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clipped from ezinearticles.com Event Planning Checklist Tips The key to successful event planning is being resourceful and avoiding uncertainties. The more you research your available resources, the simpler it is to overcome any obstacles to your objectives and pull off the perfect social function. When putting together any social function, business party, special event, or mini festival, you can’t begin advertising or producing promotional material until you have chosen and contracted a fitting location. Likewise, it would be putting the cart before the horse, to sign up a speaker or book your entertainment before your event visions have been brought clearly into view.

There are a ton of Event Planning sites (here is a list of top Event Planning Websites), and a lot of them have gone belly-up or have been bought out. Some of them offer event tickets and managing the process as part of the slew of services they provide.

However, a couple online event planning sites that include event tickets as part of their offerings have a model whereby they take a percentage of the ticket sales. This model seems to be working. Evidence of this is in the venture funding these sites have attracted according to the story below.

This means event tickets can be still be done online along with all of the other event planning and marketing functions, but it looks like paying for this part of the service is the only viable way for this service to continue to be offered.

For the full story:

Event ticketing companies Amiando and Eventbrite get European backing

If you’ve thought about becoming an event planner, this guide is sure to help.  As you go through each of these points, think about whether you have the personality, organization skills, creativity, and attention to detail that a success event planner needs to have:

10 Tips On How To Be An Excellent Event Planner

There are lots of perks to being in the event planning business - find out if you have what it takes but reading the above article.

When busy on site with managing an event, sometimes the little things like ‘eating’ get in the way - here’s a solution to the problem of what an event planner eats.

The Meeting Planner Diet

Personally, I find the Warrior Diet works for me. A quick piece of fruit, coffee, or tea during the day and a big meal at night fits my schedule and is ideal for an event planner and event manager.

Hiring a professional guest speaker is an important step in planning an event.

Most events feature guest speakers, or at least one professional guest speaker. Sometimes, the main feature of your event is the celebrity guest speaker, so finding one is usually on the event planning agenda.

The following list of event speaker directories and bureaus should provide a thorough resource the next time you are trying to locate the best person for your event. There are lots more than only the ones listed below, but you’ll have your hands full with these to get your started:

www.allamericanspeakers.com - Professional motivational speakers, sports speakers, celebrity speakers, famous keynote speakers, sports figures, best selling authors, corporate business speakers, celebrity chefs, top celebrity talent and comedians

www.totalaccessspeakers.com - Motivational Speakers, Business Speakers, Keynote Speakers, Celebrity Speakers

www.internationalspeakers.com - Internationally Acclaimed Motivational and Celebrity Speakers

www.ovationtalent.com - A fresh approach to solving a number of breakdowns in the current field of speaker management and representation.

speakerresource.com - Provides motivational speakers, celebrity speakers, and professional keynote speakers for any business, association, school or college

speakersrus.com - A Speakers Bureau that will help you find the perfect keynote speaker or entertainer for your event.

www.isbspeakers.com - International and National Professional Public Speakers Bureau for Motivational, Keynote and Christian Speakers

www.leighbureau.com - The world’s longest-established premium speakers bureau

www.speakers.ca - Canada’s leading Speakers Bureau

www.bigspeak.com - Motivational Speakers, Keynote Speakers, Consultants and Trainers.

www.playingfieldpromotions.com - A leading speakers bureau specializing in bookings of celebrity sports speakers, baseball speakers, Olympic speakers, motivational sports speakers and athlete personal appearances and endorsements.

www.nationalgeographic.com/speakers - National Geographic speakers are leaders in the worlds of science, photography, journalism, exploration and adventure.

www.insightbureau.com - Asian and global speakers, moderators, advisors on Asian and global economy, insights for business conferences, client meetings and confidential strategy and planning meetings.

www.dynamicspeakers.com - Sales motivation, keynote speakers, public speakers, personal growth, staff development, personal development, management consulting, motivational speakers, motivational, seminars, management training

premierespeakers.com - Motivational speakers, keynote speakers, or professional speaker

www.speakerservices.com - Free and fee speakers for events, conferences, seminars and banquets.

Whether the purpose is simply to entertain, or your event is geared towards motivating or inspiring your event participants, there are guest speaker bureaus available online that make locating the right talent for your event easy.

Event managers and event coordinators need to be responsible for a lot of details in order to create and manage a successful event. When you hire an Event Manager, what do you look for? True, attention to detail can make or break your event, but since you are outsourcing all of this to a professional, why not choose someone that also provides great customer service and is flexible to your needs, as well as understanding and accessible?

Here’s a great article on what makes a Successful Event Manager

Using the guidelines and recommendations found there, you should be able to choose an Event Manager that fulfills all of your needs and executes flawlessly.

The following list should save you time locating the type of event planning and event management tool you need for your upcoming event. Most of the sites listed here are not entire front-to-back solutions, in that they may lack some essential functionality that you require. Some are simply directories of events or event venues, but event planning and management features are soon-to-be released, so they are listed here.

These are listed in no particular order:

1) http://www.eventwax.com

A free, online comprehensive event planning and management site. Allows you to create an event and will host a website for your event (you can custom format with your own CSS), or you can link to your own site, lots of ticket pricing options (like Early Bird, Group Discounted, etc), integrated with PayPal for ticket purchases, creates mailing lists and email templates for invitations to be sent out and handles RSVP replies. Includes an RSS feed to track event activity and XML export of your data.

2) http://www.eventspace.com

A free, online event space directory as well as an event service provider directory. Also allows for creating and sending invites and finding upcoming events. More features to be released.

3) http://www.pingg.com

A free, online event management site with outstanding invitation design features, invitation sending, RSVP management, guest list management, photo sharing, reporting, but lacks the ability to handle processing payments for tickets at this time (coming soon).

4) http://www.eventbrite.com

A comprehensive, mostly free online site for planning, managing and marketing your event. Processing fees per ticket sale are charged, but more ways to pay for tickets are available than the other sites offer. Also, lots of event marketing functionality built in that other sites lack.

5) http://eventsbot.com

A mostly free online event management site. Allows for customization of hosted event webpage only with Premium account option. Handles event ticketing and emailing invites, but lacks robust invitation creation features. Has some event promotion features.

6) http://www.lovento.com/en/

Mostly a multi-national event guide and event venue directory and review site. Publishing of your own events coming soon.

7) http://purpletrail.com

A free, online event management solution that has unique features like a desktop application to download so you can stay on top of invites and other communication, chat features and event consensus features so attendees can all agree on a place and time, robust invitation design and sending features, but lacks ticket purchasing and other more business-oriented features.

http://www.activeciti.com

A free, online event management site more for social events than business events. No invitation creation or ticket sales functionality, but has basic event registration and calendar features.

9) http://www.ipartee.com

A free, online event management site for sending invites and tracking guests but lacks robust invitation creation and business-oriented features like ticket sales. Unique in that an event venue owner can publish and promote upcoming event details and gather feedback from attendees.

So, the next time you have an event to plan and management, check out some of the above sites to see if your job can become easier by utilizing one or more of these free tools.

Your source for news and information on Event Planning and Event Management.