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How long does it take to plan a seminar?

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Recently, we wrote about how to hold a successful seminar, but it’s also important to know how long it usually takes to organise a seminar. Whether you are planning to host a seminar for the first time, or you have held many before, it’s always handy to have a checklist and clear plan of what you need to achieve success.

So, what do you need to know to plan your seminar and how long will it take?

6 months prior to your seminar

Establish your goals for the seminar

  • What is the purpose of the seminar? Think about why you are running the event and what will the attendees get out of it.
  • How many people would you like to attend? You may wish to take into account the amount of people who may be interested to attend your event virtually. This is a great way to increase your numbers but means you need to consider technological requirements.
  • What profit would you like to make? This will affect how much you spend and how you set ticket pricing and sponsorship packages (if applicable). Look at budgets from previous years for advice.

Select a venue and date

  • Think about where your attendees will be coming from and choose a venue that is convenient and also within budget. Since you have set a goal of how many people you would like to attend, this may help narrow down your venue choices.
  • Speak with the venues about which dates they have available and choose what you think will be most appropriate.
  • If you plan to webcast your seminar, confirm the venue has wifi available and check the speed and quality to avoid dissatisfied virtual attendees.
  • Ask if the venue has preferred suppliers or in-house vendors for things like audiovisual (AV) and catering, and what the pricing structure and contractual agreements are with those companies.

3 months out

Research and select your speakers

Research is important to choose the right speaker, to give the right message at your seminar. Look into previous presentations your favourite speakers have given and contact them to see if they are available and willing to present.

Consider what you need to deliver to reflect your goals

Now you know when and where your event will be held, and what your seminar will discuss, you need to decide how this will be conveyed.

  • Consider the style of room setup. Will the seminar be highly interactive with ballroom roundtables or will it be presentation style where a classroom setup will suffice?
  • How long will setup and packdown take? Does the venue have certain requirements?
  • What are your AV needs? Will you need handheld microphones for questions? Will your speakers need lapel microphones? Will you need many big screens? Put a request in for the AV equipment you will need.
  • Draft the agenda. Think about the start and finish times, meal times and what times each of your speakers will be presenting, including how long they will speak. You can use your agenda, once finalised, to increase your marketing and promotional efforts via social media and printed materials.

Organise your website and promote your event

Now you have a clear topic in mind and a venue and date, you can start encouraging your target attendees to register to attend. If you have confirmed your speakers then you can use these as a promotional tool to encourage your attendees to register. Consider offering early-bird rates to secure those initially interested.

1 month out

  • Apply for any special permits.
  • Organise a menu with the caterers.
  • Start designing your signage for the event.
  • Organise an event runsheet for the day including what time your suppliers can enter the room and start setting up.
  • Organise your shipping arrangements for big materials that cannot be personally delivered to the venue.

2 weeks out

  • Confirm all external parties involved including AV, catering, decorations and speakers. Ensure each of these groups know what they need to bring on the day and see if they have any questions.
  • Confirm your shipping arrangements – know when and where your items will be picked up and dropped off.

The day before

Write a checklist and stick to it. Think about what you need to pack to bring to the event, like attendee badges, printed programs, writing materials and what you will need to setup and organise on the day. Make sure all relevant people have a copy of the event runsheet.

This timeline will help you organise your next seminar by providing a solid plan. AVPartners serve as the preferred in-house AV suppliers to a variety of venues across Australia and can assist with lighting, audiovisual requirements and event theming and styling. If you would like help with your next seminar, contact us today.

How to hold a successful seminar

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So, you’d like to run a seminar. How can you make it a success?

If done effectively, holding a seminar can help you to build thought leadership and boost credibility for your brand. It can also increase brand awareness and attract more leads to your business. The more people who learn about your expertise and hear about your brand, the more chances you will have to engage new customers.

What is a seminar?

A seminar is a type of gathering that involves discussions and learnings on a chosen subject. It provides a great opportunity for like minded people to gather and build their knowledge on a particular topic of interest.

For brands, running a seminar can be an effective way to gather prospective customers or clients in the one room and share your expertise with them.

So how can you run a successful seminar?

Determine your purpose

When organising a seminar, the first thing you’ll want to establish is your purpose. Why are you holding the seminar? Is it to build thought leadership? Drive more people to your offering? Educate people about a particular topic pertaining to your brand and industry? Chances are your seminar will be able to achieve all of these things. You’ll just need to set your objectives from the get-go.

Select the right topic

The more interesting your topic is, the more likely it is that people will attend your seminar. An effective topic will explore a problem that members of your target audience have in relation to your industry or product. If your topic is too broad, there might be other seminars that you’ll have to compete with. If your topic is obscure, you’ll limit your potential audience pool.

