Get prepared for 2015 (if you’ve haven’t already)

It’s December, which means for many event businesses it’s the busiest time of year, with festive parties and gatherings in full swing. For others, it may mean the year is slowing down, as look forward to the holidays and indulge in a few longer lunches.

Whether or not December is your busiest or quietest time of the year, everyone needs to carve out some time to get prepared for 2015.

If you haven’t been through the following exercises yet, it’s time to book some time in the diary and:

  • Reflect on 2014: Did you hit your goals? Did your strategy change and by how much? What worked for you (and your team) and what could be improved for next year?
  • Reconnect: How close are you to your customers? Do you really know what your attendees want from 2015? Now’s the time to review all those post-event survey results again.
  • Strategize: How should your events and company evolve to remain relevant and number one in your attendees’ eyes next year? What do you stand for?
  • Set goals: What are your big, hairy and audacious goals in 2015? Can you break these down into smaller milestones so you can measure your road to success in monthly or quarterly updates?
  • Plan: What resources, staff, tools and processes do you need in place to hit your goals for 2015? A strategy you can’t execute on is just a pipe-dream!

Whether the above is a snatched conversion over a Turkey lunch or a 3-day full-team brainstorm complete with post-its, whiteboards and copious amounts of coffee, running through the above exercises will be sure to help get your 2015 off to a flying start.

Themes to embrace in December 

Tomorrow is Giving Tuesday, and it’s hitting the UK for the first time this year. There are tons of events taking place tomorrow to celebrate the day of giving back. Even if your event is not officially part of the movement, why not encourage your attendees to take a moment and think about they can give back in December?

Christmas time is upon us. All the big department stores and supermarkets have their big-budget advertising campaigns in full gear and the talk in most offices is around their Christmas party. If you’re running an event in December, why not make it festive?

It doesn’t have to specifically be Christmas themed, but it could rather adopt a more ‘winter wonderland’ feel if that’s more appropriate to your audience. Check out some ideas by our friends over at Biz Bash here.

Let’s not forget New Years Eve. It may be hard to incorporate elaborate fireworks and a countdown to midnight into all of your events prior to December 31st, but you can always give a nod to 2015 with planning sessions for the New Year, or just get in the festive spirit and encourage everyone to have a good party!

Recapping November 

For those of you who didn’t manage to catch all the most popular posts in November, here’s a quick recap of some of what you missed:

  • One of our most popular guides of the whole year, the ‘Event Pricing Strategy Guide’ is your ultimate framework for creating a smart, more profitable pricing strategy for your events.
  • For those of you following our competition to find the best new event idea in the UK, we’ve now announced the winner. Find out who!
  • Earlier in the year we sponsored the Eventbrite North Downs Way – a 100 mile endurance race by Centurion Running. One of the competitors filmed their entire run, so you can see what it’s like to run 100 miles in a day!
  • If you’ve still not got your Christmas event pages live, then why not try one of our beautifully designed (and free) Christmas event banners?
  • Still trying to figure out how to make the most of your event imagery? Well, we’ve got the answers for you here in this post on ‘How to think strategically about events, images and social media.’
  • Do you blog for your events? Then you’ll want to read about these 6 steps to making it even better in 2015.

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Organising your first event in December?

Why not sell your tickets online with Eventbrite? Sign-up today, it’s free! 

Have a great December!