After 5 EventsStart with the date and the guest list
Nothing else can be decided until these two are final. The date is usually dictated by the construction schedule or a business milestone, but the headcount is yours to set and it determines the venue hire, the catering minimum, the number of tour groups, and whether the format can be standing or needs seating.
Do not pad the number. Inviting three hundred when you expect two hundred means paying for a larger sound rig, more staff, more food and a bigger space — or a half-empty room that photographs poorly.
Lock the venue and the format next
For an office or store opening, the venue is the building itself. For a factory or production facility, you may be opening one part while another is still a construction site. Either way, walk it early. Note where the power comes from, whether there is weather cover, how many people fit in each zone, and what is off-limits.
If the building cannot host the number, decide now: split into two sessions, cap the list, or hire an external venue and make the opening itself a short ceremony before moving guests elsewhere.
The format follows from the space. A ribbon-cutting, welcome remarks, guided tours and a drinks reception is the common sequence, but if the building is large or technical, tours need to be staggered in groups and that sets the programme length.
Book suppliers while you still have choice
Eight weeks out, the good riggers are still available. Four weeks out, you are calling people who have never seen the venue and will quote high to cover the risk.
Sound, lighting and power come first because construction sites do not have usable mains and the building's own system is rarely commissioned in time. The rig has to be specified to the space: a glass-walled atrium needs different treatment than a warehouse with steel cladding.
Catering is next. If the building has no kitchen, everything is brought in and held at temperature in the vehicle until service. That limits the menu and adds a vehicle access requirement to the site plan.
Staffing depends on format. A stand-up reception with passed canapés needs front-of-house and bar crew. A formal programme with seating needs stage management and an operator for the microphone handovers. Tours need guides who know the building and can manage group flow without bottlenecks.
The last two weeks are for the run-sheet, not the plan
By now the decisions are made. What remains is the schedule: who arrives when, how long the speeches run, when tours start, when the bar opens, when guests are expected to leave.
Write this as a minute-by-minute document from load-in to load-out. Include supplier arrival times, power-on, sound check, when the client team arrives for a walk-through, when doors open, and when each programmed moment happens.
Share it with everyone — the venue contact, the crew, the catering team, your own presenting staff. A grand opening usually involves people who have never worked together, and the run-sheet is the only thing they all read.
What the day looks like
The technical crew is on-site early — often the morning of, sometimes the afternoon before if load-in access allows. Rig goes up, power is tested, sound check runs through the microphone positions and any background music or video cues.
Clients tend to arrive two hours before doors expecting to change things. You cannot move a lighting truss at that point, but you can adjust the podium position or the bar layout if it was left flexible.
The final hour is for the client walk-through and the crew briefing. After that, doors open and the organiser's job is to watch the clock, manage the speaker handovers, and release the tour groups on time.
The part that catches people is the end. Guests leave slowly at an opening — they are talking, they want a last look at the building — and it is easy to lose thirty minutes before the crew can start packing. Build that into the venue hire window.
Two models
One kind of company takes your brief, adds margin, and sends it to the same subcontractors you could have called yourself. Another sends its own crew — the riggers who quoted are the ones who build it, the team on the bar has done fifty of these, and the person who walked the venue is the one calling cues on the night.
The difference is not visible in the quote. It is visible when something is not ready and a decision has to be made in the room.
After 5 Events is the second kind. Same crew from site visit to pack-down.
Before you call anyone
Settle three things: the final guest count, the latest time you can access the building for load-in, and who on your side is authorised to make changes on the day. The rest can be worked out, but those three set everything else.