After 5 EventsWork backwards from the product date
The launch date is set by product readiness, not venue availability. That makes the timeline different from most corporate events: you are fitting the room and the plan into a window the market gave you, and if the venue you want is booked, the answer is a different venue.
Book the date and confirm headcount first. Eighty people and two hundred people are different events, and the venue list shrinks fast once you pass one hundred. If the guest list includes press or customers flying in, the date has to be final before invitations go out — changing it once people have booked travel turns a product story into an apology.
Venue, then format
Once you have the date, book the venue. In Tallinn, conference venues with the infrastructure a launch needs — reliable power, a screen you can see in half-light, a loading door wide enough for road cases — are spoken for two to three months ahead in peak season. April, May, September and October move faster than summer or winter, because every other marketing team is working the same calendar.
The venue determines format. A glass-walled room in daylight hours is a different event from a basement theatre at seven in the evening. One shows the product under work lights and serves lunch; the other dims to black, lights the reveal, and turns into a reception. Choose the venue that serves the product, not the occasion.
Technical plan six weeks out
The technical plan — lighting, sound, screens, the run of show — should be drawn up six weeks before the event if you are working with an integrated production team, eight weeks if different suppliers are being coordinated separately. This is when you decide whether the product sits on a plinth under a single spot or is shown on a three-metre screen, whether the presenter has a lapel mic and a clicker or reads from a lectern, and whether the livestream is a locked-off wide or a directed two-camera cut.
Agencies that plan and subcontract need that lead time because the lighting company and the AV company and the staging company have not worked in the same room before and will spend the morning of the event discovering how their systems talk to each other. If the same crew is quoting, building and running the technical side, six weeks is workable — they know what fits and what the room does to sound.
This is also when you tell the photographer and the videographer what the lighting will be. A product shot in flat conference lighting looks like a product shot in flat conference lighting, and no amount of retouching fixes it later.
Catering and the final guest count four weeks out
Catering details — menu, dietary requirements, whether service is stationed or passed — lock four weeks before the event when the final guest count is due. The last week before that deadline is when late RSVPs arrive, so plan the menu early and adjust numbers later.
If the format includes a formal presentation followed by a standing reception, decide whether the reception is in the same room or an adjacent space. Same room means the crew has fifteen minutes during a comfort break to reset chairs, bring in the bar, and light the space differently. Adjacent space means the guest flow has to be obvious and the second room has to be ready before the presentation ends.
The last two weeks: the run-sheet
The run-sheet is the minute-by-minute schedule for the day, and it gets written two weeks out once everything else is settled. It includes load-in time, when the technical build finishes, when the client walk-through happens, when guests arrive, the order of the programme, and when the venue has to be cleared.
For a product launch, the run-sheet also names when the product arrives, who is responsible for it, and where it is stored before the reveal. If there is a demonstration — the product being turned on, opened, operated — the run-sheet includes a technical rehearsal with the product in place, not a stand-in.
The week of the event
The final week is not for making decisions. It is for confirming them. The crew does a site visit if the venue is new to them, the AV and lighting plan is drawn to scale, the catering counts are final, and the run-sheet has been shared with everyone who has a cue in it.
Two days before, the client approves the stage layout and the lighting states. The day before, if the venue allows it, the technical build happens and the presenter does a full rehearsal with working mics, live screens and the product in place.
The day itself
On the morning of the event, the crew is on-site four hours before doors if the technical build happened the day before, six hours if it is being built that morning. The organiser does a final walk-through ninety minutes before guests arrive, checks sight lines to the screen, confirms the product is in position, and tests the lighting for the reveal.
During the event, the organiser is not running anything. The crew is running the technical cues, the catering team is running service, and the stage manager is calling the programme. The organiser's job is to be visible to guests, to make introductions, and to watch for the moments that matter — the reaction to the reveal, the questions after the demo, whether the right people are talking to each other during the reception.
What to decide before calling anyone
The crew writing this works for After 5 Events. We build the room, run the technical side, and staff the event from start to pack-down. No subcontractors, no forwarded briefs, no discovering on the morning that two suppliers have never worked together.
Before you call, settle the date and the rough headcount. Those two facts determine whether the event you are planning is possible in the time you have, or whether the timeline has to bend somewhere else.