I’ve been managing & running events for more than a decade. I was first drawn to organizing them, as I enjoyed the satisfying feeling of a job well-done. Initially, I ran events as part of my professional career. After that ended, and I switched careers, I continued with events in two volunteer roles for Google Developer Groups (GDG) and Women Who Code (WWC).
Recently, though, I decided to give up event coordination for good. There were two main reasons behind my decision. First, I realized I no longer had the energy for events. Second, I wanted the time and space to learn new things. Admittedly, I was getting a bit tired of the grind.
On that note, I learned a few things and wanted to share some tips, I learned for the future crop of community organizers:
Finding speakers When looking for speakers we would reach out to experienced speakers, directly. Once the meetup became better attended, I found speakers would volunteer on their own. Another idea is encouraging first time speakers to give a talk by running an event featuring only short (lighting) talks.
Topics As a team, it’s up to you to decide what kind of talks you’d like. Most of the time, we’d let speakers approach us with their ideas. Another idea, to change things up, is to have themed nights around a single topic. This could focus around a certain technology, or a shared experience. Instructor led workshops can also work!
Community needs Surveying people post-event via Google forms is great, if they respond. What worked for me was building relationships with frequent attendees and asking them for feedback.
Venue Before 2020, finding companies was much easier. We would have someone from our meetup approach us saying they would like to host. Another way we’d find hosts was to respond to direct messages on LinkedIn, Twitter etc.
Event Requirements My biggest tip is to keep a succinct list of your requirements and extras in a shareable document. We’d use this to ensure that both the venue and our organizing team were on the same page. In this, we would outline our AV needs (screen and microphone), number of attendees expected (~40), how long we needed the space (2.5 hours). We’d keep a separate list of wants like catering, internet use for attendees.
Speaker We’d brief the speaker, ask them if they had any questions or concerns? We would also ask how long the presentation was, if they were ok to be recorded. It’s great to touch base before the event to test AV (if online) or make sure they don’t have any pre-event jitters.
Promotion We’d post the event about two weeks before on Meetup, Twitter and on our shared Slack team. We’d also remind community members of the event on Slack and Twitter, on the day of.
Get there early! It’s nice to introduce yourself and get to know the company and thank them for hosting. My rule of thumb was to get there at least 30 mins in advance. After all, they might need help setting up chairs, moving tables or getting the catering (if they had it) out.
Signage We’d make clear instructions on where within the building the hosts were. If the doors locked early, one of us organizers would post our phone number. Also, it was helpful to announce where the washrooms were on the welcoming slides.
Photos It’s great to take a few of the audience, speakers and people mingling. They give the meetup page a welcoming vibe.
Thank you notes I would write thanks to all our attendees in Slack, and post on the meetup page. I would also send thank you notes to the speaker(s) and to the company & people who had hosted us.
Tracking numbers I kept a spreadsheet where I recorded the number of times a certain venue hosted us, total attendance number with a gender breakdown, and how many times someone gave a talk. I updated this after every event.
Future improvements I’d make notes of things that went well, or what I noticed could be improved upon.
With that said, I’ll miss running events but I’m super excited to start a new chapter in my career.