Help! I Was Stuck With Planning the Company Holiday Party...Now What

Professional comedy hypnotist and mentalist Rick Allen, offers a stress-reducing plan to make that employee party, even if last minute a big hit.

(PRWEB) November 12, 2005 -- With hundreds of thousands of employee parties being held each holiday season from large to small in size, someone has to put it together. Tag your it! Rather then looking at this as a bad thing dumped on you, you can easily turn it into an opportunity to show your leadership and organizational skills. Here are some solutions to help make your job easy.

1, First thing you’ll what to do is make a step by step outline of what you need to do. As each step is completed, check it off. This will not only keep you on track but also show your progress in each step.

One of the most important things you need to have is a firm commitment as to what your budget for the event will be. It will be much easier to work backwards by subtracting from a budget then to try adding it up and find you have to go back and cut things out because you are over budget. Insist on knowing what you have to work with before you even begin your planning.

Find out what was done in the past? Did anyone leave a file of vendors, who have been reliable, or information on what was successful and what was not? This can be a great place to start your planning and save you from possible hours of reinventing the wheel.

2, You’ll need to decide where you’re going to have your event, hotels, catering halls, restaurants are all likely choices. Many of these are booked up far in advance, so you may want to look for unlikely first choices like schools, fraternal halls and the like or maybe even your own company facility.

3, The date is very important to the overall outcome of your event. There are many reasons why a weekend my not be your best choice for your event. As I said earlier, many facilities may already be booked. Professional entertainers generally fill weekend’s months, sometimes a year in advance. Other family events may keep the employees away. Consider your party on a weeknight, especially if it is getting close to the holiday season.

A trend that is gaining popularity with holiday events is to hold them after the traditional holiday season. January and even February are becoming very popular months, especially if your business is busy during the holiday season such as retail, food service and the like.
A bonus also is that most everything may be much less after the holidays. Hotels are eager to fill empty rooms and caterers are less busy during these times. You may even be able to get a break on your entertainment during these traditionally slower months.

4, Selecting your entertainment is a key part to your events success. Generally you will find the better acts like professional comedians, magicians, hypnotists and DJ’s are booked for the holiday season far in advance. That does not mean you cannot find an entertainer with an unexpected open slot however, last minute cancellations for a variety of reasons can leave a hole in a otherwise busy entertainers calendar, so it never hurts to give it a shot and get the best you can.

Booking your entertainment however, is something that should not be last minute and should not be the last thing considered in the budget, actually it should be one of your first investments. A poor entertainer can obviously have an adverse effect on you. Yes it is true you are the one everyone blames if the entertainment is bad, insulting to guest or uses inappropriate behavior, before, during or after their performance.

People will soon forget the cold chicken, but not the inappropriate entertainment. I often hear horror stories about bad entertainment choices that happened years ago.

How do you know if an entertainer is going to make you look good? Ask! Actually, that is a little over simplified. When you contact your entertainment, ask a lot of right questions.

In fact, it is so important to ask the correct questions I’ll be glad to send you a free report "The 7 Biggest Mistakes Event Planners Make When Hiring Speakers and Entertainers." Get your copy at; http://tinyurl.com/7mtgv .

5, Try not to get hung up in committee meetings. It is often difficult to get everyone to agree on all the aspects of the event planning and often this is the place you will become the most stressed. A will-organized plan is all it really takes to have the event of the year.

Rick Allen who is considered one of North America’s most outstanding corporate hypnotist and mentalist has over thirty-five years of providing solutions for event planners. Rick can be reached at www.RickAllenInfo.Com or 1 800 521-3653.

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