So you’ve got your new company. You want to have an event and show off and introduce people to what you’re doing. You want to have an event. It’s not really that hard, but there are five things I’ve noticed around town that you might want to think about while planning your shindig.
1. Speakers and booze don’t mix. Yes, you will want to address the throbbing masses at some point. If you’ve been handing out drinks, keep your remarks short. The attention span is going to be about 5 minutes before people go back to their conversation and sipping. If there’s going to be a presentation of over 5 minutes, don’t hand out any alcoholic beverages until afterwards. (The promise of drinks will even keep a few people from leaving.) The only way you might be able to get away with having the drinks out first is if you have chairs for people to sit in. Standing around with drink = conversations and not paying attention.
2. Take it easy with the background noise. People come to business events for networking. Meeting people. Getting caught up on the industry gossip. If you’ve got a DJ or worse, a band, blasting music, people aren’t going to be able to hear each other without screaming. Usually this means people are going to over-crowd the area furthest away from the noise. Keep the music to a minimum and you’ll be much better off.
3. Following the music theme, if you have speakers, it’s not a bad idea to have a little area cornered off where people can go and have a chat and not interrupt the presentation. This isn’t always possible, but if you’ve got some space in an attached room, around a corner or behind a partition – someplace where there’s going to be a natural buffer for the sounds of conversation – you’re better off to use it and point out that people can go there to have that chat.
4. If your event is too close to the end of the work day, you probably want to at least have some snacks around. People get hungry after work and if there isn’t something to munch on, their stomach will beg them to leave your event and seek sustenance at the first opening. If the event is at 7, you’ve left ample time for your guests to go get something to eat before arriving. If it’s before 6, they probably haven’t eaten. Between 6-7, your mileage will vary.
5. Make sure you describe the event accurately. I recently attended an event touting “enjoy food and drinks from our sponsors” with six liquor companies listed as sponsors. The only food was a food truck_outside the venue_ hocking $7 hot dogs. It was a cash bar and two of the liquor sponsors weren’t even on the menu. Let’s just say the most common topic of conversation at the event was “what happened to the…” and that’s not a great note to start an event on.