusion + Next Steps
Key Highlights
Events planning is a key driver of brand growth and reputation – success hinges on clear goals, strong logistics, and effective promotion. Start early, prioritise safety and inclusivity, and market strategically to attract the right audience. In the UK, don’t forget legal essentials like licences and insurance to keep your event compliant and stress-free.
What Is Events Planning? (and Why it Matters)
Events planning is much deeper than many people give it credit for. Besides organising and executing an event that aligns with your desired outcomes and broader goals, it’s about distilling an initial concept and bringing it to life with a fully fleshed-out strategy.
Here, the details really matter; to achieve a professional, well-oiled event, your plan should be guided by a clear purpose, theme, objectives, target audience, and timeline. This requires meticulous organisation, solid communication between stakeholders, and constantly bringing a warm yet professional touch to every space.
The key components include:
- Branding and promotion – Attracting attendees and getting them to your event, plus creating a cohesive and recognisable identity for your organisation
- Logistics and coordination – Booking a venue; sorting floor plans and catering; arranging guests, speakers and entertainment; setting up the space and managing it on the day.
- Budget management – Keeping your bank balance in the green, fundraising, tracking expenses, managing vendors, and perhaps negotiating costs.
- Scheduling – Creating a smooth timeline for tasks and timekeeping during the event itself, so all deadlines are met.
- Welfare and inclusion – Ensuring everyone’s access needs and your safe space policy are met.
- Legal and compliance – Taking the necessary steps for safety and security, including risk assessments, emergency protocols, first aid training, permits, licences, insurance, etc.
Your event is an extension of your brand, which makes success all the more important. It could be numerous attendees’ first interaction with your business – an experience that will colour their perception in milliseconds, yet stay with them long after they’ve exited the venue doors. As such, staff and attendee identity are hugely impactful elements of your events planning process that mustn’t be overlooked.
Who Can Do It?
Admittedly, this is a bit of a trick question. Practically anyone with good organisational skills and leadership qualities can organise an event and spearhead the planning. Business owners, health and safety officers, HR staff, publicity assistants or a dedicated in-house team might get on board with the task.
But, equally, businesses may wish to outsource the work to a dedicated event organiser and planner – particularly if it’s a large-scale operation with many moving parts, such as a convention or festival. With extra pairs of specialist hands, it will be much easier to stay on top of competing deadlines and allow key stakeholders to contribute to and stay informed about the plan.
The Core Stages of Events and Planning
It’s best to approach event planning by segmenting duties into several stages. This will ensure that all logistical, creative, and strategic elements happen at the right time, and ultimately align with your organisation’s vision and goals.
Having documentation outlining each step is crucial, since you can more easily delegate tasks to your team and keep track of progress. There are also many ways to lubricate your organisational skills; project management tools like Trello, Asana and Monday can automate task creation and approval flows, cutting out some of the admin and reinforcing accountability.
Conceptualisation
Before you do anything at all, your organisation will need a framework to work from. That is, a crystallised purpose, goals and vision for the event.
Who do you want to be there? What’s the ‘vibe’ you’re going for? How many guests can your team cater for? What limitations and budget constraints are you working with? And, importantly, what impression would you like attendees to leave with if all goes to plan?
Whether you’re planning an exhibition, open mic night, corporate conference, charity fundraiser, or even a wedding, being focused from the jump keeps things cohesive and streamlined.
Here, you should also strategise your event messaging. When you begin to reach out to venues, guests and other stakeholders, giving them a small taster of what to expect will make the offer all the more enticing. Your brand voice will also form the basis of your printed materials and copy for merchandise like posters and staff lanyards, so I recommend including a small summary in a master plan document.
Pre-Event Preparation
As the old adage goes, “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.” It’s without surprise, then, that these early steps make the foundation of a well-thought-out and memorable event.
It all begins with establishing a budget, one divided into expense categories such as venue hire, catering, marketing materials, digital promotion, speaker fees, staff overheads, tech and transportation, and that allocates funds accordingly.
Here, you’re also charged with selecting speakers, a date and a venue. If guests are integral to your event, it’s best to confirm their general availability before booking the event space; this way, you can propose several dates as you liaise with both parties and find a good fit.
Top tip: Your venue will set the tone for success, so do run through your list of requirements with the hire staff, asking any questions you may have early on. Facilities, location, accessibility, reputation, cost, available equipment and hire length each play a role in the decision.
Event Logistics
Deciding how you will use the event space is another critical component of events planning, and it can make all the difference between a positive reception and a poor experience that clouds guests’ relationship with your brand.
This means ensuring adequate signage, a map for activities if needed, clear seating arrangements, testing mics and other tech before the day, and allocating space for stalls, displays, tables and whatever other facilities you need.
Ticketing is also of major importance – even if your event is free to attend. With estimated audience numbers, you’ll reduce waste on beverages, for example, whilst preventing overcrowding. Predicted attendance levels are just as essential for your marketing activities, as you’ll have an indicator as to when you ought to ramp up the promotion.
Safety, Accessibility & Inclusion
Health and safety, accessibility and inclusion should underpin your event – no matter how low-risk the activities you plan. As such, a risk assessment ought to be at the top of your list of responsibilities.
For simple functions like a small talk and Q&A, you will only need to consider things like fire safety and emergency protocols, first aid, allergens if you’re catering, and child safeguarding. With larger gatherings or, indeed, open-air events such as a sporting fundraiser, a more complex evaluation is required. Think about the risk of injuries, alcohol consumption, weather events, traffic flow, and crowd control. That said, where people’s well-being is concerned, there’s no such thing as overplanning, and I strongly recommend looking at the Health & Safety Executive’s official guidance.
