After 5 EventsThe technical build comes first
Start with the room's infrastructure, not the programme. A software company event fails on connectivity, on a screen too small to read code on, or on sound that makes the remote team unintelligible. These are not details to confirm later; they set the venue.
You need reliable, symmetric internet — not guest Wi-Fi. If half the team joins by video, test the upload as hard as the download. You need a screen large enough that the back row can read slides designed for a laptop. You need a sound system that handles spoken English clearly, with enough headroom that a presenter does not have to lean into a microphone. And you need someone on site who knows what to restart when the stream drops, because it will drop.
Venues say they have all this. Most have some of it. The difference is whether your production team has worked in the room before and knows where the circuit breaker is, or whether they arrive the same morning you do and discover it together.
Sequence: short formal, long informal
Tech teams tolerate a programme; they do not tolerate a long one. Plan for thirty minutes of speaking — a welcome, a short update, perhaps one award if it has been earned — and then open the room. No retrospectives, no team-building icebreakers, no founder speech that runs to twenty slides.
The part of the evening people remember is the part where they choose who to talk to. That requires space to move, food that does not pin people to a table, and sound at a level where a conversation is possible without shouting. A DJ works after that point, not during it.
If the event includes remote participants for the formal segment, close that stream before the social part begins. A camera pointed at people eating is not inclusion; it is a reminder that one half is at a party and the other is at a desk.
The remote team is half your attendance
If part of the team is abroad or working remotely, you have two events to plan, not one with a video link added. The remote group must have a reason to join that is not polite obligation.
That means a programme segment designed to be watched: a product demo, a short Q&A with the founder, a five-minute showcase from each department. It means a presenter who speaks to the camera, not to the room. And it means a strict start time and a strict end time, because remote participants cannot arrive late or leave gradually the way a room can.
After the formal close, let the stream end. Do not try to sustain a hybrid social hour; it does not work for either group, and it commits your production team to managing a broadcast while the room shifts into a different mode.
Drink, and the policy around it
An open bar at a tech company event is standard, and it is also where the evening becomes your problem personally if something happens. You need a decision made early — with the CEO or the finance director, in writing — about whether the bar is open or ticketed, whether it runs all night or closes at a set time, and what happens if someone is visibly past the point where another drink is reasonable.
The venue's bar staff will not make that call unless you have briefed them to. If your company's policy is that the bar closes at midnight, tell the bar that and tell the team that, in the same message, at the same time. If the policy is two drinks per person on the company, print tickets. Announcing it on the night creates the argument you were trying to avoid.
The person who does not drink, and the person who does not stay late, should not feel they attended a lesser event. That means food and non-alcoholic options at the same level of thought as everything else, and it means the programme finishes before the bar becomes the point.
Dietary requirements and access
Your team is international, which means dietary needs you will not guess and access requirements you may not see coming. Send the question early — in the calendar invitation, not a week before — and make it a form field, not a request to email HR.
Catering that handles this well labels every dish and has spoken to the kitchen about cross-contamination. Catering that handles it badly puts out a separate table that might as well be labelled "difficult people". The cost difference is small; the experience difference is absolute.
Access means a venue with step-free entry, with bathrooms that do not require navigation, and with space to move that does not assume everyone stands for three hours. It also means lighting that does not strobe and sound that does not drive someone with sensory processing issues out of the room in the first fifteen minutes. Ask the production team what the room does at full volume before you commit to the venue.
Two kinds of event company
There are agencies that plan and coordinate, sending your brief to a lighting subcontractor they met once, a catering company that sends a quote, and a venue that handles the rest. You pay a margin on every line, and when the screen does not work, three companies explain why it is not their responsibility.
Then there are production teams whose own crew quotes the job, rigs the room, and runs the night. One phone number, one invoice, one team that knows what they promised because they are the ones delivering it. After 5 Events works that way — the people writing this guide are the ones who arrive with the truck.
What to settle before you call anyone
You need a headcount, even if it is a range. You need a per-head budget or a total budget, agreed with finance. You need a date, or two possible dates. And you need an answer to whether the remote team joins for part of the evening or is invited to something separate.
Everything else can be worked out in a conversation, but those four numbers set whether the event is possible, and on what scale. Decide them first.