Choose the right venue

Cost, size and location are the main things to think about when selecting a venue. A central location might be best to attract attendees. You’ll want to make sure that the space is big enough to seat all of your guests. It’s also important to consider proximity to public transport, accessibility for guests in wheelchairs, branding capabilities and technical infrastructure at the venue.

Select the right AV team

One of the most important components of a successful seminar is your AV. Without effective screen projection and sound, your seminar can easily fall flat. It’s important to select an AV team that is both professional and maintains the right technology and equipment to keep your mind at ease throughout the duration of your seminar. An AV team like AVPartners can help with ensuring your audiovisual setup is perfect on the day. They can also assist with live streaming your seminar or with styling to give your seminar a unique flair.

Make networking easy

Networking at professional events can sometimes be a little awkward for attendees. To make it easier for your guests, consider running some icebreaker games. This is a good way to encourage conversation amongst your attendees. It’s also a great way to break up your agenda and avoid information fatigue.

Spread the word

Once you’ve organised your topic, written your agenda and hired your AV team, you’ll want to get the word out. There are many ways to promote your seminar online. Some of the best ways are to create listings on event sites, create an event on Facebook or Eventbrite, engage the media or develop a landing page on your website with your event details and agenda.

If you would like help running your next seminar, AVPartners can help. Contact us today.

Is a seminar the type of event your business needs?

Seminars are one of the most common type of events. Educational in nature, seminars bring together like-minded people to learn about a particular subject. A seminar is a more formal event, focused on training or information sharing, offered in an academic instruction-style setting. They differ from more informal events such as conferences where opinions and thoughts are shared more readily and informally.

They are also usually shorter in length than other similar events. Seminars are a great means of building brand awareness and thought leadership for your business.

What do seminars involve?

Seminars usually feature one or more experts on the subject matter who, with the help of visual aids, demonstrations, and interactive equipment, present their information with little participation required from attendees.

A few of the common seminar types you may come across include business, personal development, and academic seminars. Seminars may also be held as part of a conference.

Where are seminars held?

Seminars are usually held in hotel meeting spaces, conference rooms, convention centres or at an academic institution.

What equipment is required?

Like any great event, seminars tend to rely heavily on audiovisual aids, which assist the presenters or trainers in communicating their knowledge to attendees. A great AV provider will offer a combination of visual slides, staging, lighting, styling, microphones and speakers to ensure the seminar message is conveyed successfully.

AVPartners has the knowledge, creativity and technology to make any seminar successful! Contact us today to discuss your seminar needs.

How to know which conference type suits your business

In order to decide on the perfect type of conference for your business, the first things you need to consider are the following questions: What is the purpose of your conference? And what do you expect to get out of the conference? Once you can answer these questions, most other organisational aspects will start to fall into place, such as: how many guests you will invite, size of the venue, total cost of your conference, types of speakers, whether it will be online or offline and what level of interaction will be at your conference.

We have examined a few conference types which are suitable for different purposes. Find out which one might be suitable for your business:

Seminar

Seminars are the most common type of conference. They generally involve a few speakers discussing a certain topic in front of an audience of guests. Seminars are a great means of building brand awareness and thought leadership for your business. One of the downfalls of seminars is the cost involved. Seminars require a conference space to be rented and often speakers to be paid. Unless you plan to make money from seminar ticket sales, the costs can definitely add up. You might want to consider a seminar if you are confident that you can sell tickets for the event to cover costs and if your purpose is to ignite and encourage discussion around a particular topic.

Webinar

A webinar is a web-based seminar. The main benefit of holding a webinar is the low cost involved. Expenses are saved on hiring a conference space and travel costs. Other benefits include an unlimited amount of registrations. This can mean vast brand exposure for your business and the ability to connect with a much larger audience compared with holding an in-person seminar. A webinar would be a suitable type of conference for a business that’s key intentions are to build brand awareness, position the business as an industry leader and to keep expenses low.

Workshop

You might want to consider the level of interaction at your event before choosing between a seminar and a workshop. If the purpose of your conference is to train participants on a particular matter in a practical manner, a workshop might be the right type of conference for your business. Workshops are highly interactive and perfect for training and education. A workshop is a particularly useful type of conference for internal business training, or as an event geared towards client trust and loyalty. Workshops are usually a lot smaller than seminars, and depending on the amount of registrars, can be run by employees, which would keep costs to a minimum.

Roundtable

Like workshops, due to the small size of a roundtable event, they are much more interactive than their larger counterpart – seminars. As indicated by its name, a roundtable discussion involves generally between five and 20 people, sitting together at a table to discuss a particular topic. A roundtable discussion is a great way to unite industry leaders to discuss pressing industry topics. Major things to consider when hosting a roundtable event are the participants you will invite, how the discussion topic will reflect your business and expertise, and public relations around the event. For example, you might want to obtain media coverage around the discussion in order to reach a larger audience and build awareness and thought leadership.

If you would like some advice on planning your next conference, get in touch with us today.