In addition to planning and organising the conference, another important part to keep in mind are post-conference activities. In this chapter, we can read about how to plan and execute those.
One of the most important post-conference activities will definitely be communication with everyone who was involved. This includes the organisational team, the speakers, our partners, guest and everyone else who had a role in organising the event. We have four important tips for we to support this communication:
- Compile a “Next steps” checklist for everyone involved. After the event is over, both the organisers and their partners will have generally earned themselves a small break and will wish to relax, but before they can do that, we need to gather up all the slides that were presented, write down all the attendees in our database, double check all the final amounts with our caterer, get the photos from the photographer, give the technical team instructions on how the video recordings should be formatted etc.
- Thank everyone for their participation and hard work. Thanking our guests, partners and other parties is the perfect way to summarise our event while at the same time, opening up the door to organising the next one. We can also send out a thank you letter by email where we can briefly thank everyone involved and also share photos and videos from the event with them. Additionally, we can share an overview of the event on Facebook or other social media.
An attendee using Worksup - Do a survey on how much the guests liked the presenters, the topics, the catering, the venue and the overall organisation. Share the feedback we collect with our organisational team to help we all figure out what needs to be done better and what to continue doing the same way at the next event. Don’t forget to also acknowledge our partners who put in a lot of good work for the event. For the feedback survey, we could use the Worksup app, which we may have also used to make our conference more interactive. Read more about Worksup features here.
- Agree on a time for a follow-up meeting. At this meeting, we can go over the feedback together with our client or partners and everyone can also share their emotions here. We can also start thinking about the next event and make some important decisions, such as picking out the time, the venue and the desired keynote for the next event. This allows for all the parties involved to start working together early on in the process.
We should do all of the post-conference activities within two or three weeks after the event since, similar to when we watch a good film, everyone’s emotions will then still be fresh, and they will still remember all the important details about the event.