After 5 EventsThe approval chain comes first
Before the venue, before the format, before anything gets booked: map who approves what. Compliance will want the guest list. Procurement may require a tender above a threshold. If the evening includes clients, legal often has a view on gifts and hospitality limits. Finance needs the cost centres in advance.
Get those lanes clear early, because a venue hold expires and a supplier who quotes in December prices will not honour them in February while you wait for a signature.
The venue reflects on the firm
A finance company does not hire a basement. The room is part of the message: you are stable, you are serious, you can be trusted with other people's money. That means hotels with a reputation, conference centres that institutions use, or a private floor in a building your guests already know.
It also means the room must perform. If the country head speaks, the back row has to hear it without straining. If there is a presentation, the screen must be readable from every seat and the slides must advance when the clicker is pressed, not three seconds later. Most venues promise both; fewer deliver both.
Ask the venue: when did you last run an event for a regulator, a bank or a law firm? What fell over? The ones who pause and name something specific are safer than the ones who say nothing ever does.
The microphone is the highest-stakes object in the room
The executive's speech is the moment everything you organised becomes visible. If the microphone cuts out, or feeds back, or makes them sound like they are speaking from inside a metal box, that is what guests remember.
So: specify a sound check with the actual microphone the executive will hold, not the one the venue uses for announcements. If they will speak from a lectern, the microphone stays on that lectern for the check. If they move while speaking, you need a microphone whose battery was changed that morning, not last week.
Run the check with someone saying full sentences at the volume your executive actually speaks — not a technician saying "test test" into a PA turned up to compensate.
Seating is policy, not preference
You cannot put the visiting regulator next to the CEO of a client currently under review. You cannot put competitors at the same table unless someone senior has confirmed that is fine. You cannot seat the board member who is about to retire next to the one replacing them unless you know that conversation is welcome.
Finance seating plans are decided upward and late, and they change when someone's flight is delayed or a relationship you were not told about surfaces the day before. Build the plan in a format you can edit quickly, and keep a printed copy with you on the evening — the digital version will be open on your laptop exactly when your laptop is somewhere else.
If the event has a presentation, confirm whether the executive wants to take questions and where they will stand when they do. The answer changes which microphone you need.
Two kinds of event company
One kind takes your brief, forwards it to subcontractors they have never worked alongside, and earns a margin on every line. You meet the planner; on the night you meet five suppliers who have never been in a room together.
The other kind quotes, builds and runs the evening with the same crew. The person who hangs the lights is in the room when the sound engineer tunes the microphone. They have worked together before; they will work together next month.
You can tell which you are dealing with by asking: who will be on site during the event, and when did they last work together? If the answer is vague, you are buying a forwarding service.
The run sheet is a document for two people
You need it so you know what happens when. The executive needs it so they can glance down and know that the next thing is their speech, or that dinner is in twelve minutes, or that the guest they need to speak to is at table four.
Write it for a glance, not for reading: times in the left margin, single-line descriptions, nothing that requires interpretation. If something changes — the presentation runs long, a course is delayed — update the copy the executive can see, even if that means scribbling on paper.
Keep a second copy with the venue contact and the production lead, so that when the CFO decides to speak before dinner instead of after, three people know at the same time.
What to settle before you call anyone
Guest count and the approval path. Everything else can be discussed, but a quote for eighty people is not a quote for a hundred and twenty, and a plan that assumes you can confirm the venue tomorrow is not a plan if the signature takes three weeks.
If the event includes a presentation, know what the executive will present from — their own laptop or a file sent in advance — because the cable that connects one will not connect the other, and finding that out during the sound check is too late.
Decide whether you need the production company's crew to stay through the evening or only through the setup. The first costs more and means someone is in the room when a microphone battery dies. The second costs less and means you are alone with a problem you may not know how to fix.
The team writing this guide is After 5 Events — the people who build the room, tune the microphone and stay until the last guest leaves. The question now is whether you need that, or whether the venue's in-house capability is enough. The answer depends on how much is on the line if the microphone fails.