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here is a rhythm and a fl ow to every event that must be carefully orchestrated. All must be organized ahead of time—everything in its place and ready to go. Charting your critical path will take you to successful event execution, with the focus kept on what needs to be done right now and with the timing of the fi nishing touches and requirements factored in.Critical Path
You have determined your company or your client objectives and established your event objectives, selected your event style, laid out your cost sheet and worked out a preliminary budget, put out your requests for quotes from suppliers and narrowed your choices down, updated your budget based on projected costs for your selected event elements and received contracts to review for terms, conditions and payment requirements before signing. Now is the time to begin to add contracted timing and logistical information to your schedule of events, which will now become the offi cial master critical path that everyone involved—
event planning staff , event planning corporate teams and suppliers—will be working from. As you move forward with event operations, changes
will be made, event elements will be added or subtracted or upgraded, and unexpected time demands will develop, and you will have to continually update your critical path as the new information and supplier and venue requirements arise. Remember to always number and date each critical path revision—just the same as you will be doing for your cost sheet—so that you can easily know if everyone is on the same page.
Being organized and paying close attention to detail are two of the most important elements of running a successful event. Checking constantly that things are on schedule and moving forward as planned is essential. All involved—corporate clients, event planning staff and suppliers—need to adhere to the guidelines set out and contractually agreed upon. Taking two months to approve an item could result in poor event project management and lead to a stressful event where you are running right down to the wire. For instance, you could spend hours on a creative invitation design, but if it doesn’t arrive at the printer’s in suffi cient time to make your mailing deadlines, it can have a disastrous eff ect on attendance. Th at’s why creating a schedule of events that will become your working critical path should be one of your fi rst steps after you have decided to go ahead with the event.
To create your critical path, take out your calendar and start working backwards from the date of your event, looking at what has to be done when. Th ere are numerous horror stories of things nearly going wrong. At one event, the programs and signage required last-minute changes and barely arrived on time. At another event, inserts arrived after the programs had been distributed and, at a third, the logoed T-shirts arrived literally hot off the press—the boxes were steaming as they were opened! Each of these things sends a subtle signal of disorganization to those attending your event. Such missteps and near-disasters show that the event was poorly planned and coordinated.
Th ere have to be strict cutoff times, or you will suddenly discover what the domino eff ect is all about. It is surprising how an apparently small thing can have a major impact. At one fund-raising event the
“organizers” were changing the seating plans up until the very last minute and left themselves no time for a fi nal review. Th is resulted in some embarrassing errors; one table had been assigned to two VIP sponsorship companies, which resulted in an additional table having to be set up at the fi nal moment as the important guests stood and waited. Th ere were no provisions made to have extra table coverings and centerpieces as backup, so the table could not be set up to match the others. By taking last-minute requests for table seating, they had not left themselves time to properly check the revisions that they had made to the seating plan.
Your goal is to have everything fi nalized well before your pre- cons with clients, suppliers and on-site event planning staff —which are scheduled to take place well before move in and setup begins so that everyone involved can take the time to look after last-minute details and catch any last-minute glitches that should have been anticipated but slipped through logistical cracks. You want everyone to arrive the day of your event refreshed, at his or her best and giving their best, focused on every event element being successfully orchestrated and executed, not still scrambling to pull things together because time ran out.
Take each of your contracts and make sure that all key cutoff dates become a part of your critical path. Pay close attention to attrition and cancellation dates. Th ese are the fi nal dates when you are allowed to alter your attendance fi gures (attrition) or scrub the whole event (cancellation) without penalties or with minimal penalties. Often, you can lower the guaranteed guest count on food and beverage or the number of guestrooms booked at a hotel by a contracted percentage without incurring charges if the numbers are reduced by a certain date.
Include the deadline and a time buff er date on your critical path to review it. Allow yourself time to make informed decisions. It could be a costly mistake if you miss an attrition date and a chance to reduce your guest numbers, as you would then be charged based on the original numbers of guests or guestrooms contracted.
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Remember, as your event develops, it is imperative that you continue to update your critical path, cost sheet and payment schedule. Pay close attention to the language of the contract. For example, if final food and beverage guarantees have to be called in by a specific date, have your supplier give you in writing the actual date they are required, as opposed to x number of days before the event.
To some companies, for example, 14 days before the event is 14 days prior to the event, while for others the 14 days prior to your event may be based on 14 working days—not actual days—before your event, which is very different. As you lay out your critical path make sure you give a description of each item, who is responsible for it and what the deadline is. Take the time to prepare your critical path and to put it into your personal schedule.
Below you will fi nd sample critical path inclusions for invitations to an event scheduled to take place on November 1. Th is example takes you through some suggested timelines for the preparation of guest lists and invitations. Th ese are the initial timeline items that would be added to the master critical path in date order and expanded upon as event operations progressed. In this example, a professional mailhouse was contracted to address the invitations, insert them into the envelopes and mail them out. Th is could also be done in-house, as long as you allow for additional time and staff to do this. If staff are handling the mailing in addition to their regular work, you could experience delays in meeting timelines. Th is outline includes key dates in the critical path. Of course, times will vary depending on your specifi c requirements, your suppliers’
deadlines and the time of year.
