Experience

This experience took place on the 31st of March 2022 at one of the University of Derby Campuses. Alongside a group of course mates, I was chosen to be a part of the team to plan a hybrid logistics and supply chain conference as part of our logistics and supply chain week at university.

Prior to the event we:

• Created sponsorship packages, emailing these out to potential sponsors and being on hand to answer any questions, resulting in gaining two great sponsors, Lenovo and the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport.
• Sourced and organised the food and beverage, contacting the requested caterer, discussed prices and food options, organised the delivery and staffing options, and then finalised the order with estimated attendee numbers.
• Designed the signage and name tags, to ensure distinction between attendees and university students.

During the event day we:

• Assisted with general set up for the evening, discussing different options for the layout of the main space to ensure smooth flow throughout the event.
• Hung the signage we designed, to direct guests to the welcome desk and the conference space.
• Were the first point of contact for the attendees, providing visitor passes when necessary, directing up to the sign in desk, being there to welcome and sign in the guests, and hand out the name tags.
• Directed people to the event areas and answered any questions asked, as well as being there to aid with the event shutdown.

Overall, the event was a huge success, with many people attending both in person and online. A function sheet was used to ensure all the different parties included were aware of what was going on and when, and the name badges looked very professional and were a big help when identifying who was an attendee. The marketing team attending really helped with us being able to focus on the event, and they were very proactive with taking pictures throughout the evening, helping a lot with future promotion. To conclude the conference there was a question-and-answer panel which was very well engaged with, showing people had been interested and listening throughout the different sessions.

I have learnt a lot from this experience, it was a great insight into how a conference is planned and ran. Due to event being free there were some guests who signed up and did not attend and some who did not sign up prior to the event but turned up on the evening, this is something to consider when planning a free event where attendees sign up themselves, perhaps more reminder emails were needed to encourage those who have signed up to attend. I would suggest that the itinerary for the event to be promoted before to enable attendees to fully understand the flow of the evening, and to encourage people to stay afterwards for networking and food. Another area to be considered would be what to do with left-over food, unfortunately there was a lot of left-over food from this event which had to be thrown away, but considering what to do in this case during the planning process would decrease the wastage, this could possibly include donating it to a local shelter.