When planning an event, you need a variety of vendors to offer their products and services for the event’s success. They may include venue managers, caterers, AV equipment rentals, florists, and others. So, here are the tips for effectively managing them.
Start Early When Hiring
Good vendors are booked quickly, so if you don’t want your first-choice vendors to be unavailable on your event date, start planning early. Get recommendations from colleagues, read reviews on credible sites, and meet the vendors in person (preferred) before finalizing a deal.
Events are about branding, so before hiring, ask the vendors about how they would align themselves with the brand you want to show and your customers want to see. Moreover, ask about how they would communicate with you. We have a point in this blog reserved for communication, but here we are talking about the person you will be in contact with and the communication medium.
Create A Clear Contract
A clear contract that states everything each party agrees on can prevent a significant number of problems later. You will know exactly what services the vendor will provide and to what extent, how and when the payment will be made, when and how the vendor will set up their equipment or provide services, and what will happen if there are cancellations or changes involved.
But these are the regular clauses of a contract. To avoid stress and issues, the contract should also outline the quality standard as well, with the quantity of products or services. It should be there in writing that you expect quality standards and the things to do if the standards are not met. This means the communication method and response time of the vendor should also be mentioned there.
The contract should also state the deadlines and milestones for the job completion. Things can become a mess if there are no milestones stated.
A Communication Plan
When hiring the vendors, you should mention communication details in the contract. Then assign yourself or a member of your team as the single point of contact for the vendors and expect the same from each vendor as well. This ensures a clear flow of information without too much back and forth and misunderstandings.
You should also state the project details and your expectations and what happens when changes are required. And to ensure quality service, both parties are on the same page on developing details of the event, and schedule weekly or bi-weekly meetings. These meetings will be mini assessments of the performance so far and things to do to keep everything on track.
An important detail in communication with event vendors is that you should not only raise your concerns and address challenges, but also listen to their suggestions. They may have suggestions that could improve the event experience, so be open to them, especially from vendors who have the most impact on the event, like the venue, caterers, audio visual rentals Maryland, etc.
Stay On Schedule With Timeline Management
There should be a master timeline that includes the timelines each vendor requires for setting up and which vendors’ timelines can overlap without affecting each other. And then, create each vendor’s separate timeline and a simplified master timeline without every vendor’s tasks. Share the last two timelines with each vendor.
As you know, the timeline must be agreed upon in the contract. Therefore, this should be shared with the vendor when writing the contract so the vendor is legally bound to follow the timeline and doesn’t have any excuses if they fail to meet the deadlines.
Keep A Buffer Time For Each Vendor
When creating vendor timelines, you should keep a buffer time for every vendor as well. However, it should not be shared with the vendors. This will allow you to not panic if a vendor gets slightly late in arriving or performing their job. With this method, the vendor may be late, but your event will stay completely on schedule.
However, make sure to assign a team member to contact the vendor immediately if they don’t arrive on time or the job is not done as scheduled, and ask for the reason and when it will be done.
Stay On Budget
The event budget is also something you need to plan before or during hiring the vendors and the event stakeholders would be keenly noticing this. So, clearly mention the equipment or services you need and the cost breakdown of everything in the contract.
Similar to the event timeline, the event budget should also have a 15% to 20% buffer for unexpected things or expenses. However, the threshold for each vendor should still be from the 80% and agreed upon by each vendor.
There should be a team member whom the vendor will contact for additional expenses or changing something last-minute just before or during the event. That team member should have the managerial power to approve the change only if necessary.
Confirm A Day Before The Event
Even though you would be in contact with the vendors throughout the process, you should still confirm timing, their job, and everything else a day before the event. This will ensure that if there are any challenges, they are resolved quickly without causing a problem on the event day. And if there are any, overcome event challenges mindfully without showing frustration.
Ask Vendors About Their Backup Plans
All good event vendors have contingency plans for unexpected circumstances, but you should never hesitate to ask the vendors about their backup plans should any unexpected happens.
Backup plans of vendors may differ based on their role. For instance, tech vendors have backup equipment to prevent any device failure disrupting the event, whereas venues have staffing backup and power generators.
Knowing what the vendor will do to deal with disruptions will give you an idea of how to deal with the disruptions from your end as well.
Create A Backup Plan For Vendor Cancellations
What if the vendor doesn’t show up? You should ask this question months before the event and create a set of backup vendors whom you can call up if any vendor cancels, because you don’t want the mess up of a vendor to affect your event and its outcome. So, this is a critical step in planning a successful event.
Post-Event Review
After the event, you should assess the performance of the vendors. You will notice what worked and areas that needed improvements. Which vendor communicated smoothly and which vendor was slow in this area? Which vendor delivered exceptionally, which ones were satisfactory, and which vendors’ performance was poor? Who was outgoing and who needed babysitting?
This will allow you to provide feedback to the vendors if required. However, the main benefit of the review is that you can create a list of preferred event vendors for future events.
Conclusion
Planning an event and managing vendors takes patience and problem-solving skills. Clear communication and having everything in writing is of stark importance. And of course, hire reliable event vendors and event production services MD to begin with, to prevent many problems.