Organizing an event — whether it’s a big one like a global product launch involving employees, customers, and stakeholders or an internal one focused on celebrating wins — requires careful planning.
Work events bring people together to forge and nurture relationships, collaborate on ideas and solutions, and launch products and services. A well-executed event can create far-reaching word of mouth and attract customers. In contrast, a poorly executed event can lead to a loss of goodwill and many unhappy stakeholders.
Careful coordination in event management provides a shield for bottlenecks, schedule conflicts, and a million other things that can go wrong before, during, and after an event. This article shares all you need to know about finding event coordinators to streamline your event planning and management.
We’ll answer:
- What is an event coordinator?
- What does an event coordinator do before, during, and after an event?
- hy do you need an event coordinator to manage your event?
What is an event coordinator?
An event coordinator is a member of a team or a solo professional service provider who executes and oversees an event’s action plan. They may be supervised by an event planner, event manager, or project manager from the organizing company.
Event coordinators must be detail-oriented yet great at multitasking. They work well with deadlines and communicate adeptly with different types of teams. Event coordinators understand the demands of event management. They’re great at selling an event’s vision and bringing aligned parties such as speakers, partners, and sponsors on board.
Appointing someone from your team or employing a professional firm or event coordinator ensures you have someone responsible for managing all the moving parts and teams involved in the event. This person brings the event plan to life with as few problems as possible. They manage relationships between management, operational teams, collaborators, and vendors.
What are the responsibilities of an event coordinator?
Event coordinators have varied tasks depending on the events they organize. A live event coordinator would focus more on finding and setting up the best event venue to cater to guests. A virtual event coordinator may prioritize documenting and sharing fun photos and sound bites on social media to engage participants at home.
Regardless of the event type, the general responsibilities of an event coordinator include:
- Managing event logistics: Setting up the venue, hiring vendors and caterers, and putting together corporate gifts are a few logistical tasks event coordinators manage
- Delegating tasks and improving cross-team collaboration: Event coordinators liaise between teams, collecting and connecting deliverables to make the event happen successfully
- Managing budgets: Event coordination also involves managing money. These budgets cover planning, payments for vendors, and other event expenses
- Managing people and schedules: Event coordinators oversee teams and collaborators working to make the event happen. They ensure there are no schedule conflicts and maintain momentum toward a successful event
- Tracking metrics aligned to event goals: After the event, event coordinators can collect data to help the organizing team assess performance and plan future events better
Now let's discuss what event coordinators do before, during, and after an event.
Before the event
Before the event begins, the event coordinator must understand how each team’s delivery feeds into the other and time them to fit into the overall event timeline.
They must meet, plan, and schedule with teams, partners, and vendors to achieve the event’s goals. They take charge of miscellaneous expenses and authorize small changes without bringing in the event planner.
A few event coordination task examples you can expect before an event include:
- Finding and setting up the venue location
- Disbursing and accounting for petty expenses
- Setting up the venue to fit the event’s goal, theme, and budget
- Finding, negotiating, and liaising with vendors and creatives such as food caterers, florists, and DJs
- Planning the event agenda with speakers, entertainers, partners, and sponsors
During the event
During the event, event coordinators ensure things are running smoothly. They stay ahead of the actual event, proactively mitigate risks, and create an environment where participants and attendees do their part and have a good time.
Event coordinators liaise with masters of ceremonies (emcees), entertainers, servers, and others working at the event to ensure they have the resources they need, a chain of command in case of emergency, and processes to rely on in case of minor mishaps. Tasks for event coordinators during an event include:
- Welcoming and seating attendees and participants
- Ensuring the event starts and ends at about the right time
- Providing support to speakers and participants playing key roles
- Ensuring smooth technical setup and handover between guests
- General oversight and timely support with whatever is needed
After the event
The event coordinator’s job isn’t done immediately after the event. They help the organizing teams look over the premises, wrap things up, and note essential tasks to be tackled in the coming days. They may help gather and organize meeting notes, attendee feedback, and other event data. Other after-event event coordination tasks include:
- Streamlining invoicing and payments between the organizers and vendors
- Wrapping up and packing up at the venue
- Sharing an event summary or report with involved stakeholders
- Sending post-event emails or newsletters to attendees and supporters
- Gathering insights aligned with the event’s goals and key metrics for success
Why should you use an event coordinator?
Event coordinators bring order to the otherwise messy task of organizing events. They help organizers define clear goals, break them into actionable tasks, schedule them on a timeline, and gather a team that works to make things happen as planned.
If your company organizes many events in a year, working with an event coordinator to manage your events is a no-brainer. Your employees can stay focused on their primary tasks and only contribute their expertise to the event when needed.
Companies organizing only a few events per year can create an ad-hoc event team with an appointed event coordinator to manage each event as the need arises. Small events can be managed without a coordinator, but special events such as conferences or fundraisers have a better chance of success when you work with event coordinators.
How Wrike helps teams and event coordinators create and manage better events
Event coordinators bring in an extra pair of eyes and hands to get things done and oversee everyone else’s contribution. To do this, they need project management software tailor-made for event coordination and its unique needs.
Wrike provides easy-to-use event management software with an event planning template that can significantly reduce time spent on repetitive admin tasks. Wrike improves collaboration between coordinators, teams, and invited users. It serves as a single source of truth for all document management needs, making it easy for teams to access files and assets with easy file uploads, downloads, and sharing.
Use Wrike to create event folders and assign tasks with dates to team members. Other Wrike functionalities for better event coordination include:
- @mentions for easy communication
- Gantt charts for managing timelines
- In-depth performance reporting
- Automated team reminders
These features help you guarantee improved event management success. Are you ready to begin a better event coordination process? Get started with a free two-week trial of Wrike.
