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The ultimate event planning checklist and templates.
Plan an event with templates to reduce stress and boost engagement.
In-person events are back and better than ever. With more resources in place to provide guidance and support, there are numerous opportunities to reach your customer base in a meaningful way.
Businesses large and small can benefit from creating an event planning checklist template. This guide will explore the importance of an event planning template and items you may want to include in yours.
Why is event planning important?
A well-organized event can work wonders for your brand’s reputation and boost company morale and community engagement. Failing to plan a thoughtful event can diminish your brand reputation and customer trust.
Events are an excellent way to connect with your community, create networking opportunities, demonstrate your gratitude for employees, and attract more business. Your event is a reflection of your company’s brand and values — making it essential to lay down the proper foundation to make for a memorable experience.
While it can be easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle that comes with event planning, don’t forget — your event is supposed to be fun. By authentically showcasing your brand, you can draw in a loyal audience who will appreciate all the time and effort you took to create an outstanding event.
By creating an event planning checklist template, you set yourself up for success in your upcoming event and the many events you may hold afterward.
Try out our event planning checklist template below.
What does an event planning template or checklist include?
You can break up your event planning checklist template into different time segments prior to the event. This will help you organize the moving parts and pieces in manageable chunks and ensure all the people and things that need to be there arrive on time. While event planning checklist templates will vary between businesses, there are some general items that should be included on any list.
Goals and purpose
Creating objectives prior to the event will help you determine if it was a success.
You can ask yourself the following questions to create goals for your event:
- Who is the target audience?
- What are the key messages?
- What should this event accomplish?
- How many attendees would I like to show up?
- How will I measure effectiveness?
Putting goals into a document ahead of time will help you plan with your employees’ and customers’ best interests in mind.
Team and project management
It takes a village to plan an event that leaves a positive, lasting impression on your audience.
When creating your event planning team, you’ll want to complete the following:
- Identify team members and their roles.
- Delegate tasks and action items.
- Establish important milestones and deadlines.
- Develop processes for reporting, meetings, and communication.
You may want to choose a team member to serve as the event chair and create subcommittees with chairpersons for each. You can categorize these subcommittees as speakers, venue, entertainment, promotions, sponsors, and so on.
You may need volunteers in addition to the members of your team. Help your volunteers feel welcome and involved in the event planning process so they can feel like they made an impact and spent their time wisely by helping create a positive experience for guests.
Date and time
Before choosing the event date, research other events in the area and keep in mind any holidays that may be coming up.
Ensure there are no major conflicts for your event day to get the best possible attendance. Check with any presenters, entertainers, or speakers that the date selected works for their schedule.
It would be best to give yourself four to six months to plan before your event date so you have time to prepare and provide plenty of notice to your attendees.
Budget
Gather cost estimates for any essential items that you need to host your event.
Some cost considerations include the following:
- Room rental
- Food and beverages
- Speaker fees
- Equipment
- Insurance
- Travel for staff
Once you determine these estimates, you will have an idea of how much your event will cost in total. From here, you can decide if you need to adjust your budget for a particular area. Perhaps you created and saved your event’s budget as a PDF to have a clean, secure document to reference. If you do need to go back and make adjustments, it can easily be done with the Adobe Acrobat online services convert PDF to Excel.
Venue
Depending on the venue’s popularity, you may need to book several months in advance.
When looking for your event venue, consider the following:
- Parking options
- Audio and video options
- Maximum capacity
- Other events happening at the same time near the venue
- Accessibility and inclusivity
- Length of time for venue access
- Equipment included with the venue
- Nearby noise issues
- Security concerns
Even if you plan everything down to the last detail, unexpected circumstances such as bad weather, speaker cancellations, and more can arise. Once you pick your venue, create a rainy day plan in case the venue, date, or time needs to shift for whatever reason.
Brand
You can begin promoting your event by creating pages on your company website that share event details. To drum up excitement, you can create a separate event logo from your regular company one. You can use the event logo across social media promotions, t-shirts, bags, water bottles, and more. You can create a tagline that will grab customers’ attention and give them an idea of what your event is all about.
To stand out, you’ll want to choose a theme that is relevant and compelling to your audience while remaining timely.
Backup plan
Perhaps your ideal venue is an outdoor one, and clear skies are not in the cards for the day you chose. By creating a backup plan, you won’t need to cancel the event, and all your hard work won’t go to waste.
Determine who will make the call that the backup plan needs to commence and when a final decision should be made. You will need to discuss refund and cancellation options with your vendors and decide how you will update all your guests about the new event location.
Guest list
When creating your guest list, think about your target audience and key messages that will be relevant to them. Researching past company events or companies in a similar industry can help you formulate your list.
