4-Months to Organize All – From Invitations to travel home

The Situation: Our client was asked to pull-together a 100-person, 4-day conference in Toronto within 4-months.  Our client-contact was provided a clear conference mandate & required outcome(s), but that was all;

• No agenda planned. No content ready.  No speakers identified, or booked
• Attendees had yet to specifically identified. They would need to be invited, followed-up with and have their travel to/from planned and managed
• There was no venue, accommodations nor event-spaces booked. Lot’s to do.

Our client called Summit to help her plan and manage all aspects of the conference for her, as she could only devote ~25% of her attention to this effort over the next few months.

Our work included:

• Securing an appropriate conference venue/hotel
• Establishing the overall conference plan (4-days) to meet objectives
• Planning daily conference sessions. Developing content & identifying possible speakers
• Creating a conference website (with on-line registration capabilities)
• Sending, tracking and reporting attendee invitations.
• Managing attendee (and speaker) RSVPs. Working with in-house travel team to book travel
• Venue management (catering & AV)
• Developing of a workshop activity game (since produced 100 units for continued/local use)
• Planning/Executing a wrap-up Gala Dinner
• Designing, writing and producing an event “Welcome Package & Pre-read” (40 pages)
• Designing/producing event materials (signage, nametags, Gala dinner materials; etc.)
• On-site support & management (incl. full-time registration and conference HELP DESK)

The Results: 

• The 4-day conference was delivered on-time and in a professional, seamless manner
• The objective of gathering and aligning 30+ disperse stakeholder groups on a common path forward was achieved
• We believe we helped our client deliver this important conference with minimal disruption to her, her team or the organization