What To Know Before Hiring an Event Management Company in San Francisco
When hiring a corporate event planning company, most of us want to see that the group we are about to hire has done the specific kinds of projects before that we want to hire on. It makes sense, no one truly likes being a guinea pig, especially when there could be hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line. We often get questions of “have you done an event for 400 people in [insert specific venue] before?”
When it comes to hiring a top event planning company, seeing your exact project in their portfolio section may not actually be the most important factor to pulling off a powerful event.
Skill set is more important than headcount
Start out by talking to your corporate event planner about the kinds of events they’re already producing. And, yes you do want to see that they’ve done similar events to the one your team is thinking about.
But, hold your conclusions when it comes to headcount. If a planner has done a corporate conference for 200 people that resembles the your upcoming 500-person event, it’s likely they can pull it off. Even with attendees up to 1,000, often times the number of teams and the amount of effort that goes into an event on that scale isn’t vastly different. It highly likely that your planner can pull off the event, so long as they are using similar skill sets.
What are skill sets? You want to look for the kind of services your event planners are experts in — and make sure you’re hiring them for that expertise. For example: if a planner has shown that they can produce stunning weddings for 1,000 people, they aren’t necessarily skilled in pulling off a strategic and impactful corporate conference for 1,000.
If you are planning a strategic and stylish corporate conference for 1,000 attendees, and choosing between a planner with experience in 1,000-person weddings and another with 300-person corporate conferences — you would be better off hiring the planner who has done stylish and strategic corporate conferences for 300 people. The skillset is what translates, and more likely to the thing that makes or breaks your event.
Find out How their Event Planning Services are Compensated
Before hiring a corporate event planning company in San Francisco, or really anywhere, you want to ask how their services are paid for. When it comes to event planning companies, often there are two ways that they get paid:
Commission Based Payment
Commission based payment is how we work here at Bash Creative. We like this method because it allows us to be incredibly transparent about how we work with clients. In commission based payment, our clients are paying us through a flat rate percent based on the total budget of the areas we manage from the event.
This means that we can show our clients exactly how much each vendor got paid, where we negotiated for them to save money, and our fees are always separate. For example if AV is $50,000, you know that all $50,000 of that is going to the AV vendor and our costs are on a separate line item.
Blanket Costs
Many other companies work on blanket costs. This means that they will offer one flat number for the event or portions of the event, and you don’t always know how much of that number is for the event service ad how much is the event management fee. For example, if your AV bill is $50,000 there isn’t a clear way to know how much of that is for the AV service and how much of that is the event management company’s fees baked in.
Are you ready to hire an event planner in San Francisco? We’d love to hear all about your next event, and help you make it a Bash.
Range of Projects
As we mentioned, it might be tempting to want to see your exact project type listed in an event planner’s portfolio section. But, we advise to instead, look at the range of projects in their experience. Are they planning gala events for nonprofits, creative offsite events, tech conferences, and large raw event space build outs? Or are they pumping out multi-track conferences at a hotel?
Doing a wide range of projects shows agility and the ability to cross pollinate with fresh ideas with your event — instead of doing the same old thing over and over. Learning from multiple perspectives ultimately adds value for you, the client.
Are you ready to hire an event planner in San Francisco?
We’d love to hear all about your next event, and help you make it a Bash.
Bash Creative is an event planning company that specializes in incredible gatherings that go beyond just great design. We’re known for teasing out smart goals for your event and serve up a stylish execution that will keep your guests buzzing. Located in San Francisco, but often found in New York, Austin, Chicago, Seattle, and beyond.