Creating Event Management Plan template for Brisbane event venue

Earlier this year, our sister company, 3vent Productions, got engaged by the Logan City Council (Queensland, Australia) to create several Event Management Plans for their brand-new event venue, Kingston Butter Factory.

The Kingston Butter Factory is an historic building located in the City of Logan, just south of Brisbane. To create the city’s newest event venue the original Butter Factory building is currently being remodeled and the surrounding park lands have been cleared to make way for an additional indoor event venue and the large outdoor permanent stage. The Kingston Butter Factory is an extremely exciting development for the City! With various indoor event spaces as well as a 5,000 pax outdoor event space, it will have the capacity to host some of the City’s biggest events.

As such, the Logan City Council was looking for skilled event consultants to assist with the creation of multiple Event Management Planning template to ensure the venue would be operated successfully once opened.

The venue is scheduled to open in early 2022 so luckily there was ample time to undertake the time-consuming task of writing event management planning template. We always love a project with sufficient lead-time! It saves a lot of stress and leaves plenty of room for unexpected delays.

The scope of our event consulting project included:

• Event Management Plan
• Risk Management Plan
• Waste Management Plan
• Noise Management Plan
• COVID Safe Event Plan

3vent Productions was delighted to be a part of this project and commenced work in April 2021.
Of course, our first stop was to grab the amazing templates from Event Management Plans. We would use these as our base and add all the specific venue information in to create some impressive plans.

Using these amazing templates has easily saved us 100 hours over all the plans combined! It confirmed to us again how important it is to have good templates. Time is money and we had saved ourselves thousands of dollars $$$!

After completion of the project, City of Logan had the following to say about our services and the plans:

“After my first conversation with Kevin from 3vent Productions I knew I was in good hands. Planning for the delivery of a major new events precinct in South east Queensland has been both an exciting and daunting process at the same time, especially adding into the mix the unforeseen impacts of COVID-19 throughout the construction & resourcing consideration stages. It was at this time Kevin & the 3vent team were recommended to me by another SEQ venue. In light of this, Council sought professional guidance from 3vent Productions specifically to assist in the creation of Major Event management documentation including COVID safe, event management, noise management, risk management plans and waste management plans for its redeveloped Kingston Butter Factory Cultural Precinct site. Their experience with the detail required in drafting these documents has been extremely beneficial and positioned us well prepared for the ride ahead. The flexibility and support of Madeleine & Kevin through out this project has been appreciated and the content created first class”

Ben Witham, Venue Coordinator Kingston Butter Factory

Why is a good Event Management Plan template so important?

A lot of time goes into writing plans for events. Considering how busy most event planners are, writing plans is therefore one of the last things you feel like doing. But, without decent plans an event can easily get off-track, potentially resulting in a disastrous event day!

Regardless of size, each event should have (at least) the three essential plans which are:
Risk Management Plan
Event Management Plan
Emergency Management Plan

If you want to read more about what an Event Management Plan and a Risk Management Plan for events are and what they should include, check out our blog page. We have dedicated a whole blog to each plan outlining exactly what they are, what they are used for and what they should include.

Most event venues have their own Emergency Management Plan which incorporates evacuation procedures. Kingston Butter Factory also had their emergency management procedures already in place, hence this plan was not required as part of our consulting scope.

But, let’s get back to the question of why having good templates is so important.

The main reason why this is important, is to save time. The job of ‘Event Planner’ is number 3 in the ‘Most stressful jobs in the world’ list. Needless to say, saving time of always of the essence.

The second most important reason why is to ensure you have all bases covered. A good template for an event management plan should include all the finer details of the event which are easily forgotten in the big scheme of things. Examples of these finer details are: a dedicated smoking area, accessibility, and shelter from weather.

A good risk management template should include all the potential scenarios of risks imaginable, however unlikely they might seem sometimes. Because in events you always need to be prepared for the unexpected! Especially when working on outdoor events. Some examples of risks that are often overlooked at outdoor events in Australia are heat and sun exposure (for both staff and event attendees) and poisonous snakes.

What makes effective Event Management Plans?

Having a good event management plan template, or ultimately a good finalised plan, is one thing but what makes an effective event management plan on event day? Simple. Communication!

It doesn’t matter how good your plan is if no-one has read it then it’s useless. Make sure you always have all key event staff read the plans prior to arriving onsite. At 3vent Productions, we send all event documentation to the staff at least 4 days prior to the bump in commencing to ensure everyone has sufficient time to read all the material. Then, we also have onsite toolbox talks before commencing work onsite each day.

In summary, in events you need to be prepared for everything! Generally, months of work goes into the planning of an event and it all has to come together on event day, when there is not a lot of room for error.

It’s like James Baker’s quote of the 5 P’s: Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.