You may think that you already know what type of event you want to deliver, but you must be sure! It is important that you read this chapter, even if you are absolutely certain about the type of event you propose to run. There are an infinite number of event types, themes and classifications. One thing remains constant: the event type, in conjunction with your objective, will heavily influence every aspect of the event that you research, plan, organise and deliver.

Just as importantly, when you have decided what type of event you are going to deliver, you must not change your mind half-way through. Even a small change to the emphasis or theme of your event at a late stage will affect dozens of your decisions and arrangements. When you reach the end of this chapter on your work-through of the book, you must formally decide and define what type of event you are proposing.

After that, you must be aware that any late changes will have a major impact on the success of your event. The later those changes are made and the larger those changes are, the greater the negative impact will be, because late change will invalidate much of your earlier investigation and research.

You may currently be in one of three states:

• You have already decided what type of event you want to organise.
• You are considering several different options.
• You have no idea of the type of event to run.

This chapter will lead you through some considerations, which should allow you to either choose or confirm your event type.

How to decide

Start at a fairly high level and for now avoid getting pulled down into too much detail. List a few possible candidates for an event that you could run and would like to run, then discus them with friends or other club members, etc. For example, as president of a model aircraft club, you may start with three options:

• a model aircraft show,
• a tour of the local slate quarry, or
• a weaving demonstration.

To deliver a model aircraft show, the club will already have premises, arrangements for an area to fly, club members, plenty of models and detailed knowledge of the subject. In this example, as president of a model aircraft club you have a head start in delivering a model aircraft show. You should also have contacts with other model clubs, enthusiastic exhibitors, an established target audience and knowledge of associated crafts, subjects and suppliers.

The manager of the slate quarry is a member of the club and he suggested the tour. Your wife suggested the weaving exhibition and the club secretary only added it to the list to please her. So, as president of a model aircraft club, your event type seems to have been defined for you!

With that basic type and theme established, working through the following stages, you will gradually refine your idea and confirm your ability to deliver it.

Obvious choice

Often the event type will be obvious. In the example above the members of a model aircraft club would probably not be advised to attempt to run a weaving show. As with anything, you will have more success if you stick with what you know.

However, even though your event type might be self-evident, you should still run through this high-level review process just to confirm that the ‘obvious choice’ is the ‘right choice’

To illustrate the point using the example model aircraft club above, the model aircraft show is of course the obvious and top choice, except that during preliminary discussions you find that during the year there are 27 different model aircraft shows in the vicinity. After further discussion you discover that none of the shows attract more than 100 spectators, which is not going to raise the funds you need!

Having discounted the weaving show, a conversational risk assessment shows that the quarry is far too dangerous, with heavy machines, deep holes and deep water, not to mention daily explosions.

You are now stuck, because all of your options have been discarded. Using my method you will openly discuss the possibilities with a small group of club members. After further discussion, you find that when asked, every single club member remembers that several people have asked them in recent weeks if they knew of anywhere that offered courses in building model aircraft!

After a 30-minute discussion and some phone calls, the ‘obvious choice’ of a model aircraft show has been discarded in favour of an option that still uses the contacts, clubs, facilities, skills and experience of members, but for which there appears to be a very strong demand. Model-building classes now becomes the favoured option to meet the objective of raising funds, but further work is still necessary.