Event Planning Guidance

What are the aims of your event?

Establishing your aims for the event will give your committee a solid foundation, that you can refer back to when you are making decisions about your event. 

Your aims for your event should explain why you are holding your event. 

Some examples of aims could include (but not limited to): 

• Increasing membership

• Building connection between certain communities of students

• Celebrating our acheivements as a student group over the last year/semester

• Fundraising for your group funds for a certain purpose

It is also a good idea to look at your student group constitution (available on your York SU page) to check in with your aims as a student group overall, and to check if your events are in line with your core aims as a student group. 

Who would you like to attend the event?

Thinking about your audience will inform what decisions you make with advertising, and the format of your event. Your audience will always include your members, however you may wish to be more specific with who you'd like to benefit from this event. 

Some examples of audience could include (but not limited to): 

• Members who are non-drinkers

• Members who would prefer a quiet/ chilled out setting to socialise 

• Commuting members 

• Students who are not aware of your student group

• Students from other universities 

• People who live in and near York 

What would you like to be the outcome of your event?

Thinking about the outcome of your event links with the first question you ask: your event aims. 

Talk with your committee about if you would like a certain of number of members to attend the event, and your group's desired impact of your event.

The following questions may be useful to consider when writing your intended outcomes: 

• How do you want your members to feel after your event? Happy? Excited for the year ahead?

  • Do you want your members to feel proud of your student group and accomplishments? 

  • Do you want your members to feel part of a community?

• How many attendees are you aiming for? 

• What would you like the feedback from your members to be?

What sort of event are you holding?

At the very minimum, your event needs to comply with York SU's event process. York SU are legally responsible for all student group activity, and therefore have to sign off on your events. 

Your general risk assessment covers your weekly activity, and will already be signed off by York SU. However, anything that extends beyond your weekly activity needs to follow our York SU event process. 

It is important that you embed the event process into the first stages of your planning, so that you ensure that this is completed. Failure to do so could result in your event being cancelled or postponed. 

Check out our Event Process page to find out what forms you need to complete for York SU. 

Who needs to get involved?

Visualise your event from start to finish. 

Are you inviting any external speakers? Are you fundraising for a charity? Are you working in collaboration with a local venue? 

Write a list of everyone that you need to contact to make this event happen. 

We have a handy guide for on-campus events and off-campus events, that includes some details of who to contact! 

What needs to be done?

Create a spreadsheet or a 'to-do' list of everything that needs to be done. Google sheets have some great templates for project management that you can use! 

Make sure that you break everything down into small, concise and clear tasks, with realistic deadlines. 

For example, write:

 'Email room-setup@york.ac.uk to book Rapid Response to set-up Central Hall on the evening of the 23 April and to reset seating on the 25 April. Due date: 15 February.'

 instead of: 

'Sort out seating and staging arrangements for Central Hall'. 

The second option is not useful when you are delegating tasks, or referring back to notes!

Your budget is of the most important aspects of event planning. Creating an event budget will help you to make informed decisions about your event, such as where to hold your event, or if your event should be ticketed, to help with costs. 

It is a good idea to hold fundraising events before any large scale event that takes place. Check out our information about how to fund yourselves as a group, and our fundraising guides! 

It is a good idea to talk through your event budget with your Treasurer before committing to anything. They will be able to allocate the budget for the event, with the knowledge of group costs for the entire academic year. 

If you are unsure about the cost of items such as venues, or Doorsafe, ask for a quote from your venue before signing any contracts! We have more guidance on this in the on-campus events and off-campus events guidance within the 'Running Your Student Group> Events' section of the Student Group Resource Hub. 

It's important to reiterate that anything that extends beyond your weekly activity (or if your weekly activity involves inviting an external spaker to your activity) needs to follow our York SU event process. 

You will need to submit an events application/ and an events management form (EMFs) depending on your activity. 

You must also complete a specific risk assessment and attach this to your event application. 

It is important that you embed the event process into the first stages of your planning, so that you ensure that this is completed. Failure to do so could result in your event being cancelled or postponed. 

Check out our Event Process page to find out what forms you need to complete for York SU. 

A problem shared is a problem halved. The same applies to large-scale projects that requires collaboration, such as planning an event. 

Delegating tasks means that you are assigning tasks to different people within your committee. This means that your workload is shared and your committee has a clear vision of what to do. 

Think about each committee role, responsibilities, and personal strengths. 

Perhaps your Treasurer would be best placed to order in decorations, because they are handling the events budget? Perhaps your Social Media Officer could schedule posts on your social media to promote your event, or your Secretary or Events Officer could make venue/ room bookings?

