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Schedule More Than Just Speakers for Your Next Event

When you hear the word “scheduling” during conference preparation, you probably think about speakers. After all, what else is there to schedule?

If you want to boost organizational prestige and delight attendees, there’s plenty more you can do. In this article, we’ll discuss different events you should schedule at your conference as inspiration to take your planning to the next level.

But first, why schedule more than speakers?

Why Schedule More Than Just Speakers?

It makes perfect sense to focus on speaker scheduling for your conference. Attendees come to your conference to listen to the presentations and learn. However, their goals don’t end there.

In fact, most attendees come to your conference to network or otherwise engage with attendees to further learning. As such, it’s important that you offer outlets both during and after your conference to engage attendees and deliver on these expectations.

What to Schedule Beyond Speakers

Now that you know you should be scheduling more than just speakers, it’s important to understand what else you should be scheduling. Of course, your conference may have a unique approach others don’t and for that reason, you’ll likely have unique events as well.

However, every organization has straightforward events they may want to use as part of their conference. Here are a few of the most common ideas:

• Networking Sessions – You may want to schedule networking sessions after each presentation so those who were engaged by a specific speaker or have more they want to talk about can do so accordingly. You may even need multiple networking sessions if the level of interest is high.

• Breakout Sessions – Breakout sessions are like networking sessions but may include smaller groups either with or without the speaker who presented. You may also want to use breakout sessions to discuss topics that are relevant but aren’t being presented on.

• Post-Conference Presentations – Webinars are growing in popularity after conferences. This is a great way to recap what attendees learned at the conference and share additional, supplementary information. By scheduling these before the conference, you’ll encourage attendees to think about which webinars they’ll want to sign up for following your event.

What Will You Schedule for Your Next Conference?

Speakers are the backbone of any abstracts conference, but they aren’t the only “event” you should schedule. Instead, focus on networking and breakout sessions as well as post-conference webinars or other presentations.

Doing so is a great way to remain relevant to attendees, build organizational prestige, and, most importantly, deliver beyond attendee expectations.

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