Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is the process of envisioning to a point in the future, and then translating this vision into defined goals or objectives with a series of steps to achieve them.

In an event context, strategic planning involves looking at what you would like your event to be at a certain point in the future and then setting goals and steps that will help you reach that position, taking into account the event itself, as well as the environment it operates in.

This helps to focus energy and resources, strengthen operations and ensure stakeholders, employees and volunteers are moving in the same direction by working toward common goals.

Effective strategic planning also guides the future look and feel of the event, the actions needed to get there, and how you will know if it is successful.

Tips:

Strategic planning process

The event strategic planning process is a continual process of three stages:

1. Think – about your opportunities, threats, capabilities, goals and vision for the future, and develop your plan.
2. Execute – the communication and implementation of your plan.
3. Evaluate – how successful you have been and keep exploring how to improve.

Strategic plan

A strategic plan is a document used to communicate the vision for your event and how you are going to make it a reality to people within your organisation, as well as key stakeholders and partners. Download a Summary Strategic Plan template.

• Take the time to make the planning process as effective and valuable as possible.
• Keep it simple by summarising the plan down to a single A3 page with clear direction and priority outcomes.
• A good plan must be implementable – consider the resources required for implementation and set realistic and achievable goals.
• Strategic plans should be a living document that can be updated as part of a regular review and renewal process or as a priority when required.
• Strategic plans should be developed and maintained in the context of long-term planning (3 – 10 years).

Business plan

Business planning is a process of creating, communicating and implementing an operational roadmap to guide your actions, policies and decision-making. Your event’s business plan should align with the strategic plan and assist in its implementation.

• A business plan is a document (or set of documents) which outlines the directions, actions and implementation schedule and is typically focused on short term operational planning (1 – 3 years).
• Business plans guide the internal operations of an organisation to:
  • summarise its operational and financial objectives, and
  • show how these objectives will be achieved and monitored.
• A business plan should be continually modified as conditions change, and new opportunities and/or threats emerge. Make sure to build in review and renewal processes into the plan.
• Strategic and business planning is often mandatory for medium and large events. Entities operating these events are often required by partners (such as local and central government), banks and insurance companies to have robust strategic and business plans.

Strategic event growth framework

A strategic event growth framework outlines the growth parameters, objectives, and key actions required to set your event up for success. Download a Strategic Event Growth – Plan on a Page template.

Growth parameters | What type of growth?

• What kind of growth are you looking for and why? What will this enable you to do?
• How does this align with the event strategy/strategic plan, including its purpose/vision?
• What are your stakeholders looking for and how will it advance their objectives?
• What is the market potential?
• What are the parameters – the timing of your desired growth, your current capability and your risk appetite?

Objectives | What do you want to achieve?

• Revenue growth: grow event revenue by X% by XXXX.
• Profitability: average profit of >X% achieved by XXXX and sustained.
• Revenue certainty: X% of total revenue forecast is confirmed by XXXX.
• Financial sustainability: sufficient reserves to cover X days of operation and fund strategic initiatives.
• Participation and attendance: increase attendance and grow engagement.
• Grow visitation: increase out of region attendance to X% of total by XXXX.
• Brand and profile: awareness and engagement of event increases by X% by XXXX.
• Format: develop, deliver on, and expand format (programming, days, locations).
• Model optimisation: model is optimised to maximise commercial return and minimise risk.

Direction of growth | How will you achieve it?

Key actions and phasing | What will you focus on and when?

• Setting up for success
  • Confirm the what, when, who and how.
  • Identify your key actions.
  • Identify how you will secure resources.
  • Identify how you will engage key stakeholders.
  • Develop success measures that will tell you whether your growth strategy is working.
• Launch and building momentum
  • Launch.
  • Continually optimise your efforts, guided by data insights.
  • Identify and engage with existing and potential commercial partners.
• Accelerating
  • Review your growth strategy.
  • Reinvest retained profits and leverage efficiencies to unlock further growth.
  • Identify new opportunities for growth.

Key enablers | What do you need to succeed?

• Capability and capacity: make sure you have the right competencies and resourcing (internal and external) in place to maximise your event’s growth potential.
• Financial resources: ensure you have adequate ability to access funds or leverage additional revenue opportunities to pursue and implement your growth framework.
• Compelling value proposition: events must be compelling for participants and stakeholders to engage with, and partners to align to.
• Partner and funding framework: adopt an overarching strategic approach, rather than being tactical and transactional, to optimise your partnership and funding revenue.
• Key stakeholder engagement: foster relationships with stakeholders and partners so they are aware, engaged and supportive of strategic growth objectives.
• Event measurement: put in place practical success measures to gauge whether your efforts are working. These measures will serve as a baseline in year one of your event, allowing you to track progress against them.
• Growth mindset and culture: maintain an ongoing commitment to event growth and sustainable success.

Other considerations

• External analysis – consider key trends that can drive or slow down the growth of your event:
  • Political – e.g. change in government, reduction in public sector funding.
  • Economic – e.g. economic recession, cost of living challenges.
  • Social – e.g. changing demographics, rise in influencer culture driving decisions.
  • Technological – e.g. adoption of AI, changing consumption of media.
  • Legal – e.g. health and safety legislation, privacy laws.
  • Environmental – e.g. sustainability a key focus, ethical considerations.
• Internal analysis – assess your financial position and performance, revenue model, assets, partnerships, capability and capacity, market potential and trends, event positioning, competing events and alignment with strategic partners.
• SWOT analysis – a SWOT analysis can be a powerful decision-making tool to help review the position you and your event are in, both internally and externally.
  • Strengths (Internal) – e.g. profitability, supportive partnerships.
  • Weaknesses (Internal) – e.g. resourcing and capability constraints.
  • Opportunities (External) – e.g. demand/market potential for event.
  • Threats (External) – e.g. increased competition, funding constraints.
• Types of growth opportunity
  • Market penetration – reaching and attracting more of your current market with your event offering.
  • Product development – developing new and improved event offerings for the current market.
  • Market development – entering new markets with your current event offering.
  • Diversification – developing new and improved event offering for new markets.

Useful Links:

• Strategic Event Growth – Plan on a Page | download template
• Strategic Plan Structure – download template
• Summary Strategic Plan – download template
• Business planning tools and tips (business.govt.nz/business-planning-tools-and-tips)

Have you considered?

• What are your short and long-term goals and objectives for your event?
• What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?
• How do you intend to achieve your long-term goals and objectives?