Wondering What Does An Event Planner Do? Find Out Here!
Whether it’s a corporate conference, wedding, or large-scale festival, the details behind the scenes can make or break the experience. And that’s why, so many people turn to event planners all the time.
But what does an event planner do exactly?
In today’s post, we’ll explore just that by going through the key responsibilities, skills, and value that event planners bring to the table. By the end of this guide, you’ll not only know the key duties and responsibilities of a professional event planner but also what to expect from hiring an event planner and whether you should do it or not. Let’s begin!
Industry Definition of Event Planner Job
If you are wondering what event planners do, then know that behind every celebration and gathering that goes smoothly, there are event planners who work day and night to execute these events to perfection. Event planners are professionals with many skills up their sleeves. But in essence, they are multitaskers, juggling a variety of responsibilities to orchestrate seamless experiences.
At its core, the event planner’s job is to conceptualize, design, and execute events that meet their clients’ visions and objectives. From intimate weddings to grand galas, they’re the go-to creative minds for bringing people together in style.
With a mix of creativity, organization, and staying calm under pressure, event planners take up many roles such as part artist, part logistician, and part manager.
Core Responsibilities of a Professional Event Planner
Caffeine is effective in taking your sleep away but try taking up as many responsibilities as an event planner does – it’ll keep you up at night for days. At the heart of it all, the responsibilities of a professional event planner include:
- Turning your vague “I want it to be fun” vision into a detailed plan
- Managing vendors like seasoned experts
- Crafting budgets that stretch every dollar
- Solving problems with quick decision-making time
But that’s just scratching the surface. Event planners do almost everything, often behind the scenes, to ensure your event is nothing short of magical.
Master of Ceremonies: Orchestrating the Event Flow
Often responsible for pulling the strings, event planners put all their efforts into ensuring your event turns out to be a seamless spectacle. In other words, they’re the invisible conductor, ensuring every element of your event harmonizes perfectly.
From the moment guests arrive until the last champagne flute is cleared, these experts do their best to execute a flawless performance. Executing a flawless event is easier said than done—when there are multiple tasks in the queue, a normal person will get overwhelmed and mess up every task that was previously in control.
Apart from scheduling the whole event plan, event planners cue speakers, coordinate entertainment, and manage transitions with precision. But it’s not just about following a script; event planners are also great at improvising, ready to pivot when the last-minute unexpected challenges crash the party.
The Balancing Act: Budget Management Expertise
One of the biggest responsibilities event planners bear on their shoulders is managing budgets accumulated for the event. Oftentimes, event planners are given a set budget and asked to execute the whole event.
These budget experts have to stretch every dollar like it’s made of elastic, all while ensuring the champagne doesn’t turn into sparkling water. They’re masters of the art of negotiation, squeezing discounts from vendors, and finding creative workarounds that don’t scream cheap.
However, even then it’s not all penny-pinching. An enthusiastic event planner knows when to splurge on those elements that’ll have guests talking for weeks.
Negotiating with Vendors: Getting the Best Deals
Vendors are there to grab a good deal and make a profit off your event. But not on the watch of event planners. Event planners take care of the negotiations with the vendors, avoiding overspending money. These savvy negotiators know how to squeeze every ounce of value from suppliers without burning bridges.
While it may seem that they are just good with negotiations, they actually use their industry connections, bulk buying power, and insider knowledge to land great deals. They’re experts at reading the fine print and spotting opportunities for added value that most people would overlook.
Crisis Management: Handling Last-Minute Changes
When planning events, things can and do go wrong, especially when organizing large-scale ones. That’s where an event planner’s crisis management skills come in. Whether it’s an unexpected weather disaster or a vendor ditched at the last moment, event planners have seen it all and are ready with backups.
Tackling last-minute challenges is only possible when you have made backup plans for common hurdles, have reliable contacts, and have the ability to quickly think and make decisions. Event planners have all these traits and that is why they are so effective in managing last-minute crises.
