Events at Wicker Park Inn

4 Best Practices for Planning an Event

 

We’re happy to announce that we recently completed the addition of our gourmet kitchen! With this new addition, we’re now offering the space to be rented for private parties and events like fundraisers, bachelor/bachelorette parties, baby showers, food demonstrations, birthdays, small corporate events, and more. As you can see, it turned out great!

 

So to celebrate our new addition, we’re going to give you some best practices for putting on an event. That way when you decide to book an event with us, you’ll have some event planning best practices in your back pocket to draw from when you’re planning your big event!!

1. Start Planning Early

Holding an event involves a lot of different moving parts all being coordinated in sync with one another to make it go well. And with so many things that could go wrong, it’s certainly no coincidence when they go smoothly. Events that go off without a hitch are often carefully planned out well in advance to make sure everyone and everything is well prepared. If you’re not sure where to start, try getting your venue and guest list nailed down before tackling anything else!

 

2. Stay Organized

When you’re trying to coordinate and juggle a million different things at once, it’s important that you have the right tools to get the job done. Especially with all the different aspects that go into planning an event, having something like an event management tool to track invites, RSVPs, and provide guests event-specific information, can be incredibly useful! It’s also smart to keep all your vendors, expenses, and responsibilities in a single spreadsheet to make sure you have all your information at your fingertips to reference at a moments notice and keep your event on the right track!

 

3. Party Supplies

No party is complete without the proper party supplies! Depending on what kind of party you’re throwing, you’ll need the appropriate decorations. You’ll want some baby blue and pink decor if it’s a baby shower, or maybe some superhero-themed balloons and party hats for a 5-year-old boy’s birthday party. More than just the decor, though, is all the food, drink, and anything else you want to have for your event! If you can, try to consolidate the number of vendors you have to use to keep things simple. For example, try getting your food and drink accommodations from a single vendor to avoid having to keep track of more than you need to.

 

4. Entertainment

Whether you just have some music playing in the background or you want a full-blown live music production at your event, you’ll probably want to have some kind of entertainment during your event. You could coordinate to have a speaker come in, a local musician, or anything that you think would go well with your event; don’t be afraid to get creative! Even if you don’t want to go crazy with the entertainment for your event and you’d just like to have some music playing, you’ll still need to coordinate with your venue to have the right playlist of songs, appropriate music volume, and any other details worked out ahead of time.

There’s certainly a lot that goes into planning an event. However, with the right tools, a positive mindset, and maybe a little help from your friends, you can plan an event that you’ll remember for years to come!