I interviewed 14 event organisers. Here is what I learned.
Disclaimer: the study was based on my own biased network, but I'm open to talk to more professional event planners.
The biggest takeaway: organising events is still surprisingly manual.
- 7 out of 14 said finding or booking a venue is painful.
Finding a place is easy. Finding the right place, checking availability, understanding the conditions and actually booking it is another story.
- 11 out of 14 are not using any event planning app.
Their events are managed through group chats, Google Forms, spreadsheets, private messages and whatever else gets the job done.
- Even using event planning apps does not necessarily make things easier.
One organiser described a lot of friction and hecticness while trying to manage events with existing tools.
- Private party organisers generally feel their current workflow is fine, until they retell what actually happened.
Among the 7 organisers who mainly organise gatherings for close friends, 5 mentioned annoyances such as last-minute cancellations and constantly having to communicate updates.
- 13 out of 14 are organising on a not-for-profit basis, but many still need to collect money.
They need to cover venue, food and other shared costs. Yet payment tools can become surprisingly cumbersome when the organiser is an individual rather than a business.
What surprised me most is how much event organisation still depends on people manually connecting chats, forms, payments, venues and attendees.
Event organisers, which part of organising still creates the most unnecessary work for you? I'm constantly interviewing, so if you have something to share, I'd love to have a chat with you!