Conference Planning Made Easy: A Step By Step Guide [Free Spreadsheet]

At Showit, we know a few things about conference planning.

We’ve hosted conferences and events for over a decade as a company. They’re kind of a big part of what we do, and we make sure to reserve resources every year just to make sure they happen.

It started with United which was a conference built for photographers. But, recently we’ve pivoted and focused the content of our conferences on brand and web designers. Thus, Spark was born.

Why Conferences and Conference Planning are Important

Why do we love conferences so much?

There’s just nothing like being in a room of like minded people who are all trying to grow and develop themselves to bring about a better future.

As the world gets more and more online, it’s so important to make sure that you’re building and fostering relationships IRL…aka, AFK (away from keyboard for those of you who don’t have tweens).

So, we prioritize our conferences every year…even though we are a tech company, AND, even though it’s a big push for us every year we put it on.

So, we thought we’d take a minute and let you peek behind the scenes at our own conference planning to see how the sausage is made.

We know first hand that it doesn’t matter how awesome the speaker lineup is or how cool the location might be if you don’t spend time strategically thinking through all the details of the conference.

So, here are 10 things we do every year to make sure we run a killer conference.

Grab a Free Conference Planning Spreadsheet

P.S. if you want the exact spreadsheet we use to plan our conferences you can grab it here for free!

Step 1: Start at the End

A lot of times people will start their conference planning with the speakers they’d love to have or the location they’d like to be in. And, those things are important.

BUT, before you go making decisions like that, you need to start at the end. In other words, who is this conference for, AND what are the things you want them to walk away with when they leave?

The answers to those questions should be the guiding principles for every other decision you make.

Some of the things we asked ourselves as a team as we were conference planning were:

1. Who’s the ideal person for this conference?
2. What do we want them to say when they leave?
3. What are the main takeaways we want them to get?
4. What do we want them to tell their friends and family when they explain where they were the last few days?

When you start with those questions, it will set the pace for every other decision you make in your conference planning.

For Spark, we knew we want to focus on our attention on brand and web designers who were trying to build their business.

A lot of design conferences are super design heavy. So, you’ll have people sharing their portfolio and inspiring you with the work they’ve done.

But, very seldom will you find practical tips on how to develop your skills and business acumen at those conferences.

We wanted Spark to be a mix of all those things PLUS a fair amount of relational connection.

So, we decided that we wanted people to feel like they walked away inspired, equipped and with a room of new best friends.

Ending…done.

Step 2: Determine a Rough Budget

You’ve got the end in mind. Now it’s time to get a rough idea of what you’re budget is going to be.

Hear me out on this. Conference planning is a lot like a bathroom remodel. The price you come to when you first sit down to plan IS NEVER what it actually ends up being.

Prepare for A LOT of overage because you just never know how things are going to turn out. Over time you’ll start to get a better idea of what it takes to run a conference and you’ll get closer and closer to the final amount in your planning phases.

But, for now, do your best and also realize it’s likely going to cost more than what you’re thinking.

The biggest costs for any conference are

1. Venue
2. Speakers
3. Collateral (signage, swag, etc)

You probably have a general idea of where you’d like the conference to be and who you’d like to come speak. So, reach out and figure out some dollar amounts.

That’ll give you a pretty good baseline. Then you can play with all the other costs to fit the budget you were thinking.

Step 3: Choose Your Format

Once you have the end and budget worked out, it’s time to pick the basic format for your conference. You might think you’re only two options are either online or in person BUT there’s more to it than that.

Will there just be main stage talks?
Will there be breakouts?
How many breakouts?
Will there be a few breakouts happening at the same time?
Will there be different “tracks” for people with different interests or skill levels?
Will you be feeding people or will they be feeding themselves?

The further you dive into this step of conference planning the more complicated it gets.

These questions can really only be answered when you nail down Step 1: Start at the End.

For instance, you’ll definitely want to have breakouts if the conference is for an audience that really needs practical know-how. But, skipping the breakouts in-lieu of more main stage time totally makes sense if it’s a crowd that’s looking for a more inspirational, Tony Robbins type feel.

Either way, you’ve got options AND it’s important to think through what the format will look like.

For Spark, we knew that we wanted people to walk away feeling inspired AND with practical knowledge on how to build their brand or web design business. So, we knew breakouts had to be a thing for us.

We chose a pretty simple rhythm to our day.

Our format was

• Morning: Main stage to breakouts
• Lunch
• Afternoon: Main stage to breakouts
• Close: Main stage

That rhythm worked well for us and kept conference attendees engaged and inspired all at the same time.

