Hosting events involves a great deal of details and coordination. You’ll need to decide on the date, time, theme, location, and whether to charge a registration fee.
You’ll want to make sure people know about the event, including:
- Facebook posts
- Website updates
- Mass emails
- Posters
- Announcements from the stage
- Blurb in the bulletin
Then, there’s the task of getting volunteers signed up to help with the event (from preparation beforehand to the actual day of).
I could go on, but you get the point…there’s a lot to do to pull off a successful event.
If no single individual is truly in charge of the event…if no one tracks all the tasks, makes sure different groups communicate when they need what from each other, or keeps an eye on the big picture…then you’ll have chaos and unnecessary stress.
On the other hand, if someone is assigned to plan and coordinate the overall effort it’s as if you brought in a conductor for the orchestra. Instead of every member playing the music at his/her own pace, you have someone keeping everyone on the same tempo.
An orchestra without a conductor doesn’t make for great music. The same principle applies for a church staff trying to pull off an event without an event planner.
Here are five ways an event planner makes events easier:
1. Facilitates Communication
The ministry area hosting the event needs to decide on a theme and overall purpose. Someone needs to communicate that message to the team making graphics, writing copy for the website and emails, coming up with décor options, figuring out ticket sales, and coordinating volunteers.
An event planner can keep track of what each team member and/or department needs from each other, when they need to hand off deliverables or decisions, etc. This individual can make sure this information is communicated clearly and in a timely fashion.
2. Ensures everyone stays on task
An event planner works with the team to identify all the tasks required to make the event successful. He/she will make sure each team member knows when tasks are due, and which other team members need the output from that task. He’ll remind team members of their deadlines and gather updates from each individual.
3. Provide status updates to leadership
The pastor or ministry leader who’s responsible for an event would probably like to know how things are coming along way before the day of the event. That means you need to know the status of each task and how that impacts the overall progress of the team.
An event planner who has all that information at her fingertips can provide regular updates. This also can save the rest of the team from receiving questions from a concerned ministry leader. That saves everyone time and frustration.
4. Free up team members to do their best work
Most creative team members (décor, graphic design, worship leaders) prefer to not deal with details. That’s just not how God wired them.
When you have an event planner keeping track of all the tasks and making sure they’ve accounted for every last detail, that frees up others to do what they’re best at.
5. An event planner can quickly resolve issues and remove roadblocks
No plan is perfect, and stuff will happen that causes a problem. A good event planner sees trouble coming and addresses it before it’s a big deal.
That may require working with the pastor to get a decision, providing a team member who’s running behind schedule with extra help, or pulling in a few people for a quick meeting to get them on the same page. Regardless, an event planner who has eyes on the entire planning process can quickly deal with potential problems.
An event planner can save the rest of the church staff time, prevent issues, and ensure the week leading up to the event isn’t a stressful one. By leveraging the detail-oriented talents of a good event planner, you can have more successful (not stressful) events at your church.
