7.1 Decision Phase

The decision phase consists of establishing your current situation at present, looking at the future and ascertaining the best way to get there meeting your objectives.

Questions to ask before you start

• Should there be an event?
• What is the purpose of this event?
• What goals do you want to achieve?
• How will you achieve these goals?
• Are there sufficient funds to produce the event?
• Who is your target audience?
• Who will be involved in the process?
• What resources, financial and other will be required?
• When must it be completed?
• What outcome would you like?

Strategic Outlook

Your event will require a strategic outlook; before you begin you will need to establish the following:

• Vision describes the long-term goals.
• Mission is the task that the organisation has set for itself, reason for holding the event, its stakeholders and key objectives.

Clearly Defined Objectives

You must consider the purpose and objective of your event. Your objectives and purpose will affect how you organise your event. Before even starting to plan an event, it is important to ensure that there is a clearly defined set of measurable objectives. For example, while 'delivering a successful national championship' may seem an obvious goal, it is important to be clear on what determines 'successful'. Some questions to consider are:

• How many participants will attend?
• How many spectators will attend?
• How important is raising funds?
• Is media exposure of primary or secondary important?
• Does the event provide an opportunity for athletes to qualify for another event such as a world championship or the Olympics and, if so, how many qualifiers do you want?

Having a concise set of objectives not only helps to maintain focus in the planning phase, but also provides a set of criteria on which evaluation can later be based. For example, if the event is unexpectedly faced with budget cuts, it is then easier to remove the 'nice to haves' from a pre-determined set of prioritised objectives.

Additionally, after-event evaluation against the objectives always provides useful lessons that may be helpful for future events and is even more important if some of the event organisation has been outsourced to a management company.

Your objectives should meet the SMART principle:

You will need to consider the internal and external environment (SWOT & PEST analyses)

PEST Factors: Example:

SWOT Analysis: Example

Your event strategy should:

• Utilise strengths
• Minimise weaknesses
• Avoid threats
• Take advantage of opportunities

Event Feasibility

You should perform 3 feasibility tests while planning an event: marketing screen, operations screen and financial screen. This will give you an indication of your event being held in the designated time frame and will also help you to identify the support and resources necessary to make your event a success.

1. Marketing Screen: Marketing screen requires you to identify the target market for the event and determine whether they will support such an event. This includes environmental search for similar events in the past, whether they were successful or not. This research also allows you to identify any competing events that may be taking place at the same time.
2. Operations Screen: How do you intend to organise and produce your event? It could either be done by volunteers (in-house staff) or by professionals (event management companies). You need to identify the personnel resources that will assist you in executing your plan. In the early stages, you need to identify the tasks involved and who will be able to accomplish those tasks. In doing so, you will eliminate activities that are too complicated or difficult. You will also identify problems and essential procedures such as licensing, permissions, approvals, etc. so that enough time is allowed to satisfy such requirements.
3. Financial Screen: This involves listing several types of events to be considered and preparing a preliminary budget for each to evaluate which would be best suitable to achieve your objectives. This preliminary budget should include all costs and revenues. This initial budget would help you with your planning process at a later date.

Once all 3 screenings have been done and analysed, the decision has been made to 'go-ahead' with the event, then it's time to examine how to organise your event.