Conference Organization

Who this is for

12 tasks for organising a conference or large event — venue, speakers, budget, registration, promotion, logistics, and the wrap-up. It suits an event of a few dozen to a few hundred people, where there's no full-time events team and one or two people are carrying it.

Venue and date lock everything else

Book them first. Speaker availability, promotion timelines, catering numbers, and your budget all hang off the venue contract, and good venues for popular dates go a year out. Until it's signed, every other plan is provisional.

Read the contract for the parts that bite later: the minimum spend, the cancellation terms, whether you can bring your own AV, and what included actually includes.

Speakers say yes early and cancel late

Confirm speakers in writing with the date, time, format, and length, then re-confirm a fortnight out. Have one more speaker in reserve than you think you need — for an event of any size, a late drop-out is close to a certainty.

Registration numbers are not attendance numbers

Free events routinely see 30–50% of registrations not show up. Paid events run far higher. Cater and seat for the number you expect through the door, not the number on the list, and ask the venue when your final headcount is due.

Build a run sheet, not just a schedule

The published agenda is for attendees. What you need on the day is a minute-by-minute run sheet with names against each transition — who opens, who mics the speaker, who is watching the room.

Timing

Turn on due dates and start six to nine months out. The offsets pace the long-lead items so they aren't discovered late.