Everyone in the world has done some event planning, as soon as you get more than two people together you are event planning. Most of the world does plan million dollar events, but something less. Often one of the biggest events is a wedding, but birthday parties or neighbourhood parties all go through the same checklist. The book event planning by Judy Allen, John Wiley and Sons, Toronto, 2000 is a great guide as the price of the event rises. For most of us, except for the Wedding or Anniversary party, we do a lot of stuff in our heads because the budget is relatively low. For example in the coming week is Halloween – you may go out for trick or treating or stay home and have the kids come over. It is not a great decision to do it at the last moment, otherwise you will be running around for all the little things you forgot. The book event planning features gala events and conferences but the same process goes for any size event.

In Ms Allen’s book there are a variety of chapters after you have picked your event and have a budget to pay for it. Next comes the organization of the event. Being organized and paying close attention to detail are two of the most important elements of running a successful event. You will need to constant check to ensure the guidelines and dates things that are needed are finished. For example when you do a mailing send it to your home address, that way you will know it has arrived in time for decisions to be made. If the event is a hotel or restaurant, if you keep them updated as numbers change, they can often accommodate it, otherwise it will be more costly. The other key element of organization is time and date of the event. There is always something going on in people’s lives, pick a date that fits into the purpose of the event and if necessary tie it into major events.

The next step is location, location, location – where is the event to be held? Before the event ensure you have gone there and visualized your event on what is to happen and you are comfortable it will work. If the event is to raise money, ensure the costs allow that to happen. Ms. Allen’s book looks at things to consider about hotels, restaurants, theatres and tents.

Transportation to the event. How do people get to the venue(s)? Limousines, Buses, Cars – parking? valet parking?

If the event is over more than one day? what to do with the guests?

Thinking about the purpose of the event what should the room look like? What audio visual or staging is required? how is the room organized? is there security needed? if there is a dance afterwards is there a good floor for dancing?

Linking to dividend paying stocks with most things in life once you have answer one question there are more. If you are event hosting, there are the easy parts and parts  that will ask more questions. As you do more than one, the decisions become easier but the basic reason or purpose remains. Why are we doing this? what is the expected outcome? If you expected outcome is to make money, then buying profitable stocks which pay a dividend is a good thing to do. Dividends just mean the company has enough profits to both reinvest in the business as well to give money back to the shareholders. Every company has a balance act which is best to do – take advantage of greater opportunities or give money to the owners or both? This blog likes the both part and if the company is consistently raising the dividend over the years so much the better.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions