After 5 EventsDecide whether the event happens on site or off it
If a third of your people are on shift, you either stop the line or run two events. Stopping the line makes this a management decision, not a logistics one. Running two events doubles the crew, the equipment and the set-up time — budget for it now or rule it out now.
If the event is on site, walk the space with someone who will say no. The canteen fits everyone for lunch because they come in three sittings. For an event, they come once. Measure the room, then divide headcount by five: that is the square metres you need, minimum, before the stage and the bar.
Most factory halls have no stage, no blackout, no sound beyond a ceiling speaker, and industrial lighting that cannot dim. A production company will bring all of it, but the rig takes hours and the room has to be empty when they arrive.
Visit the venue as though you are driving a truck to it
Production load-in is early morning, often before the site is staffed. The crew needs to know: where the vehicle gate is, whether it takes a three-tonne van, where to unload, how far the carry is, whether there is a loading bay or a ramp, and who opens the building. If the venue is off site, the same questions apply, and the hire contract will specify a load-in window — miss it and you pay for another day.
Find the power. A band and a lighting rig will pull more than a domestic socket can give. The venue will say it has power; what it means is power exists. Ask how many amps, where the distribution board is, and whether the circuit is dedicated or shared with the kitchen. If no one can answer, the crew will need a generator.
If the event is in a tent in the yard, the tent company and the production company are two different conversations, and the tent has to be up before the rig goes in. Book the ground, not the date.
Choose the format, then work backwards from the last person leaving
A sit-down dinner with speeches takes longer to clear than a standing reception. A DJ can pack in an hour; a six-piece band takes two, and if the venue has a noise curfew the music stops before the event feels finished. Map the evening backwards: if load-out has to finish by midnight and the crew needs two hours, the last song plays at ten.
Food is the thing people remember when everything else was fine and the thing they mention when it was not. A factory event has the same expectation as the office party — hot food, dietary options labelled, and enough of it. The catering company will ask for headcount two weeks out; you will not have it, because half the RSVPs come in the last week. Pad the number or accept you will run short.
Decide how the room speaks to a workforce that speaks two languages
If your site is mixed Estonian and Russian, the evening is mixed too. A presenter who works in one language and not the other divides the room in front of everyone. Addresses can be translated live, but that doubles the time and tests patience. If there is a management speech, write it short.
Music is a different problem. A Russian-speaking crowd and an Estonian-speaking crowd do not want the same set, and a band or DJ booked without that conversation will optimise for one and lose the other. The brief is not 'play something for everyone' — it is 'here is the split, plan for it'.
An event that assumes everyone in the company is in the office every day will read as an event for the people in the office. If the production line does not see the CFO often, the evening the CFO speaks at length is not their evening.
Understand what you are actually booking when you book production
Some agencies plan the event, then forward the brief to subcontractors they have never worked alongside — a sound company here, a lighting company there, a separate DJ, all hired for the night. They earn on every line and coordinate by email. If something is wrong on the night, no one in the room works for the person you are speaking to.
Other companies send their own crew: the people who quote are the people who rig, and the same team has built the stage, run the sound and performed together a hundred times. When you call with a question four days out, the person who answers has already walked your venue.
The difference is not price. The difference is what happens when the projector does not talk to the laptop ten minutes before the MD's speech.
After 5 Events is the second kind. The crew writing this guide is the crew in the room.
What to settle before you call anyone
You need: the date, the headcount with honest margin, the venue or the shortlist, and whether the event happens once or twice. You need to know if there are speeches, if there is a presentation, and what the room is expected to do that it does not currently do.
You do not need to have chosen the music, designed the lighting or solved the power. That is the production brief, and it begins with the venue. Send photographs of the space, dimensions if you have them, and the time the crew can access it. Everything else follows from that.