Step 4: Find Your Speakers

Now it’s time to figure out who we’re asking to come speak. This is where things get fun. A speaker lineup can be a HUGE draw to any conference.

That being said, you might not have a huge budget that allows you to contract really high-demand speakers. And, that’s okay! It’s not a deathblow to your attendence.

This is where it’s really important to know your audience. In the design world, we create fake identities called User Personas to help us make design decisions. Especially when it comes to branding.

We ask ourselves things like:

• Who does this person follow on social media?
• What kind of books do they read?
• What movies do they watch?
• What inspires them?
• What’s their main pain point in life?

The answers to those questions will help to narrow down the seemingly endless amounts of speaker options that exists out there.

I like to use a criterion to help determine the people that might be a good speaker for a conference based on a these factors:

• Expertise (what are they known to be really knowledgable about?)
• Popularity (how well known are they and will they bring people to the conference?)
• Fit (do they align with our values and the values of our audience?)
• Engagement (how much are they or will they be engaged in the community we’re trying to build?)

The speaker is likely to be perfect for your conference if they answers to those questions align with what you’re looking for.

For Spark, we actually started with the topics we knew we wanted to have covered in our keynotes and breakouts. Then we brainstormed who we knew that might be a good fit for that topic.

We let the takeaways drive the decision to who we invited to come speak.

Once you’ve got all that dialed in, it’s time to send out the invites. This is where it gets a little intimidating ESPECIALLY if the speaker is really well known or super popular.

But, just realize these types of folks get asked to do things all the time. They’re used to it. AND, it’s more than likely that if you put together a thoughtful email they’ll get back to you.

From there it’s a matter of availability and cost. Don’t wait to long to start asking people to come speak at your event. I’ve known certain people to book up a year in advance.

Step 5: Pick a Location

One of the biggest expenses you’ll have for your conference is the venue. But, like all other decisions in our conference planning we need to start at the end.

Let what you’re trying to do and who you’re doing it for guide the right venue for you.

Are people going to be traveling in from out of town? You might want to pick a location close to an airport.

Are aesthetics and feel really important? You might want to pick a spot that’s easy to dress up or make changes to.

Really, there aren’t a ton of options to throw an event like a conference. And, those options thin out the more people you’re expecting.

You basically get to choose between an event center or a hotel.

An event center is going to be easier to dial in the aesthetic and probably cheaper. But, this option might be tough if you’re looking for a place that people can hang out late and then just walk to their rooms.

A hotel is great if you plan on attendees doing a lot of networking. But, it can be much more expensive and tougher to get the look and feel you might want.

Many times hotels will want you sign a contract for the amount of rooms you plan on filling AND a food and beverage minimum. That might get pricey depending on the hotel.

But, depending on your conference and your people, it might be worth it.

Step 6: Build the Schedule

It’s time to build out the conference schedule now that you’ve got your location and speakers all dialed in.

Again, we go back to our audience. Ask yourself what the perfect schedule would look like for them.

Are they early risers?
Are they night owls?
Will they want a lot of time to hang out and chat OR do they just want to get down to business?

The answers to those questions will determine the pace and details of your schedule.

No matter the type of audience you’ve got, you have to consider basic human rhythms and limitations.

People can only take in so much information at a time. People need bathroom breaks. People want to flesh out ideas they got from something that inspired them.

All of that comes into play when you’re building out your schedule with conference planning.

You want to toe the line somewhere right between getting the max amount of information they can handle with the max amount of down time and the max amount of hangout time.

It sounds like an impossible task, I know. But, here are a few things we’ve learned about scheduling out your conference.

Information is not the only thing people walk away with from a conference. Sometimes, it’s not even the most important thing.

Something we hear over and over again about the conferences we put on at Showit is that the new and strengthened relationships are THE MOST IMPORTANT THING people walk away with.

So, make sure you put some time in your conference to allow people the chance to get to know the folks around them.

People might find their new best friend. Heck, we’ve even had conference attendees get married. So, don’t skip out on hang time and down time.

BUT, it’s not a vacation either. So, make sure there’s a decent amount of education and inspiration.

Again, I know it’s impossible 😂

Step 7: Create Your Swag

Now it’s the time in our conference planning when we start thinking about the swag attendees are going to walk away with.

If done right, the swag you give away to people at your conference could be something people cherish for years to come AND free marketing for you!

It’s all the freebies that someone is going to get just for signing up and coming to your event. So, think t-shirts, pens, pencils, field notes, stickers, backpacks, water bottles, chapstick literally anything can be swag.

