How Hard Can Planning a Conference Really Be?
You’ve been asked to organise the company conference. Excellent. Find a venue, book some rooms, organise lunch, line up a speaker and send everyone an itinerary. How hard could it possibly be?
Fast-forward three months and you’re comparing AV quotes, updating your fourth rooming list, chasing dietary requirements and trying to work out why the airport transfer company thinks Sarah is arriving on Tuesday when Sarah is very definitely arriving on Wednesday. Meanwhile, someone from finance would like to know why the venue quote has changed.
Welcome to corporate conference planning.
If you’re planning a corporate conference, one of the first decisions you’ll need to make is whether to manage everything internally or hire a conference management company. There isn’t one right answer. A small one-day conference can be relatively straightforward to manage in-house, while a multi-day event with travel, accommodation, AV, activities and several suppliers can quickly become a full-time job.
So, let’s look at DIY conference planning vs hiring a conference management company and work out which option might be right for your event.
What Does DIY Conference Planning Actually Involve?
DIY conference planning means your internal team takes responsibility for organising and managing the event. For a simple corporate event, that might involve finding a venue, arranging catering and putting together an agenda. However, as the event grows, so does the job.
You may need to research venues, negotiate contracts, organise accommodation and coordinate flights. Then there are airport transfers, rooming lists, catering, dietary requirements, AV, production, speakers, team building activities, dinners and delegate communications to think about.
If you’re still working out exactly what’s involved, our [how to plan a corporate conference] guide takes you through the entire conference planning process from the initial brief through to event day.
And remember, the planning is only half of it. Once the conference starts, someone still needs to coordinate suppliers, check room setups, manage timings and deal with anything unexpected.
In other words, DIY doesn’t necessarily mean simple. It mostly means you’re the conference management company now.
Congratulations on your new job.
When Does DIY Conference Planning Make Sense?
There are definitely situations where planning your conference internally makes sense. If you’re organising a small, one-day corporate conference at a local venue, the logistics may be fairly manageable. Perhaps everyone is travelling from the same city, you don’t need accommodation and the venue is handling your catering and AV.
DIY conference planning can also work well when your company runs the same event regularly. If you already have trusted suppliers, established systems and a venue you know well, much of the groundwork has already been done.
Having an experienced internal events team changes the equation too. If conference and [corporate event planning] are already part of someone’s role, keeping the event in-house may be completely practical.
The important question isn’t simply how many people are attending. It’s how complicated the event is. A conference for 150 local employees at one hotel could be easier to manage than a corporate retreat for 30 people flying in from six different cities.
The Biggest Benefit of DIY Conference Planning: Control
One obvious advantage of organising your corporate conference internally is control. Your team knows your company, your people and your culture better than anyone else. You also understand why the conference is happening and what you want people to get from it.
That can make decisions around the agenda, speakers, messaging and overall style much easier. For organisations with a dedicated internal events team, keeping those elements in-house can work extremely well.
However, control and responsibility tend to arrive as a package deal. When you’re managing the conference yourself, every supplier question, schedule change, rooming list update and last-minute problem comes back to your team too.
The question then becomes whether that level of involvement is the best use of their time.
Does DIY Conference Planning Actually Save Money?
At first glance, DIY conference planning looks cheaper. You’re not paying a conference management fee, so surely you’re saving money?
Possibly. But not always.
Your internal team’s time has a value. If several employees spend weeks researching venues, comparing accommodation, requesting catering quotes and coordinating suppliers, that cost is still being absorbed by the business. It just doesn’t appear as a line item on the conference budget.
There can also be hidden costs when you’re comparing suppliers. A conference venue with a lower room hire fee might look like the cheapest option until you discover that AV, furniture, Wi-Fi and breakout rooms are all charged separately. Another venue may cost more upfront but include much more in the package.
Professional conference venue sourcing can help you compare venues based on the total requirements of your event rather than simply choosing the lowest headline price.
So yes, DIY conference planning can save money. However, “we didn’t pay an event management fee” and “the conference cost us less” aren’t necessarily the same thing.
The Real Cost Is Often Time
This is probably the biggest factor companies underestimate when deciding whether to manage a corporate conference internally. Conference planning takes time, and usually much more of it than people expect.
