The conference planning checklist

Start with why the conference exists

Conferences fail quietly when nobody agreed what they were for. Is the goal to share research, sell a product, build a community, train members or raise money? Each purpose leads to different choices about size, price, program and venue.

Write a one-page brief before anything else: the purpose, the audience, the approximate size, the format (in person, online or both), the dates you are considering, the budget, and how you will know it went well. Share it with everyone involved. When decisions get difficult later, the brief settles them.

• Purpose and the audience it serves
• Expected attendance and format
• Candidate dates, checked against holidays and competing events
• Budget, including what the event must earn
• Roles: who decides, who organises, who approves spending
• What success looks like, stated in a way you can check afterwards

Budget and income

Build the budget around the biggest cost drivers: venue, catering per head per day, audiovisual and streaming, speaker travel and fees, staff, and marketing. On the income side, separate expected income from confirmed income for tickets, sponsorship and grants, and do not commit spending against income you have not secured.

Track every cost as planned, committed and paid, and plan the payment schedule. Venues and hotels often require deposits long before ticket income arrives, so cash flow matters as much as the total.

Venue and dates

Choose a venue that fits the program, not the other way round. Count the rooms you need at the same time: a plenary hall, breakout rooms, a space for exhibitors, catering areas, a speaker room, a quiet room, and storage. Check capacities for the layout you will use, because a room that holds 200 theatre-style may hold far fewer at tables.

Visit with accessibility in mind: step-free routes to every room, accessible restrooms, hearing loops or captioning screens, seating for wheelchair users with companions, and lift capacity at peak times. Ask about internet capacity for hundreds of devices, power for exhibitors, and the venue’s rules on catering, noise and finish times.

Program and tracks

Design the program from the purpose and the audience. Decide the number of days, tracks and session formats: keynotes, talks, panels, workshops, roundtables, poster sessions. Leave real breaks between sessions, long enough to move between rooms, find coffee and talk; conversations in the corridors are often the most valuable part of a conference.

Match session sizes to rooms. Popular workshops in small rooms need registration and a waitlist. Avoid scheduling the sessions most of your audience wants at the same time.

A full program with no breathing space looks impressive on paper and exhausts people in practice. Build the breaks first, then fill the sessions around them.

Calls for proposals and review

If speakers submit proposals, publish clear criteria, a deadline and the review process. Decide whether reviews are blind, how conflicts of interest are handled, and how many reviewers each proposal receives. Tell every submitter the outcome, including those not accepted, by a stated date.

Collect what you need from accepted speakers in one go: biography, photo, title and abstract, technical requirements, access needs, travel details and consent to publish their name and to record their session.

Speakers

Speakers need clear, early information: their session time and room, the format, the audience, the deadline for slides, the technical setup, and who will introduce them. Send a single speaker guide rather than many separate emails.

Plan the speaker experience on the day: where they check in, a speaker room with power and water, a technical check before their session, and someone who will find them if they are running late. If you are paying fees or covering travel, agree the terms in writing and track payments like any other supplier.

1. Confirm the session, format and room in writing.
2. Collect biography, photo, abstract and consents.
3. Set and chase the deadline for slides and materials.
4. Book travel and accommodation where you are covering it.
5. Schedule a technical check before each session.

Registration and tickets

Design ticket classes around access: full conference, single day, workshops, online, and complimentary passes for speakers and sponsors. Show every fee before payment, publish your pricing windows and refund policy, and enforce session capacity with waitlists.

Keep the form short and conditional. Collect dietary and access needs from everyone, and keep consent for marketing and for sharing details with sponsors separate from essential event messages.

Sponsors and exhibitors

Define sponsorship packages around what you can genuinely deliver: speaking slots, branding, booth space, passes and, where attendees agree, the chance to meet interested people. Put each package in writing with deliverables and deadlines, and track fulfilment so every sponsor receives what they paid for.

If there is an exhibition, plan the floor, booth sizes, power and internet, build-up and breakdown times, and staff passes. Agree how leads are shared, and only share attendee details with those who consented.

Staff, volunteers and roles

Even a small conference needs more hands than it seems: registration desk staff, room hosts who keep sessions on time, technical support, someone looking after speakers, someone handling sponsors, and a person who can make decisions when something goes wrong. Write down every role, how many people it needs at each point in the day, and who fills it.

Volunteers give generously, so look after them: clear briefings, reasonable shifts, breaks, meals and a named person to go to with questions. Give each person only the access they need, so a door volunteer can check people in without seeing payment details, and a room host can see the session roster without the full attendee list.

Communications

Plan the attendee messages as a sequence: confirmation with the pass, practical information a week before, final details a few days before, a short morning message on each day, and a thank-you with feedback form and recordings afterwards. Send operational messages to everyone; send marketing only to those who agreed to it.

When something changes, such as a room swap or a speaker cancellation, tell the attendees affected promptly and update the online schedule first so that everything agrees.

The event days

Write a detailed run of show for each day: timings for every session, room setups and changeovers, catering service times, and who is responsible for each. Brief staff and volunteers on their roles, the venue layout, emergency procedures and how to escalate problems.

Set up check-in to work without the internet, with enough lanes for the morning peak and a separate desk for problems. Keep a central point, physical or digital, where the organising team can see arrivals, room capacities and incidents, and decide changes quickly.

After the conference

Send thanks and a feedback form while the event is fresh. Share recordings and slides with attendees as promised, and fulfil any remaining sponsor obligations. Close out the budget as invoices arrive.

Hold a short review with the team within a couple of weeks: what worked, what did not, and what to change. Measure against the success criteria in your original brief. Attergo brings program, speakers, registration, exhibitors, check-in and the closeout report into one place, but the checklist above is the work itself, whatever tools you use.