My biggest encouragement to you in this phase of your conference planning is try to think of things that would actually be helpful to your attendees.

It’s fairly easy to find inexpensive knick knacks that you can slap a logo on and give away. But, cheap stuff feels cheap.

If your swag is an afterthought in all of your conference planning then most of the stuff you hand out will wind up in the trash.

If you don’t have much budget for this aspect of your conference then just think strategically. Maybe give away one nice thing amidst the cheaper stuff you don’t mind get thrown away.

Ask yourself “what’s something the attendees have the potential to use every day and remember their experience at the conference?”

The answer to that question will put you on the right path for swag.

Step 8: Dial in the Logistics

As plans and schedules start to form you’ve got to start thinking about the logistics for your conference. Logistics are the inner workings of all the details of the event.

So things like

• How speakers are getting to and from the venue?
• Whether or not vendors have gotten paid and delivered the things you ordered from them?
• Who’s doing what from your team on the days of the conference?
• How will the chairs be set up?
• What’s a more detailed internal schedule look like?
• How will people check-in?

When you’re coordinating an amount of people above like 7 or 8 getting together you’ve got to start thinking about the smaller details of what’s happening and how everything is getting done.

This, admittedly, is not an area of strength for me 😂

Thankfully, at Showit, we’ve got a lot of amazing and tenacious task driven folks that eat this kind of stuff up for breakfast. Our go to logistics super hero is Shamesha.

She’s built a pretty rad google sheet that she keeps all those details organized with. AND, you can grab a template of the very template she created and used for Spark by signing up below.

Step 9: Craft Your Marketing

Any good conference planning would be incomplete without some solid thought on how to get the word out there and sell tickets.

Here’s what we’ve found to be true about how people buy tickets for conferences: it’s hardly ever a steady rhythm of sign-ups.

You’d think that when you open up your cart for ticket sales a few people will sign up right when it opens and then purchases will just slowly trickle in over time.

That’s just not the case.

Going to a conference is a big decision. You’ve got to set aside time from your daily grind, potentially figure out what’s happening with all your responsibilities with your family, fly to a new place maybe, get a hotel. There’s lots involved in that single decision.

That being the case, people need time to think about whether or not they are going to come. So, if you just have tickets available for sale all the time you run the risk of people not having to force themselves to make a decision. Then they end up forgetting about the conference.

It comes and goes and they think, “Shoot, I was actually considering going but now the conference is over!”

How do you avoid that? By having specific times when people can and can’t purchase tickets.

That’s made the biggest difference in registrations for us at Showit. We open and close our cart at certain times during the year. And, it’s typically around a big announcement like who’s speaking.

Selling Next Year’s Tickets At This Year’s Conference

Another thing we’ve found is that the best time to sell tickets is right at the end of this years conference.

Hopefully, the people who came had a great time and would love to come the following year. So, why wait to sell tickets when everyone goes home and that fun euphoric feeling has left?

End the conference with the opportunity to buy tickets for the following year.

Other Ways to Sell Conference Tickets

Obviously, there are plenty of other things you can do to sell conference tickets.

• Social media posts
• Paid ads
• SEO
• Email marketing

The run of the mill digital marketing stuff.

But, we’ve found that one of the best ways to sell tickets to a conference is through relationships. And, no, I don’t mean going to every one you know that might be interested and personally asking them to register.

That feels like a pyramid scheme nightmare.

I’m talking about going to communities that would fit the description of the type of person that would benefit from your conference and figuring out a way to ADD VALUE first then let them know about the opportunity to attend the conference.

For Spark, we did one big masterclass with our own designer community called the 6 Figure Designer Playbook. Then at the end of the masterclass we sold tickets.

We also reached out to some of the speakers that had communities and asked if we could present to their people and let them know about the conference.

We also asked conference speakers to promote the conference and gave them special promo code for people that signed up with them.

That’s what I mean by marketing with relationships.

The Reality of Conference Planning

Well that’s it. It’s all I’ve got. But, these nearly 3,000 words of tips and advice on conference planning will set you up for success.

BUT, here’s the thing.

No matter how much you plan and how thorough you are things will happen that you couldn’t have planned for. The screens will glitch and go out during your biggest speaker’s main stage talk. Your registration will fail.

Stuff will hit the fan and you’ll have to adapt and pivot. It’s all a part of it. So, the best thing to do is plan for the unexpected.

Over time, you’ll get better and better at solving the problems that come up. And you yourself will be the conference planning guru that everyone asks, “Hey, what’s your conference planning like for the events you put on?” 😉