Venue sourcing alone can involve researching properties, checking availability, sending briefs, comparing proposals, organising site inspections and negotiating inclusions. Then you need to repeat a similar process for accommodation, catering, AV, transport, speakers, activities and evening events.
Meanwhile, your internal team presumably still has their actual jobs to do. That’s where DIY conference planning can start becoming stressful. It isn’t usually one enormous task. Instead, it’s hundreds of smaller decisions, emails, changes and follow-ups spread across several months.
Individually, none of them look particularly terrifying. Collectively, hello 73 spreadsheets.
What Does a Conference Management Company Actually Do?
A conference management company takes responsibility for bringing the different parts of your event together. Depending on what you need, that could start with destination selection and venue sourcing before moving into accommodation, travel, catering, AV and production, speakers, entertainment, team building and evening events.
They can also coordinate suppliers, develop run sheets and provide end-to-end conference management on the day. That means one team is looking across the entire event rather than each supplier operating independently.
Importantly, hiring a conference management company doesn’t mean handing over your conference and hoping for the best. You should still be involved in the decisions that matter. Your conference organiser simply takes on much of the research, coordination and logistics required to make those decisions happen.
You decide what you want the event to achieve. They help work out how to make it happen.
One Point of Contact Can Make a Huge Difference
One of the biggest advantages of professional conference management is having someone overseeing the entire event. Without that central coordination, individual elements can easily become disconnected.
The venue has one schedule. The AV company has another. The transport provider has an old itinerary. Meanwhile, the restaurant thinks 80 people are coming to dinner when the latest guest list says 96.
Fun!!!
A conference management company can act as the central point between your business, venues and suppliers. When something changes, the relevant people can be updated rather than your internal team having to contact six different companies and hope nobody gets missed.
For larger corporate conferences, this alone can remove a huge amount of pressure.
Conference Venue Sourcing Becomes Much Easier
Finding a conference venue can look deceptively simple. Search for conference venues in your chosen city, open 27 browser tabs and start comparing.
Easy.
Except every venue packages things differently. One might include basic AV while another charges separately. One could offer excellent accommodation rates but have limited breakout rooms. Another might look cheaper until you add catering, Wi-Fi, furniture and production.
Using a professional conference venue selection service means you can start with a proper event brief. Suitable venues can then be compared based on what your conference actually needs, not simply which ballroom looks nicest online.
This becomes even more valuable if you’re organising a conference interstate or internationally. You may not know the venues, locations or local suppliers.
Your conference management company should.
Travel and Accommodation Can Become a Conference of Their Own
Once delegates need to travel, corporate conference planning moves into a completely different category. Now you’re potentially managing flights, accommodation, airport transfers, rooming lists, early arrivals, late departures and itinerary changes.
For a national company, delegates might be arriving from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and regional areas at completely different times. Then someone’s flight changes. Someone else extends their stay. Another attendee decides they’re now arriving the night before.
Suddenly the rooming list needs its own project manager.
Professional conference travel management can centralise those logistics and create a smoother experience for both your internal organisers and attendees. It also means travel arrangements can be planned around the conference program rather than treated as a completely separate piece of the event.
Then There’s Conference Catering
Conference catering sounds straightforward until you’re trying to feed 200 people between two tightly scheduled sessions. You need the right amount of food, the right service style, enough time in the agenda and a plan for dietary requirements.
A good conference catering plan should work with the rest of your event. A quick working lunch might suit one conference, while another needs a longer buffet or sit-down meal to give people time to network.
Then there are welcome drinks, dinners, gala events and evening functions. For multi-day conferences, variety matters too. There are only so many consecutive miniature croissants a delegate should be expected to consume.
Having one conference management team looking at both the catering and the agenda can help the entire event flow much better.
A Conference Management Company Brings Supplier Knowledge
When you’re planning a corporate conference internally, you may find yourself sourcing every supplier from scratch. A conference management company should already have experience working with venues, caterers, AV companies, transport providers, entertainers, speakers and activity suppliers.
That doesn’t mean they should use exactly the same suppliers for every event. Quite the opposite. The suppliers should be chosen to suit your location, budget, group and conference goals.