The Art of Logistics Management
Behind every unforgettable event, there is someone who manages the web of intricate logistics, and event planners are at the forefront of it. From finding the perfect venue to making sure every guest gets home safely, event planners orchestrate a complex management of people, places, and things to ensure a seamless experience for the guests.
Venue Selection: Finding the Perfect Space
Event planners can multitask as real estate agents for your event, scouring the city for that perfect venue that is not too big, not too small, just right with ample parking space. Apart from the calculative side, event planners have a creative mind which they use to match venue spaces to vibes based on your preference. Whether you’re dreaming of a swanky rooftop soirée or a rustic barn bash, you just have to ask your event planner to create this atmosphere.
When considering a venue for the event, event planners consider everything beforehand:
- Capacity and layout
- Accessibility and parking
- Amenities and tech capabilities
- Aesthetic appeal and ambiance
After all, it’s not just about looks. Event planners dig deep, uncovering hidden gems and negotiating deals that’ll save your bank from breaking.
Transportation and Accommodation Coordination
The best thing about event planners is that they are cool heads who don’t just worry about what happens at the venue but as one of the event planner duties, they’re also the travel agents and hotel concierges for the event, ensuring to manage everything from airport pickups to VIP accommodations.
Moreover, they don’t only arrange transportation and accommodation for guests, they make sure that it is affordable too as they negotiate group rates and seasonal discounts.
Scheduling and Timing: Ensuring Everything Runs Smoothly
The phrase “Time is money” perfectly aligns with the event planning industry, where timing decides the success and failure of the event. To ensure a smooth and seamless event experience for guests, event planners have to ensure that every task is processed well on time.
In essence, event planners come up with a schedule and timing that doesn’t clash with other important tasks. All in all, an event planner focuses on:
- Choreographing vendor arrivals and setups
- Plotting guest flow to avoid bottlenecks
- Syncing AV cues with speaker transitions
- Managing all the time-intensive tasks first
However, it’s not all rigid schedules that event planners religiously follow. The best planners know when to be flexible and adapt on the fly.
Diverse Roles Across Different Event Types
Each event type has a different requirement that event planners have to fulfill, such as a large-scale festival needs comprehensive management compared to a small, intimate wedding. The right event planners are flexible, adapting their skills to suit any occasion. From buttoned-up corporate gatherings to luxury weddings, these professionals shape-shift to meet the unique demands of each event type.
Regardless of whatever the event is, their core mission remains to create unforgettable experiences tailored to the client’s vision. Whether they’re debating CEOs or gathering attendees in one space, event planners boast their expertise to navigate the distinct challenges each event type throws their way.
Speaking of event types, let’s take a look at how event planners tackle different event landscapes.
Corporate Conundrums: Tailoring to Business Needs
For high-end corporate events, event planners use multiple strategies to ensure every detail aligns with the company’s objective. Most of the time, stakeholders have very high expectations from event planners to make their corporate gathering into an engaging and unforgettable event. That’s where event planners use their expertise to ensure the company gets the most ROI.
From managing C-suite schedules to crafting team-building activities that don’t encourage engagement, these planners are the key to ensuring a successful event.
Their toolkit for corporate events includes:
- Effective branding throughout the event
- Technological solutions for virtual attendees
- Diplomatic skills to avoid interdepartmental confrontations
In essence, they make every aspect of the corporate event meetings turn into fun and memorable experiences.
Weddings and Private Parties: Personal Touches that Matter
A wedding is one of life’s most cherished moments, and event planners ensure it truly stays that way. From intimate backyard weddings to over-the-top Sweet Sixteens, event planners plan their ways to bring your visions to life.
They have the expertise to bring your Pinterest board ideas into reality, whether it takes to hunt down that exact shade of blush for your bridesmaids’ dresses or sourcing vintage teacups for Grandma’s 90th birthday tea party. It’s all about those personal touches that go along with weddings and private events, making every experience memorable.
