Claire Viola, County Administrator at the Bedfordshire and Luton Pre-school Learning Alliance office, spoke to us about her experiences planning the fantastic annual Picnic in the Park event in Luton, and shared her top tips for new event planners on running a successful event. to read more about the background of the Picnic in the Park event, as well as Claire's tips on where to start when planning an early years event.
we talked about advertising on a limited budget.
Is there anything you think is worth spending money on, or is an essential cost?
A lot of what we spend money on for Picnic in the Park is essential and often a legal requirement of holding the event, such as first aid cover, toilets and traffic management. The funding provided for the event has drastically reduced over the years, so we have needed to introduce a charge for stall fees in recent years, thankfully without any complaints from our 鈥渞egulars鈥. We also charge 拢2 per vehicle for the car park, stall holders can receive a maximum of 5 free car park permits, but this revenue is a welcome income, as entry to the event is free and a lot of the activities are too.
Volunteers are a great help with saving costs, for example, the car park is manned by some of the traffic management team, but if we needed them to take money for car parking then there would be an additional charge to do so. We have been extremely lucky to have volunteers supporting us who are also happy to take money for car parking.
Sometimes a knowledge of what relatives or friends of your co-workers can contribute is useful, so maybe sending out a request to them to see if anyone can offer services at a reduced rate or even for free is worthwhile. Our PA announcer Graham came to us out of a suggestion by his wife who attended the event a few years ago, and when we mentioned on our feedback form that particular year that we were considering having a PA announcer for the following year, she offered her husband鈥檚 services, and we now use him every year. The PA announcements have been well received and proved extremely helpful at the event as it is a large area to get messages across.
Another suggestion for saving money maybe to ask if an entertainer or soft play provider could attend free of charge with the agreement they can advertise their services at the event. Part of our entertainment on the day includes story telling sessions which are provided at no cost by the library service, who are attending as stall holders.
Do you have any advice for planners who want to secure sponsorship for their event?
Unfortunately we haven鈥檛 always been successful in attracting sponsorship for this event, but I think organisers should consider the ethos of their event and ensure that any sponsorship will tie in with the audience and any messages you want to convey. It may also make the event more attractive to suitable sponsors if they can see a benefit of being associated with it.
I am not at all experienced with the process of securing sponsorship, but I think organisers should think about a 鈥減ackage鈥 for a potential sponsor, such as their logo on any publicity or signage, but in planning this, they should consider how commercial the event will be. Our event has been in danger of becoming more commercial in the past, but we have remained committed in retaining its original ethos of a community event offering childcare groups the opportunity to fundraise for their own settings.
What do you th
ink are the biggest risks or pitfalls new event planners should watch out for?
I think it is very important to cover the legal requirements for the event, and to know what these are. For Picnic in the Park the biggest amount of paperwork to be completed is for the hire of the park, and for this I have to provide a comprehensive risk assessment to cover every possible eventuality. The Parks Department do give a lot of guidance on what I need to cover, and although it is a time consuming exercise, it does remind you as an organiser of everything that needs considered. All our stall holders must complete a risk assessment for their activities, which I hold on file.
The Alliance provide Public & Employers Liability Insurance for all its personnel and events, but as a sub-committee we are provided with additional cover for our event. I would suggest any organiser has Public Liability Insurance in place and has the level of cover checked for the particular nature of the event they are planning.
What do you do if something goes wrong on the day?
Thankfully we have been extremely lucky and have always had no serious problems on the day, so it鈥檚 a little difficult to answer this question. I have a list of emergency contact numbers with me for my organisation, the parks department and for any expected visitors attending, and as a rule I ensure I have a mobile number for each stall holder attending on the day, just in case we have to contact them in the case of any emergency.
The only element of the day I cannot control is the weather, we have never needed to cancel the event due to extremely bad weather, but if on the morning it is clear the event couldn鈥檛 take place due to bad weather, we would then call everyone to advise them using this list. Hopefully we will never be required to do this. We have only had one year where the weather has turned against us, and we had to pack up an hour early.
What are your top tips for new event planners?
Make a plan! Think through the whole of the event thoroughly, the location, the purpose of the event, budget, number of people required, and timescale. Hopefully I have shared a lot of tips already, but I would say that building relationships with the suppliers I use and the regular attendees makes future events a lot easier to pull together. Also constantly reviewing your event and listening to the feedback of others is extremely useful to me. I also find that highlighting to stall holders where you have listened to previous year鈥檚 feedback and have changed an element of the organisation in light of this is a very positive and worthwhile exercise and helps ensure the continued support from our stall holders.
鈥淭his was an excellent event for us to network with local children鈥檚 centres, nurseries and pre-schools, and other agencies/ professionals. It was great to also meet so many families and talk to them about their child鈥檚 speech, language and communication.鈥 - Picnic in the Park stall holder
In addition I wouldn鈥檛 be able to organise the event without the support of my fellow team members, who support me in so many ways to bring everything together and get stuck in on the day with great enthusiasm. Which brings me onto a couple more tips! Events such as ours require a very long day for the team running it. The day starts as early as 6am, to allow enough time to prepare the site for stall holders to arrive from 7.45am. The event runs from 10am 鈥 2pm, and requires tidying up afterwards, so we usually leave by 3.30pm. So if you are planning to cover your event with staff, friends, volunteers, you need to consider how long set up and clear up will take in addition to the length of your event. This year we had a total of 12 staff (including me), and 3 volunteers, all working very hard for the entire time. In the last 3 or so years I have also arranged staff rotas for the event, these are flexible, but allocate key people to oversee that certain duties are being covered. Since this has been in place I have found that the team are better utilised and know what to cover and when. As an organiser you have to delegate duties and the supervision of work on the day as you cannot do everything, as I have learnt.
And finally if you could give only one piece of advice to someone planning their first event, what would it be?
Enjoy the experience as it is character building, but ask for help if you need it!
Top tips for planning an early years event - recap
- Have a key plan or master to-do list to help you keep track of everything you need to remember.
- You may find it helpful to set deadlines for your key tasks to help you manage your to-do list.
- Make sure you are prepared to meet any legal requirements of holding the event, such as first aid cover. There is some really helpful information on this topic for those organising a .
- Ask relevant local organisations and others in the community to get involved - even if that's only displaying a poster in their window for you.
- Use word-of-mouth, posters and any social media accounts you have to help spread the word about your event and encourage people to attend.
- Don't be afraid to ask friends and family for help - can they volunteer, or do they know someone who has a particular skill who'd be happy to volunteer?
- If you want to secure a sponsor for your event, make sure any companies you approach with the opportunity will tie in well with the theme and ethos of your event.
- Be prepared for any emergencies - a list of key contacts will always be useful, and if you have a team of volunteers helping you to organise, you may want to consider using walkie-talkies or a smartphone app such as Whatsapp or Slack to help you keep in touch with the other planners on the day and help your event to run smoothly.
- Remember running events can be very tiring, and usually involves a long day including setting up and packing away after your event is over. Include this timing into your plans so you know you and your volunteers will have enough support (and energy!) to make it to the end of the day.
- Get as much feedback as you can - feedback can be invaluable if you decide to run the same or a similar event again in future.
Good Luck!
Further reading
Claire has shared the for stallholders - you may find this useful if planning an event with other stakeholders such as stallholders or exhibitors who will need to be informed of what you expect from them on the day of the event in advance.
The government's cabinet department has published for anyone planning a voluntary or community event, to help you understand what legal requirements you need to meet on the day such as health and safety and food hygeine requirements.