After 5 EventsDate and headcount first, venue second
The date comes before anything else because venues book out and the good ones disappear early. A Thursday or Friday works for most companies — far enough from Monday, close enough to the weekend that people stay. Avoid the week before a public holiday and the last week of a school term unless the point is families.
Headcount does not need to be exact yet, but it does need a range. Eighty to a hundred is a different room from a hundred and fifty to two hundred, and most venues cannot flex between the two. If you are unsure, go wide and narrow it later — but do it before you tour spaces.
The venue decides the format
You think you choose the format and then find a venue to match. It happens the other way. The room has a ceiling height, a power supply, a load-in door, a noise threshold and a licence that ends at a specific hour. If the ceiling is low, a stage does not work. If there is no three-phase, the lighting rig is smaller. If the venue is residential, the music stops at eleven.
Walk the room before you commit. Not the foyer — the room itself. Ask where the power comes from, how cases get in, whether the neighbours have complained before. A sales manager will show you layout options. The crew will tell you what fights the room every time.
Format follows from that. A seated programme needs sightlines and a stage that clears for dancing afterward. A standing reception needs circulation space and somewhere to put a bar that does not block the one route to the toilets. A terrace in October needs a Plan B, and the Plan B needs to be the same capacity.
Programme and technical plan: four to six weeks out
Once the room is locked, the programme can be built. A welcome, a short speech, maybe a presentation or a toast, then music. The technical plan comes directly from that list: how many microphones, where the screen goes, what the DJ needs, how the room is lit before and after the speeches.
This is the point where two kinds of agency split. One plans the event and forwards the brief to contractors it has never worked alongside. The other — our side, the crew writing this — quotes the technical work, builds the rig and runs it on the night. The difference is not philosophical. It is who answers the phone when a microphone cuts at eight fifteen.
Four weeks is comfortable. Six is generous. Two is possible if the venue is simple and the format is fixed, but by then you are working with whoever is free, not whoever is right.
Catering, final numbers, last-minute additions: two weeks out
Catering needs a final headcount two weeks before the event, sometimes less. That is also the point where small additions appear: a photo corner, a branding wall, a second bar. All of them are possible if the venue has space and the budget has room. None of them are possible if the rig is already drawn and the load-in is scheduled for tomorrow.
If you want something custom — printed materials, a specific cocktail, a surprise element in the programme — this is the latest it can be briefed. Not because it cannot be made in less time, but because making it in less time means someone is working overnight and charging for it.
The run-sheet: one week out
The run-sheet is the hour-by-hour timeline for the event itself, written from the crew's perspective. Load-in starts at a specific time. Doors open at a specific time. The speeches happen at a specific time, the DJ starts at a specific time, the bar closes at a specific time. Everything in between is scheduled to the quarter-hour.
This is not the guest-facing programme. This is the document the venue, the caterer, the DJ, the crew and the organiser all work from so that when one thing is late, everyone knows what moves and what does not.
You see the first draft a week out. You adjust it once, maybe twice. By the day before, it is final.
The day itself
Load-in is usually four to six hours before doors. The truck arrives, the crew brings the cases in through whichever door fits them, and the room is built. You do not need to be there for that unless the venue requires it.
You do need to be there an hour before doors for a walk-through: check the room setup, test the microphones, confirm the runsheet, make sure the catering is on schedule. The event itself runs from the run-sheet. Your job during it is to catch what does not go to plan before the guests notice.
Load-out happens after the last guest leaves. It takes about as long as load-in. If the venue has a curfew, that time comes out of the event, not the pack-down.
What to settle before calling anyone
Date and rough headcount — those are not negotiable. A sense of the venue type: hotel ballroom, industrial space, something with outdoor access. A rough idea of format: seated with a programme, standing with a DJ, or both. And a budget that includes the venue, the technical work, the catering and the staffing, because all of them have to fit in the same number.
Everything else can be worked out in the brief, but those four lock the day. After 5 Events is the crew writing this guide — the people who quote the rig, build it and run the evening. When you are ready to talk specifics, we are ready to hear them.