How To Create An Event Plan For A Workshop

In planning any event, there are three major rules, which is that your plan should be documented, defined and detailed. There are certain things you have to highlight in your plan.

1. The Goal of the Workshop: What do you seek to achieve by holding this workshop? What results should your attendants expect to have after attending your workshop? What results would you have as a brand or individual at the end of the workshop?

   A set of workshop goals for a consulting firm can be : To Educate the participants on the importance of creating a business plan for their business, To create awareness among the participants and the public in general on the services we offer ,To make a profit of 100,000 Naira while creating a new network of clients who have amazing testimonials of our workshop.

2. The Topics that would be Covered: Once you know the goal of your event, you would have a theme for your workshop and this would guide in selecting the topics you would like your speakers to cover during the event. Our sample workshop theme is “Creating A Business Plan”. It would also guide you on the number of hours your workshops would be. If you are not sure of what topics to select for your workshop, simply use Google, type in search queries like “What You Need to Create a Business Plan”. This would show you several potential topics you could use for your workshop.

   An example of a set of topics for our workshop plan would be Creating an Executive Summary, creating a Detailed Company Description, analyzing your Products, Service and Market, Creating a Business Strategy and Implementing it, The Power of Organization and Management, How to Create a Financial Plan and Project.

3. The Speakers who would be attending: Now that you know the topic that would be covered at your workshop, it’s easier to know the type of people you would be inviting to speak at the event. Using the example above, we can state that we need the following:

   • Key Note Speaker: This refers to the speaker who would establish the main theme (Creating a Business Plan), this person could be a lead consultant at your firm or Business Consultant. This speaker could also take the first two topics which are Creating an Executive Summary and Creating a Detailed Company Description.
   • Business Analyst: This speaker could focus on helping the participants understand their products and services and also their target market and also teach them on how to create a detailed summary of their product, services and target market. This session can also include group discussions and activities, so you might need to also create a workbook with a template. This speaker could also take creating a business strategy and implementing it.
   • Business Coach: This speaker could have a background in project management and also human resource management. So, this speaker could train on the importance of organization and management in creating a business plan and also use a template to show the participants how to create a plan that shows their management and organization strategy. This could include management tools (You could use a Google search query “Tools that help management and organization strategy”). For this example, we would include the use of ADKAR Analysis. Also note you have to discuss with your speaker on the tools you would want to include in their session.
   • Finance Expert: This speaker could be a finance expert or an entrepreneur who has proven results in finance management who would work with the participants and teach them how to project and create a financial plan.

   From our list of speakers, we need, we can see we need four speakers, a workbook, a projector, a screen, a sound system and honorariums for the speakers / budget allocation for both speakers’ welfare and fee.

4. Timing and Program: At this point you would need to decide the time allocation for the program. The number of days you select is based on your goals. See our workshop templates below:



Using our template there were certain things we included which are expected in a standard workshop which are a feedback form, a group photo with the speaker, Lunch break and certification of participation (Whether the certificate would be a hard copy or an e-certificate depends on your budget for the workshop). Some event planners include a tea break depending on their budget.

1. Budget: The next step is to come up with a budget and to be able to have a realistic budget, you need to know the number of guest (including planning committee, guests and participants) that would be attending the workshop. We would set our total number of guests to 6 members of the planning committee, 4 speakers and 40 Participants, which would mean our total number of guests would be 50 people. In creating a budget, you need to start with the people who are not paying and cost the amount they will cost you. From our example, 10 people are not paying so we draw up a budget for them.

Now that you have a clear budget how much the people who are not paying will cost your brand, you divide the total amount by the number of people paying (the participants). Using our example, you would divide 83,500 by 40 which would be approximately 2,100 Naira.

You should also have a standard amount of profit you want to make from the event which should be included in your goal which you would also divide by the number of participants, Using our example from step 1 , we would divide 100,000 by 40 which would give you 2,500 Naira.

You can also have an amount for Publicity and Marketing, we would use 40,000 for our example, you are to divide this by the number of your participant which would be 1,000 Naira using our example.

You should also have an estimate for the amount your venue would cost , An ideal venue for our example should have a projector, sound system , screen and a marker board and be located on the Mainland . In other to save time you could use a booking site like Spacebook to view options that suit your criteria.

Most spaces charge a minimum of 1,500 Naira per person, so for our example a hall for 50 people would cost between 75,000. You add 5,000 Naira to your estimate, which would give us 80,000 then divide by the participants which would give you 80,000/40 participant = 2,000 Naira.

You would also add the cost of a photographer and any other service you would use that day, using our example, the total is 40,000, divide this by the participants which would be 40,000 / 40 = 1000 Naira

Then you add the amount you got from all your divisions, using our example this would give us 2,100 + 2,500 + 1,000 + 2,000 + 1000= 8,600 Naira. This amount can be called your BRAND COST. This would be included in your budget for your participants and would reflect in your registration fee. When you a creating a budget for the participant you can use our template below.

So when setting the registration fee you would add three thousand Naira for a late registration fee which would and approximate , which would be 15,000 Naira and you could also have an early bird fee or discount fee which has to be higher than the standard price which can be 13,000 or 12,500 based on our example.

So, our workshop in this example would have a registration fee of 15,000 and then an early bird ticket of 13,000 and a group ticket of 12,500. All above the actual participant cost.

1. Date and Venue: It is always wiser to pick a date three months ahead, so that all speakers are duly informed and planning can be effective. So, we would set our date for the November 24th 2019. Then it is also time to pick your venue, with a booking site like Spacebook, you get to inspect as many venues as you want that suit your criteria for free. So, using our example, we would select Hermitage Hall. Also, it is wiser to pay a deposit to book that date down. Once this is done, a secular should be sent to all guest speaker inviting them to speak at your workshop on the topic you chose for them on the date at the venue.
2. Bonus Tip : You could create a list of benefits which would encourage participants to register , from everything we have documented , some general benefits you could include are training materials , lunch , networking session and certificate included . If you also included some templates that are related to the workshop , you could also add that as a benefit . For example since we stated in step 3 , that we would include ADKAR analysis to the business coach’s session ,we could say “Registration Fee is 15,000 Naira which includes training materials , lunch , networking session , certificates and a bonus session on using ADKAR analysis.”

Once you have this documented, you have successfully created an event plan and it’s time to include a team and also a timeline which we would be discussing in our next post.