Now, a quick note on inclusion. As well as making attendees feel physically safe, you can enhance their experience via a culture of empowerment and openness. As we discussed in our workplace allyship guide, small, simple touches like catering to numerous dietary requirements, using respectful and inclusive language, and visual cues of solidarity like the sunflower lanyard or pronoun badges are not only socially responsible but profitable too.
On-the-day Tasks
Responsibilities on the day are going to look very different, depending on the type and scale of the event you are planning. Small teams might have to share roles, whilst non-profits may have an abundant supply of volunteers at the ready.
Here are some important roles to consider:
Check-In and Welcome Desk
A dedicated check-in and welcome area sets a positive tone, and is a game-changer as far as visitor management is concerned. Here, knowledgeable staff can provide attendees with event programs, merch and answers to any questions they might have, whilst subtly enforcing security.
Tools like colour-coded event lanyards or wristbands are a helpful addition, as they immediately indicate the level of access granted to each person and distinguish guests from staff. Those aren’t the only benefits, either: while you streamline security, you’re also enhancing your brand identity, cohesion amongst your team and a broader sense of professionalism.
Stewarding and Wayfinding
Stewarding is an essential for large-scale events, ensuring participants can find their way to various sessions, amenities, and activities without confusion.
Announcements and Emceeing
Think about having a designated emcee or host to make regular announcements, share important information and updates with the audience. This role is crucial for maintaining engagement and ensuring everyone is informed about schedule changes and the like.
Follow-Up & Reflection
Before you take a well-deserved break, it’s worth thanking everyone involved in making your event a resounding success. Don’t forget to share clips, photos and testimonies across your marketing channels – and most importantly – leave the venue space as you found it.
The final step is to debrief and evaluate what went well and what could be improved upon, or the ‘peaches’ and ‘pits’ as some circles call them. While you might want to do this informally over drinks after the function, surveys and feedback provide valuable audience insights, as do metrics like attendance, ticket sales, social media engagement stats and press coverage.
How to Make Your Event Stand Out
If you don’t promote your event effectively, nobody is going to turn up. As the world saw with the A Million Lives festival, undersold tickets can spell disaster for booked guests and attendees alike.
A classic case of under-marketing and overpromising, the A Million Live book event suffered from empty rooms, unpaid bills and a general sense of chaos – a negative spiral that left authors hoping to sell their books in the lurch, stakeholders owed money and audiences feeling cheated.
To ensure you reach the ideal attendee numbers, concoct a detailed marketing strategy that targets different audience segments across a variety of channels. You could try…
- Social media marketing
- Pay-per-click ads
- Posters, leafleting and traditional outreach
- Radio or local press appearances
- Partnerships, sponsors and influencer collabs
- Search engine optimisation tactics
- Email marketing
- Networking
- Creating merchandise
Planning Events in the UK: Practical Considerations You Need to Know
Let’s get laser focused: what are the bottom-line requirements for a UK-based event?
British licensing rules and insurance requirements, of course, should be your number one. Without them, your team could face criticism and legal ramifications at worst.
British event licensing depends on the scale and type of activities hosted, but generally requires checking whether the venue has a Premises Licence – this is needed if you’re serving alcohol, playing music, or hosting dancing. For smaller events, a Temporary Event Notice (TEN) will suffice. Both can be acquired through your local council.
You will also need to secure public liability insurance, which should cover a minimum of £5 million, and Employers’ Liability Insurance if you have staff.
Quickfire Dos & Don’ts
Before I wrap up here, allow me to run through a handful of quickfire dos and don’ts – these tips will set you on the path to success.
- Don’t neglect ticketing: poor ticket management can lead to undersold seats or overcrowded venues, and makes it much harder to execute logistics on the day.
- Do consider local suppliers: using UK-made lanyards and other merchandise or sourcing local caterers, you can reduce environmental impact and support the local economy.
- Don’t bite off more than you can chew: it’s always better to start off small and work your way up to larger feats – if you’re a one-man band, be wise with your audience numbers and enlist help when you feel the pressure.
- Do maintain clear channels of communication: clear communication is the secret sauce; keep attendees, guests, staff and other stakeholders in the loop throughout the process and keep comms to professional channels such as your official email and social media. DMs are usually a no-no.
- Don’t overpromise: While hilarious in the case of the infamous Willy Wonka experience in Glasgow, false advertising can bring serious consequences – damage to your brand reputation, refunds or even legal ramifications. As such, be honest and ethical in your marketing.
- Do invest in staff training for crowd management: In recent years, event organisers have become more tuned in to crowd safety and management, following scary bottlenecks at Glastonbury and other oversubscribed events. Here, you should put together a specific plan that outlines capacity, pinch points, exits and proper traffic flow.
Conclusion + Next Steps
Events aren’t merely a fundraising opportunity or a profit-generating machine. They’re the foundation of your organisation’s reputation now, and in the future.
If your attendees have a poor experience, they’re not going to talk about you, online or via word of mouth. Or worse, they’ll only have bad things to say. That’s why setting objectives early on, conducting detailed logistics, and smart communication matter so much. And the best part is that they needn’t break the bank.
Start by downloading our template checklist and work your way through the steps. Don’t forget to track key metrics to record your progress and see what’s working. Next time, you can iterate and build on your success.
Eager to keep the learning streak going? Head over to our blog for more guides on business organisation and events planning.