Whenever you are doing a mailing be sure to address one piece to yourself. This way you will know if there are any unexpected delays in delivery, and if you check the postage date stamp on the envelope you will know if the invitation actually went out on the scheduled date.
Critical Path Inclusions
Completion Date Task Person Responsible
May 1 Guest List Development
Meeting
Michelle
May 1 Invitation Design Meeting Rick
May 7 Mailhouse Contracted Rick
May 15 Guest List Review and Sign Off
Michelle
July 12 First Review of Invitation Design
Rick
July 26 Second Review of Invitation and Sign Off
Rick
August 3 Invitations to Printer Rick August 3 Guest Name and Address
Review
Michelle
August 5 Guest List Names and Addresses to Rick
Michelle
August 9 Envelopes and Guest List Sent to Mailhouse for Addressing
Rick
August 15 Invitations to Mailhouse for Packaging
Rick
August 23 Invitations Mailed to Guest List A
Rick and Michelle
September 13 VIP Passes Mailed to Guest List A RSVPs
Rick and Michelle
September 27 RSVP Cutoff to Guest List A
Rick and Michelle
September 27 Invitations Mailed to Guest List B (if applicable)
Rick and Michelle
September 27 RSVP Cutoff for Guest List B (if applicable)
Rick and Michelle
October 12 VIP Passes Mailed to Guest List B (if applicable)
Rick and Michelle
Function Sheets
Screenwriters have their scripts, songwriters their music sheets and event planners their function sheets. Each fulfi lls the same function. Like a good story, there is a beginning, a middle and an end. Each step of the way is scripted; each note is laid out exactly as it is meant to be played.
Everyone is operating off the same page. Everything is clearly detailed. It lessens room for error and eliminates the “but I thought...” It reduces the gray areas and things that could slip through the cracks. From the detail comes the magic.
Th e function sheets become living and breathing things, and you are their creative director. Th ey are the heart of your event, encompassing it from beginning to end. One person needs to be in charge of preparing them, to control all the information coming in, and that person must be the only one dealing with the suppliers and fi nalizing the plans. Th e creative director needs to know the event—every moment, every step, every detail—inside out, just like a conductor leading a symphony or a director making a movie. Th e leader can’t be someone whose role it will be to host the event or to socialize. Each player needs to know what their part is and when to come in, but one person is in charge of the overall event. Make sure everyone knows their particular role. Don’t have half a dozen people calling a supplier; that’s a recipe for certain disaster, and it refl ects badly on your professionalism and that of your organization.
As an event approaches, you will probably no longer need to refer to your function sheets because you know them by heart. You know—as a conductor does—when the wrong note has been played. One wedding planner booked a private estate for a celebrity wedding months in advance, and found out 10 days before the event that a large pond and hot tub had been constructed on the lawn where the couple had planned to say their vows. He was quoted as saying that the couple couldn’t get married there unless they arranged to walk on water. For such a calamity to happen is unthinkable, and there are no excuses for not knowing about it until
10 days before. Th at is the purpose of the function sheets—to make sure that everything is in place, with no surprises. A solution was found, but at what cost to make the new layout work? Who needs to have that kind of stress and all the additional expenses? One event planning company ran an event at a $50,000 loss because of their poor event management;
lost future business, referrals and their reputation; and had to deal with a very unhappy client wanting to take them to court because of the event planning company’s unprofessional handling of their event. We live in a very litigious society and it is imperative today that event planning, operations and on-site execution be well documented to show that due diligence was taken in all areas. Your function sheets will give you that and help you to identify red fl ag areas in advance and in time to take appropriate action.
Attention to Detail
Th e function sheets are the information guide that tell your suppliers how you want your event to be handled. Th ey set out exactly what has been contracted, and itemize the inclusions, the costs agreed upon and how you want the event elements handled in a manner that will fi t your event style. Th ey ensure nothing is left up to the supplier to decide. What if they choose to do what is easiest for them, not necessarily best for your event?
For example, say a hotel usually has a dessert and coff ee station with the cups and saucers stacked separately. You may want the cup and saucer stacked together in a set for a more polished presentation that allows guests to pick up their cup and saucer in one motion. And in keeping with a more polished presentation style, you may wish the sugar, milk and cream to be in silver containers as opposed to plastic or paper, with a garbage can visible in the hopes that people will take the time to discard the wrappers and not leave them strewn about the table in unsightly disarray. You may also want the spoons to be placed on each saucer instead of providing plastic stir sticks.