Large-scale Public Events: Managing Crowds and Safety
In large public events where there is a lot at stake, event planners become experts at managing crowds and keeping everything on track. They ensure thousands of attendees stay safe, entertained, and unaware of the hard work behind the scenes.
Unlike in any other event, large public events require careful planning, backup plans, and a bit of calm under pressure, which is beyond the capabilities of anyone other than event planners. Event planners also work with local authorities, plan emergency exits, and arrange essentials like restrooms and first aid stations for attendees.
The Benefits of Hiring a Professional Event Planner
You must have been through many events – in some events you are buzzing with excitement while in others you just want to leave. The reason is one event must have hired a professional event planner while the other didn’t. The benefits of working with an experienced event planner go beyond the color-coordinated napkins and perfectly timed speeches. They serve as your personal stress-relievers, budget managers, and vision executors all in one.
But the perks don’t stop here. Here’s why bringing a professional planner on board might be the best decision you’ll make for your next event:
- Time-saving: They will take care of all the tasks with much more efficiency while you focus on the fun stuff
- Budget-maximizing: They will efficiently use the resources and get you better deals with vendors
- Networking: They will likely have a list of top-notch vendors and hidden gems that you may want to know
In essence, hiring a professional event planner isn’t just a luxury—it has become essential to ensure a successful and seamless event, especially where there is a lot at stake.
Stress Reduction: Why Expertise Matters
When there is a big day coming up—your event—the last thing you want to do is worry. According to research, stress negatively impacts performance, and for you, this means the event may turn out to be a disaster.
However, saying “don’t stress” is easy to say for anyone who is not required to plan a whole event, including catering, logistics, venue, decorations, guest list, and much more. If you don’t have the experience of planning an event before, you are bound to be eaten up by stress.
That’s where a professional event planner comes to the rescue. The best part about bringing event planners to the team is that they have seen it all – from the bride’s meltdowns to corporate catastrophes, they know the dos and don’t of hosting a successful event. So it’s better to use their experience rather than risk the whole event. After all, event planners are there to elevate every attendee’s experience!
Elevated Experience: Crafting Memorable Events
Have you ever been to an event where everything synchronized so well that left you feeling like you’d just stepped out of a dream? That’s what an expert event planner does to an event. They not only throw a seamless party but also create immersive worlds that tickle all five senses of the attendees.
From the moment guests arrive, they’re transported into a carefully curated atmosphere where every detail sings in harmony. It’s not just about the big moments like lightening shows or advanced, immersive tech that steals the show; it’s the subtle touches that make everyone feel luxurious:
- Personalized custom cocktails that tell a story
- Lighting that shifts with the mood of the room
- Thoughtful favors that guests actually want to keep
Event planners turn your event from just a gathering to an unforgettable experience life stories they’ll be eager to revisit.
What Does an Event Planner Do and What to Expect From Them
Working with an event planner is like hopping on a rollercoaster of creativity and organization. What to expect from hiring an event planner remains a question for many, but in essence, you can expect these professionals to understand your event goals and translate them into reality. Expect a whirlwind of brainstorming sessions, vendor meetings, and the occasional reality check when any of your visions are not practical.
They’ll be your go-to for advice, budget expert, and problem-solver all in one. But don’t worry, they won’t take over your ideas. Think of them like a personal trainer for your event—helping you achieve the best results without burning out.
Initial Consultations: Laying the Groundwork
When you are ready to host an event, your event planner will counter you with many questions to get an idea of what you want. In the initial consultation, they will deep dive into your vision questions like what is the purpose of your event and what kind of atmosphere you want to create. They will also ask you about your guest count and if there are VIPs on the list too.
Moreover, they would also want to know your budget for hosting the whole event alongside your list of must-haves and nice-to-haves amenities to better manage the budget. All in all, event planners will help you lay out the groundwork in the initial consultation and come up with ideas for the next meeting.
Continuous Collaboration and Feedback Loops
If you believe that event planners will leave you out of the plans after the initial consultation then you are wrong. Working with an event planner is all about teamwork! They don’t just set things up and leave—they’re with you every step of the way, constantly fine-tuning the plan and checking in.
