6 Easy Steps of Becoming an Event Planner

Starting an event management business is a great path for an entrepreneur. Social gatherings and events happen for various reasons. Even under the light of the pandemic, events have never stopped happening. In fact, the need for an event planner has never been felt more important than the current scenario. With the Governments imposing stricter norms on social gatherings and events, people now need an event planner to handle the sanitation and other activities of the event. 

Work of an Event Planner

It is an event planner’s duty to manage every aspect of various types and sizes of events. If you plan to become an event planner, there are two options for you-

1. A specialised event planner for specific events
2. General planner

As an event planner, it will be your duty to organise different events, i.e., handle the catering, decoration, guest management, and even cleaning after the event. 

How to Become an Event Planner in 6 Steps?

Starting your event planning business is easy if you know the basic path. Once you have a business plan, you can become a planner in 7 steps, spread over 3 phases.

Phase 1: The Starting Phase

Step 1: Gather Experience

The starting phase involves gathering experience, volunteering for events, and getting a paid job. To run a business successfully, you need to understand event management first. The best understanding comes with experience, and the best way to gather that experience is to either volunteer or get a paid job or internship with an event company. 

Getting on-the-job training will help you build the foundation of your knowledge about the field. You will now understand the pros and cons of event management and take an informed decision for your business. A job exposure will also acquaint you with the various software related to event management.

Step 2: Gather Knowledge and Certification

While experience is enough to start an event planning business, education and certification in the field enhance your scope. A degree or diploma course in event management gives you theoretical knowledge of event management. It is not mandatory.

However, if you want the best exposure, we recommend getting a degree. Some of the best degrees for success as an event planner are a Bachelors degree in Hospitality and Hotel Management, Business Administration, etc. 

To add more weightage to your business card, you can always pursue a certification course on specific niches. A certifies event planner will always have a higher valuation than any inexperienced person.

The combination of a degree, certificate, and experience gives you superiority over your competitors and earns your customers’ confidence.

Phase 2: Knowing your niche

The second phase involves understanding your event niche and developing skill sets to plan a niche-specific event better.

Step 3: List down events of your preference

After gaining considerable experience in event planning, you will understand the different event planning patterns and aspects. This knowledge will help you in deciding the type of events that peak your interest.

Decide whether you will prefer to be a generalist or specialist. If you choose to be a specialist, you need to gain experience and certificates in that specific form of event. 

Prepare a list of your preferred event, note down their pros, cons, and future scopes, and proceed with the business plan accordingly.

Step 4: Skill development

Every category of event requires a specific skill set in the planner. Do you have the basic skills for becoming an event planner? As an event planner, you need to master communication, project management, relationship development, multi-tasking, etc. 

If you don’t possess these basic skills, it is time to develop them with practice.

Phase 3: Practice Phase

Step 5: Business Planning

By now, you have enough experience in event management and understand which niche of events you wish to cater. In the next step, you determine your workflow and plan the business. It will involve naming your business as per the field, registering the company, and hiring or outsourcing people for events. 

Step 6: Networking

The final step of establishing your event planning business involves reaching out to your target customers with marketing and promotional strategies. Use social media platforms to build your network and connect with them for business. 

The journey is time-consuming, but once you have the confidence of your customers, success is inevitable.

Conclusion

A career in event planning seems highly promising in today’s world. This trend of business is expected to remain in vogue for a long. As arranging events become more critical, we see a surge in demand for event planners. However, even with the high demand, your success is solely dependent on your skills and expertise. One must follow the above six steps for ultimate success in the event planning business.