Planning a scientific event requires a lot of organization so every participant can get the most out of it.
Because of this, creating a checklist to organize all the important points of your event becomes essential.
Even so, you might not know how to organize that list, which raises plenty of doubts when putting it together.
That’s why we created this post — to help you understand everything about:
- Why create a planning checklist?
- Building a planning checklist for scientific events
- How to optimize your event
Why Create a Planning Checklist?
An event, whether academic or scientific, needs to meet certain minimum requirements for its execution to be flawless (or close to it).
That’s why it’s important to have a list of the main points organizers should focus on in the early stages of the event.
The checklist starts with the most basic points, like defining the theme and target audience, all the way to which marketing strategies will be used to attract more people.
Building a Planning Checklist for Scientific and Academic Events
For the planning of scientific and academic events to work, it’s important to first define who is responsible for each planning area in a planning meeting.
From that meeting, come out with an action plan for each of the points below:
1. People
The most important point of the event is defining the key people who will take part in organizing it — also known as the organizing committee.
These people will be responsible for the main organizing fronts: Program, Finance, Scientific Committee, and Marketing.
After deciding who’s responsible, it’s important to make clear what their tasks, responsibilities, and deadlines are, whenever possible, and at the level of detail needed.
For events with a scientific program, it’s important to define the review committee that will evaluate the event’s scientific papers.
Invitations should be sent well in advance, so there are no surprises or delays to the event’s schedule.
2. Event Venue
The venue should be chosen based on the expected number of participants, ideally somewhere easy to reach for national and international attendees.
Booking the venue early is essential for setting the event date (the next point covered), avoiding date changes that could make it hard for participants to attend and even cause financial losses.
It’s also important to offer participants accommodation options and travel packages with partners, especially if the event has a regional, national, or international reach — this can be a decisive factor when someone chooses to register.
3. Schedule
Scientific and academic events generally need a well-defined schedule from the very start, since they tend to run for a medium to long duration and require actions from a large number of participants, such as registrations and paper submissions.
Setting the event date is the single most important decision, and it usually depends on the venue’s availability.
Registration deadlines should be defined and opened as early as possible to attract the largest number of participants early on.
Offering discounts for early registration batches is a great way to attract participants and support your financial plan.
For events with scientific papers on the agenda, it’s important to define the scientific schedule so participants and reviewers know their deadlines. The following deadlines should be defined:
Paper submission deadline
This sets the start date and the final deadline for participants to submit their scientific papers. The final deadline matters so that, once it passes, the scientific committee can gauge how many papers were submitted and expand the review panel if needed to meet the evaluation deadline.
Paper evaluation
Evaluations can start before the submission deadline to avoid piling up too much work for reviewers. The evaluation deadline should also account for the time needed to review papers that received revision requests.
Results announcement date
This date creates a lot of anticipation among participants, so the scientific committee should closely monitor evaluation progress to make sure the deadline isn’t missed.
4. Program
A strong event program can be the key factor in attracting more participants.
That’s why deciding on the main speakers, names, and activities as early as possible makes a real difference for your marketing efforts.
Another important factor is aligning the program with the event’s goal and target audience, by answering:
- Which activities and people will attract my target audience?
- Is there more than one audience profile, and what are the interests of each?
- Do these profiles have a preferred time of year, day of the week, or time slot for attending activities?
5. Finance
The event’s financial feasibility will show whether you need external funding, such as sponsors and research grants.
The financial feasibility analysis should always be done in detail using a financial spreadsheet or a financial management system.
The more detailed your financial plan, the safer and more predictable your event will be as it unfolds.
It’s important to spread expenses across months in the spreadsheet if it’s a longer event.
Expense tracking should be broken down by category, such as marketing, venue costs, and vendors for various services, like:
- Management systems;
- Event ceremony services;
- Reception;
- And others.
On the other side of costs are the revenues that balance the budget. Besides amounts raised through sponsorship or grants, events generally earn revenue mainly through ticket sales. That’s why it’s important to set a target for tickets to be sold and the average ticket price to estimate total revenue. A useful tip is to leave some margin in that forecast in case the total ticket sales goal isn’t reached.
6. Marketing
Event marketing is often not planned well enough, and that can affect how many people register for your event. It’s important to define the following points:
What is the event’s goal and theme?
Defining the event’s theme and goal is important to spark interest among participants and researchers in the field. Making the theme and goal very clear helps participants identify whether they have related scientific papers or want to specialize and learn more in that research area.
What are your target audience profiles?
It’s important to build a detailed profile of your target audience for more targeted marketing. To do this, answer questions like:
- What are the age ranges?
- Is there a gender predominance?
- What’s the education level?
- What time and region preferences does your audience have?
The answers will help shape the program and content of your event to match the identified profiles, and they’re also essential for determining which marketing channels will be most effective.
Which marketing channels will be used?
Once you’ve mapped your target audience profile, it becomes easier to decide which channels to use and what content to share on each. Some examples of channels for promoting content and the event include:
- Facebook pages and groups;
- Instagram;
- WhatsApp groups;
- LinkedIn groups;
- Specialized magazines in the field;
- Blogs and specialized portals;
- Email list of participants from past editions.
For that last option, you can use tools like Mailchimp to manage your participants’ email list and send updates about related upcoming events.
It’s up to the organization to determine which marketing channels are most effective for your target audience, so you can focus your efforts and content there.
Using every channel doesn’t always bring the best result — it can waste time and energy that could be better spent on higher-performing channels.
For larger events with a more flexible budget, it can be worth outsourcing marketing to specialized agencies. This investment can bring a strong return in participants and engagement if done well.
How to Optimize Your Event?
Beyond the points above, it’s essential to understand that planning is the guiding thread and starting point for all event organization activities.
Like any plan, it needs to stay flexible and ready for change — whenever possible, alternatives and backup plans should be used as a resource.
To do this, keep everyone informed about what’s happening with your event, using our essential event checklist.