However, knowing who to call, what questions to ask and what realistic pricing looks like can make the process considerably faster. It also helps when your event brief gets a little more ambitious.
Need a keynote speaker, a gala dinner, airport transfers for 200 people and a corporate team building activity the following afternoon? It’s much easier when you know where to start.
What Happens When Something Goes Wrong?
Even beautifully planned corporate conferences can throw up surprises. A speaker’s flight gets delayed. The weather changes. A supplier gets stuck in traffic. The venue suddenly needs to move one of your sessions to another room.
The difference is having someone whose job is to deal with it.
An experienced conference management team can work with venues and suppliers to solve problems quickly, ideally before attendees even realise something happened. They can adjust timings, coordinate suppliers and make decisions while keeping the rest of the event moving.
If you’re managing the conference internally, that responsibility usually lands with your staff. Suddenly, someone who should be networking with clients or participating in the conference is standing in a loading dock trying to work out where the missing lectern went.
Not exactly the conference experience they were hoping for.
Your Internal Team Actually Gets to Attend the Conference
This is one of the biggest benefits of outsourcing conference management, yet it’s often overlooked.
Your internal team should be able to experience the event they’ve worked so hard to create. They should be listening to the speakers, talking to colleagues, meeting clients and participating in activities.
They shouldn’t spend the entire day checking catering deliveries, finding missing microphones and answering supplier calls.
With an onsite conference management team, the logistics happen quietly in the background while your people focus on why everyone is there in the first place. When professional conference management is working well, most attendees barely notice it.
Everything simply works.
What About a Hybrid Approach?
Here’s the good news: you don’t necessarily have to choose between doing everything yourself and handing over the entire conference.
A hybrid approach can work brilliantly. Your internal team might manage the conference agenda, speakers and company communications, while a conference management company handles venue sourcing, accommodation, travel, catering, conference team building and onsite logistics.
Alternatively, you may already have your venue booked but need help pulling everything else together. Or perhaps you’ve organised most of the conference yourself but want professional support onsite.
This gives your team control over the areas they want to own while removing the parts that consume the most time.
For many businesses, that’s the sweet spot.
DIY vs Conference Management Company: Which Is Right for You?
DIY conference planning may be the right choice if your event is relatively small, local and simple. It can also work well if you already have an experienced internal events team with enough time to manage the project properly.
However, professional conference management becomes increasingly valuable as the event grows in complexity. If you’re managing interstate or international travel, accommodation, multiple venues, large delegate numbers, several suppliers, team building, evening functions or a multi-day agenda, outsourcing some or all of the planning can save a significant amount of time.
It’s also worth considering what your team’s time is worth. If senior employees are spending hours comparing canapé packages and chasing airport transfer quotes, is that really where you want their attention?
Possibly not.
So, Should You DIY Your Corporate Conference?
Before deciding, take an honest look at the event you’re planning. Consider how many people are attending, where they’re travelling from, how many days the conference will run and how many different suppliers will be involved.
Then look at your internal resources. Do you have someone with conference planning experience? More importantly, do they actually have enough time to manage it properly alongside their normal role?
Finally, think about conference day itself. Who will manage the venue, AV, catering, speakers, transfers, activities and suppliers while everything is happening?
If the answer to every question is the same increasingly nervous person from HR, it might be time to bring in some help.
Conference Planning Doesn’t Have to Be All or Nothing
At Tailored Conferences, we don’t believe hiring a conference management company should mean losing control of your event. It’s your conference, your people and your objectives. Our job is to make the complicated bits considerably less complicated.
We provide tailored corporate conference management for conferences, corporate retreats and events across Australia, New Zealand and beyond. We can manage your entire conference from the initial brief through to event day, or simply step in where you need us.
That might mean finding the perfect venue, coordinating flights and accommodation, arranging catering, managing AV and production, organising team building or bringing together your evening events. Alternatively, you can hand us the whole thing.
We’re also very comfortable with 73 spreadsheets.
So, DIY or conference management company? If your team has the experience, resources and time, DIY can absolutely work. However, if you’d rather focus on your people and the purpose of the conference, that’s where we come in.
You bring the big ideas. We’ll help take care of the moving parts.