When inviting your presenters, speakers, or entertainers, you’ll need the following information:
- Presentation or speech topics
- Biographical information and a headshot
- Travel and other accommodations
- Request for speakers to begin event promotion
You’ll want to invite your sponsors and partners as well. Getting sponsorships is a huge advantage — check within your network first and explore who may be interested, then search elsewhere.
Promotion
You can start building anticipation for your event by publishing an event notice on your website. Soon after, share event details in your newsletter and emails. Build media relations and promote your event through online and offline publicity to encourage people to attend.
You’ll want to consider using the following action steps in your promotion strategy:
- Develop a marketing promotion plan.
- Create goals, targets, and milestones, such as new followers or registration numbers.
- Make an event hashtag.
- Publish relevant content leading up to the event.
- Create collateral that is easy for partners to share.
- Encourage networking before the event.
By creating content well in advance, your partners and new potential customers will more likely be available to attend your event.
3 types of event planning templates.
Depending on where you are in your event planning, you’ll need different templates for the different elements that make up your event. Once you complete your template, save your event planning PDF to ensure no one accidentally makes edits, and you can use it for future events. However, if you need to add text, comments, and make other adjustments, you can use the Acrobat online services Edit a PDF tool.
Event marketing template.
An event marketing template helps you plan and keep track of pre- and post-event marketing engagements. In this template, you can outline all the necessary elements that will help you promote, reach the right audience, boost attendance, and remain within your budget.
You may want to include the following campaign types in the first section of your template:
- Email marketing
- Social media
- Partner sponsorships
- Local marketing
- Blog
Under each of the campaign types, you can add subsections in the order of actions to take, such as pre-launch, launch, early-bird discount, last chance for discount, and so on.
Event budget template.
Event budget templates incorporate different expenses and revenue categories — expenses such as venue rent prices, travel costs, vendor fees, or income such as ticket and merchandise sales, vendor payments, and more. Creating an event budget template helps you plan an event that boosts customer engagement without exceeding the company allowance.
Here are some categories you may want to include on your event budget template:
- Venue
- Public relations
- Travel
- Event programming
- Decorations
- Advertising
- Social media
Within each category, you can create subcategories relevant to each section. Under Venue, you could add location rental, event rental, and so on. Under Event programming, you could include speakers, entertainers, and so on. Create a column for the projected subtotal and the actual subtotal to keep track of costs. Additionally, you can designate a column for comments.
Download our customizable event budget template below.
Event timeline template.
There are many routes you can take with your event timeline template. You can break the timeline template up by weeks, phases, and more. Within each stage, you can track milestones as your planning progresses closer to the event date.
Different stages could include these milestones:
- Develop goals.
- Choose a date and time.
- Set a budget.
- Select the venue.
- Make a backup plan.
- Create a guest list.
Your timeline template will give you a big-picture view of all the boxes to check in order to host a successful event. By planning ahead and implementing a backup plan, you can cater to your target audience and take some stress off your team in assembling an event.
Check our free event timeline template below.
Post-event planning checklist.
After hosting an engaging event, you’ll have some people to thank and check-ins to make.
You should send thank-you notes to the following people:
- Volunteers
- Sponsors
- Presenters
- Speakers
- Media
- Donors
After the event, double-check with the venue that all items have been collected and payments have been squared away. Keep track of your company’s financial status by gathering all documents, receipts, registrations, and more.
You can share the event’s success afterward by publishing it across outlets.
Engage your customer base after the event by publishing the following and more:
- Post a TikTok video recapping event highlights.
- Share an email with subscribers with photos and a summary of the event.
- Update your company website to show that the event has happened.
To measure success, you can conduct a survey to see what people enjoyed or didn’t like. Meet with your team to discuss what went well and where the company could improve for future events. Determine if goals, KPIs (key performance indicators), and objectives were met.
Frequently asked questions.
How do you create an event planning sheet?
You can create an event planning template using Adobe Acrobat. From there, you can add task timelines, schedule deadlines, and update any other sections necessary to carefully curate your event.
What should be included in an event checklist?
While event planning checklist templates will vary between businesses, there are some general items that you should include on any list. Categories can feature goals and purpose, team and project management, date and time, budget, venue, brand, backup plan, guest list, and promotion.
What are the 5 C’s of event planning?
The 5 C’s of event planning are concept, coordination, control, culmination, and closeout.
What are the 10 steps to plan an event?
- Develop goals and purpose.
- Organize a team.
- Choose a date and time.
- Create a budget.
- Choose a venue.
- Brand the event.
- Create a backup plan.
- Make a guest list.
- Promote your event.
- Evaluate your event.
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