We host hundreds of corporate Christmas Parties every year for everyone from small businesses to multinational corporations so we have learnt a few things along the way.
If you’ve been tasked with organising the event for your colleagues, it can feel daunting, stressful and burdensome. Where do you start? When should you book? How can you please everyone? How are you going to juggle this with all the work you already have?
START WITH THE BUDGET
First of all you want to start with BUDGET. How much money do you have to spend per head or in total? This budget may have to stretch to food, drinks, venue, entertainment and transport.
Whether you are working with a tight budget or feeling flush you will want to know managements priority spends.
Does you executive focus on having a great food and beverage package or prefers activities and entertainment? Knowing this will help you focus on the elements that are most important and delegate your finances and time to the right field.
THE GUEST LIST
Who will be invited? Is this a Christmas party for staff only or are you a family-focused business that invites partners and children? Will sponsors, board members or potential investors be invited? Each different group will need to be catered for differently.
You can organise a Family Fun Day whereby you save on venue and food by having an event in the park and self-catering, but you will need some activities to keep the kids engaged and give their parents a chance to enjoy themselves!
Events that are open to outside stakeholders will need to cater to that relationship and they may expect it to be fully catered and open bar. Here you may want to invest in elements that keep the event more professional so the celebrating doesn’t get out of hand.
Pro tip: have a specific start and end time so that your employees know they can go off and have their own celebration after
ORGANISING THE VENUE
Venue is a very important decision as it will impact the cost and tone of your event. Venue considerations include both the hire cost (or minimum spend) the flexibility of the catering packages and transportation.
It’s no use planning a huge night at a venue far that doesn’t have good transport options as people will be less likely to attend.
You may want to consider accessibility to parking, public transport or the average cost of taxi fares too and from the venue to make this as stress-free for invitees as possible!
THE RIGHT TIME TO BOOK
When should you book? Yesterday! If you are based in a major capital city, chances are venues and entertainment providers are already juggling a number of bookings for your preferred party dates. If you don’t want to end up having to hold your Christmas party on a Monday morning, you will want to get onto sourcing your options quick. Prices are likely to rise the closer you get to your event and your options become more scarce.
WE’RE EXPERTS IN PLANNING YOUR CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES
If you need help with your Christmas party and would like to know what problems we can solve for you, feel free to drop us an email. We always try to fit a booking in and can make things work for your corporate needs.