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You have to make sure that these event service requirements are spelled out in advance and not left to chance. And if you prefer sugar cubes, brown sugar or white sugar, or if you have negotiated and included in your cost sheet to have rock sugar on wooden sticks or chocolate- dipped spoons, these items—the quantity, the costs, the look, the manner in which they are to be presented—would be listed on your function sheets detailing the coff ee and tea service portion at a meal or coff ee break function at a particular date and time. Th e same applies to napkins.
Is paper acceptable—and if so what quality, what color, what size and how do you want them presented—or does your event style require linen napkins to be laid out? Th e hotel needs to know this in advance—when they are preparing their quote and contract inclusions—so that they can advise the event planner if extra costs could apply for labor, rentals and special requests, and then these details need to be clearly indicated on the function sheets to ensure that the hotel directs their staff to change the setup. Th e above dessert and coff ee station example is just one tiny aspect of an overall event—multiply that by, oh, maybe a million, and you see why event planners must be well prepared.
Always remember that the person with whom you negotiated contract terms and conditions may not be the same person that will be handling your event or even still be working there when your event takes place. Clearly, it is vitally important to have everything that has been agreed upon documented so there are no surprises.
Hotels, venues and event suppliers appreciate the detail. Th ey may refer to your function sheets as a “book” at times—they can exceed 100 pages—but it is a book that they will read because they know everything must be in place come the day of the event. Th ey can’t say they didn’t know about an issue, because it will have been presented to them in great detail. If the wiring on the twinkle lights is to be a specifi c color (green or brown as opposed to red, for example) to better blend in with the decor—and these terms and conditions have been indicated in
your initial request for quote and agreed upon in your contract—this requirement needs to be stated in your function sheets.
Make it clear that on the day of the event what you have requested is what you expect to see. Anything else is simply unacceptable. If there is a problem with your request or your proposed layout, you need to know in advance and not on the day of your actual event. Suppliers will have ample time to advise you of any potential problems once they review and sign off on the fi rst draft of function sheets, receive the amended function sheets and go through the pre-con with the event planning person leading the day-of-event orchestration. Let suppliers know that you will be assigning a staff member to advance or oversee each aspect of your event. Make note of who will be supervising each specifi c area and when they will be arriving to oversee setup to ensure that everything is going according to the plan set out in your function sheets. What is important when you are creating your function sheets is imagining the total visual eff ect. What will the camera see?
What will the guests see? What is the impact? Th e ambiance created? Your function sheets are a step-by-step guide to creating the setting you want.
Th e function sheets are the working script. Every supplier and key player receives an initial copy in time to review it and make any necessary changes. Suppliers have often remarked that it is helpful for them to see the event laid out in its entirety. For example, it will help a tent rental company to know what the caterer is proposing to bring into the cooking tent and at what time they will be setting up so they can schedule their staff accordingly and have their people out of the way by the time the caterer is scheduled to arrive. Th is way the caterer is not off -loading their supplies and trying to work around the tenting staff . Ideally, you will have brought the tent supplier and the caterer together at the initial walk-through of the site, and the function sheets will be a review of what was discussed as well as the fi nalized plans. Th e function sheets will have laid out the proposed timing, logistical and legal requirements (such as fi re marshal permits, insurance, etc.) for both sides. If the plans have not been fi nalized by this point, a review of the function sheets will send up red fl ags to you—as you
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are preparing them—or to the tenting supplier and caterer once they are presented with a detailed blueprint of what will be taking place.
Once your suppliers have had a chance to review your initial set of function sheets, and together you have fi ne-tuned any areas of concern, a revised copy is sent out to all. A pre-con meeting is set up to take place a few days before your actual event move in takes place. Th is is a meeting where all suppliers and key staff members review the fi nal set of function sheets to make sure that there is a clear understanding of what is expected, and a fi nal walk-through is done at this time. (Th ese meetings were originally named to take place before (pre) a convention, but “pre-con” now refers to any advance planning meeting.) On the day of the event, each and every aspect is advanced by a member of the event planning staff , who will be on hand to supervise the setup and ensure that all is laid out exactly as outlined in the function sheets. Th ey report any areas of concern back to the creative director, who will handle any problems.
Contact Sheets
Function sheets should begin with “contact sheets” that include all names, titles, company names, addresses, telephone, fax and cell numbers, e-mail addresses, text messaging address, emergency after-hour work numbers and, at times, home phone numbers. Th is serves two purposes. Th e fi rst is that the creative director has all numbers in one central area. For example, if the creative director needs to reach a limousine driver who is transferring a VIP guest, he or she has that cell number immediately accessible to them.
Th e second purpose is that with this list you have everything you need to be able to sit down after the event and write your thank-you letters; those contact sheets have all the information and serve as a checklist.
For those doing events for the fi rst time, hotels and venues can supply a list of their preferred suppliers. In some cases, you are restricted to using only the suppliers they have recommended. Be sure to ask if you are permitted to bring in a supplier of your own choosing.