A conference is a large undertaking that requires a well-thought-out action plan and a team of people to perform individual tasks. As organizers, we must take care of many elements, including appropriate catering. In this article, we present step by step how to organize a successful conference.

Defining the action strategy

At the very beginning, it is worth considering whether we are ready to prepare the entire conference ourselves or whether it would be better to entrust its organization to an event company or the manager of a given facility. The latter solution will be a great help for us, although it will certainly increase the costs of the event. Then we should determine the nature of the conference and plan the number of participants, because these factors determine the next organizational stages, i.e. finding a suitable place and booking a date. If we are preparing an event on a larger scale, e.g. a scientific or industry conference, we will create a serious style of the event and look for a facility that will accommodate a large group of people, including providing us with an appropriate number of parking spaces. However, if we are organizing a smaller business meeting or corporate training, a small conference room will be enough and the atmosphere of the event will be more relaxed. Once we take these factors into account, all we have to do is find a place that meets our expectations and book a date there in advance.

Room equipment and technical issues

An important issue is the arrangement in the conference or banquet room - we have several options to choose from, such as theater, school, U-shaped arrangement, or banquet arrangement at round tables. It all depends on the possibilities in a given room and on our needs and the nature of the meeting.

In the case of training, it will be appropriate to use a theater or school setting. The horseshoe formation allows for better integration between participants because everyone can see each other. A banquet arrangement - at round tables - is also possible during training, but fewer seats should be used than possible so that no one has their back to the screen.

The technical department of a given facility will support us in setting up the microphone, sound system, screen and projector. The lighting of the room or projector should not blind the presenter. Additionally, the speaker should have a pulpit - preferably with a printed logo of our company - or a microphone on a stand and a handheld microphone to avoid cables under his feet. You should ask in advance whether our devices will be compatible with the equipment owned by the hotel or conference facility. It is also important to obtain information about Wi-Fi that will be available to participants, and if participants are obliged to use laptops during the entire training, you can consider a dedicated Internet connection.

Conference program and catering

After determining the event location, room equipment and date, we can start planning a detailed conference schedule and inviting speakers and guests. The daily schedule should, of course, include breaks for coffee, tea and meals. It is worth considering the place where the coffee break will be placed - a coffee machine in the conference room will drown out our lecture.

At this organizational stage, you need to consider choosing lunch dishes, as well as salty and sweet snacks and other desserts for the coffee buffet. In this case, we can use the menu options proposed by the facility's restaurant. Many companies in the catering industry have a wide range of products intended especially for conferences. For example, these are single-serve desserts, => art cakes, patties with various fillings, mini tarts. These, as well as other salty and sweet snacks, can be found in the offer of our Jacek Placek confectionery shop.

Marketing and promotional materials

The final stage of preparations will be advertising the event in channels available to the target group we are interested in, e.g. on social media, and preparing conference materials that can be immediately made available to potential participants. It is therefore worth taking care of this element in advance, because thanks to this we will be able to encourage more people to come to the conference. Finally, remember to organize small gifts for the participants, tailored to the event program, e.g. briefcases or bags with a print. It will certainly be a nice souvenir of the meeting for them!