Do you have a member of your committee who is really interested in sustainability and inclusivity? Would they like to assess the sustainability and inclusivity of the event and offer feedback to the group? Or maybe you have a member of committee who is great at logistical problem solving. Could they make a running order of your event for the day? 

Top tips for delegating tasks:

1.  Outline who is responsible for completing the task.

   1. It's really important to assign tasks to people. This way, each member of your committee has a clear list of what they need to do. If you don't assign tasks to people, the likelihood of that task getting completed diminishes, because everybody will assume that somebody else will be working on that task! Don't make room for confusion, and put a name next to each task. 

2. Detail what the task entails.

   1. When you are discussing your 'to-do's, make sure that your committee can understand this when they refer back to this after your meeting. Include any details, guidance or contacts that was discussed in the meeting, to make sure that your committee have the resources they need to compelte the tasks at hand. Be concise about what exactly needs to be done, to give your committee the confidence to complete the task in good time. 

3. Make deadlines clear.

   1. A clear deadline will help to prioritise tasks. Make sure that you cross reference with our York SU deadlines for event applications and EMFs , detailed in our Event Process Overview. Without this, tasks may be completed last minute, which can make your event feel overwhelming to deliver. Chipping away a little each week rather than all at once will help to make your 'to-do' list manageable! 

Google Sheets has a pre-made project management template that can serve as a guide to distributing tasks. Make good use of this feature! 

Your committee have now split the workload between yourselves, and you are now stuck with a to-do list, with deadlines. 

What happens now?

Now you need to prioritise your tasks, coming up with a schedule for when you are going to complete each task. 

When scheduling tasks to prioritise, think about: 

• Your other commitments. 

  • This could include teaching hours, assignment deadlines, work hours, or other commitments you have to your student group. Think about your calendar up until you deliver your event, and plan your work around these pre-existing, more inflexible commitments. 

• The deadlines for each task. 

  • Tackle the tasks with the urgent deadline first! 

• The 'importance' of each task. 

  • Think about your event. What, at the very least, needs to happen to make this event happen? This will reflect your priorities. 

    • Important tasks could include: 

      • Booking your venue; 

      • Developing a specific risk assessment for your event; 

      • Submitting any required EMF forms/ event application forms;

      • Putting tickets on sale; 

      • Paying any desposits needed for the venue; 

      • Contacting the relevant staff/ students/ external companies/guests needed to make this event happen. 

        • This could include York SU and University staff, any external companies/ guests, or other student groups. Everyone has different schedules so it is a good idea to contact these people sooner rather than later! 

We have some examples of methods and tools that you can use to plan your time. Take a look at these and use what works for you! 

Even with a plan, we know that sometimes life can get unexpectedly busy. If you are unable to complete a certain task for the deadline that your committee have set together, make sure that you communicate this to your group. 

It's better to be honest about how much you can do, rather than wait and let the pressure mount up, and the event begins to feel stressful. 

If you are unable to complete a task, ask your committee for help! Somebody with more availability may be able to take this task off your plate. 

For an event, you will want to create an event brief. 

Your event brief will include all information required to run the event. Another person should be able to pick this up and take over, should anything go wrong. 

Not sure what to add in your event brief? We suggest that you add the following:

• A plan of what is happening throughout the day, with key timestamps, and tasks, labelling who is responsible for what. 

• A link to your specific risk assessment. 

  • If anything goes wrong during the event, your specific risk assessment is your plan for how you will deal with it! 

• Methods of communication (for large-scale events).

• Key contacts.

• Any frequently asked questions, with answers provided. 

As mentioned in the previous section, if anything goes wrong, be sure to follow your specific risk assessment for the event. 

We also have a section in the Student Resource Hub that details what to do in an emergency. Make sure that you give this a read and note down any contacts before the event! 

If you need to report any injuries, accidents, or near misses (accidents that almost happened), make sure that you complete our Accidents and Near Misses form to report this. 

On the day of your event, you will have another list of to-dos on the day. 

As a committee, you need to delegate these tasks between yourselves and anybody who is helping to run the event. 

As already outlined in the 'Ticking off the to-dos' section, delegation needs to have a clear assignment of who is doing what, when. 

Your members and attendees' feedback is very important when considering what went well and what could be improved for future events. 

Make sure that you ask your attendees how they found the event, and make a note of any feedback that you can take back to your committee. 

Before you move onto the next project, take some time to review how your event went with your committee. 

What went well? What did you do differently this year? Did you encounter any issues throughout the planning and delivery stages of your event? 

It's good to list these in your society's Google Drive. You can then use this the next time you wish to plan the same event, or pass this onto the next committee so they are aware of what works well and what doesn't!