They will give you regular updates, include you in brainstorming sessions, and give you plenty of “What if we tried this?” moments. They’ll keep you informed and make sure your vision stays at the heart of everything. Also, they will make sure that you don’t hesitate to share your thoughts as your input is key to planning an unforgettable event.
The Big Day: Execution and Oversight
When the curtain rises on event day, your planner manages the event from the backstage area, ensuring everything is in control. They stay on their toes until the last of the guests leave.
Until then, event planners manage vendors and event staff and troubleshoot any tech glitches before anyone notices. In case things go South, they’re ready with backup plans to save the day.
4 Tips for Selecting An Event Planner That Matches Your Vibe
So far we have tried to convince you why hiring an event planner is beneficial for your event. Now if you are convinced to partner up with one and actively searching, here are 4 simple tips to hire the best event planner that aligns with your vision.
- Check out their portfolio: Look for events that really seemed unforgettable and made you wish you were part of it.
- Meet for coffee, not just contracts: Chemistry matters in event planning too. If you’re not clicking over cappuccinos, it might be a bumpy ride.
- Ask about their problem-solving strategies: Give them a situation such as a quirky venue or a guest list full of VIPs, and ask them how they’d handle these unique challenges.
- Trust your gut: If something feels off, keep looking. The right planner should feel like a smooth inclusion in the team rather than a compromise.
Remember, you’re not just hiring a service—you’re bringing on a collaborator who’ll help shape your big day. So choose wisely even if it takes you time, and you’ll have a planning process that’s as enjoyable as the event itself!
Red Flags to Look Out for In Event Planning Professionals and Agencies
While many event planners can do wonders for your event, there are a few bad apples that could turn your dream day into a nightmare too. So keep your eyes peeled for these warning signs:
- Lack of communication
- Vague pricing that leaves you confused
- A weak portfolio that doesn’t showcase past experiences
- Promises that sound too good to be true
There are red flags in every line of work, including event planning. However, worry not. Trust your gut, and don’t be afraid to ask the tough questions.
Cost Vs ROI – Is an Event Planner Worth The Cost for Your Event?
So far we have discussed everything from event planner duties to the benefits of working with an experienced event planner. But we have not addressed the elephant in the room yet – the cost of hiring an event planner.
Sure, you might see this cost as a luxury expense. However, look at the bigger picture of saving your sanity and elevating your event. These professionals will help you save money as well by avoiding last-minute disasters and helping you secure a great venue.
You would be surprised by how many components there are in event planning. when you are doing the process alone, it’s easy to miss some costs or pay a premium to avoid small hassles. these will eventually stack up in cost, which makes the cost of event planner much more approachable in the long term.
The bottom line is that a good planner pays for themselves in stress reduction alone. If you bring in their knack for stretching dollars and creating jaw-dropping experiences, you will start seeing the cost of hiring an event planner as a smart investment.
Conclusion
When planning events of any type, the long list of challenges can make you feel overwhelmed — tight budgets, endless details, and the pressure to create a memorable experience. There’s just simply too much to do.
Naturally, many people find themselves stressed and unsure, leading to last-minute mishaps and unmet expectations.
This is where hiring a professional event planner becomes invaluable. Instead of asking what an event planner do, it’s better to say what is something that they don’t do. That’s because event planners take on the burden of logistics, offer expert advice, and turn your vision into reality. By hiring an event planner, you will not only alleviate stress but also gain access to valuable resources, connections, and creative solutions that can elevate your event.
Confused about the process of creating an awesome event even though you have the idea in mind?
This problem can be pretty common, especially when you’re new to planning big events. These problems compound when you lack a solid team to support the onsite planner.
So whether you’re planning a corporate gathering or the wedding of your dreams, consider partnering with a skilled event staff team to ensure the occasion goes seamless, enjoyable, and unforgettable!
Start here to recruit top players.
