How to plan a conference
A conference is many events happening at once: keynotes, parallel tracks, an expo floor, sponsor obligations, catering and registration, all running on the same clock in the same building. That's what makes conferences harder to plan than a single-track event, and it's also where planning tends to break down: a great agenda undermined by a registration system that can't handle a rush of last-minute sign-ups, or a sponsor promised expo traffic that never materializes because the schedule didn't build in breaks near their booths. This guide is for whoever owns the whole event, not just one track, and it breaks the work into a timeline you can actually manage, from the first theme decision through to teardown.
The Event70 Team · 3 min read
- 1
Set theme, date and venue (4 to 6 months out)
Pick a theme specific enough to shape your speaker pitch, your marketing angle and your session topics, not just a broad industry label everyone uses. Confirm a venue four to six months out, since venues with the right mix of a main stage, breakout rooms and expo space book up early, and check that it fits your expected headcount with real room to spare for expo traffic and hallway conversation between sessions.
- 2
Open the call for speakers and build the agenda
Source speakers early through a genuine open call plus direct outreach to people you actually want on stage, since the best speakers get multiple conference invitations and commit to the ones that ask first. Once submissions come in, map sessions into tracks and balance each track for level and topic across the day, so at every time slot attendees have at least one session genuinely relevant to why they came.
- 3
Launch registration and ticketing
Stand up a registration page with clear ticket tiers and dates people can actually understand at a glance, then track sign-ups daily against your venue capacity and catering minimums as numbers come in, not just at the end. A registration curve that spikes right before your early-bird deadline is normal; a flat one two months out is an early warning sign worth acting on rather than hoping it corrects itself.
- 4
Sign sponsors and plan the expo
Sell sponsorships against real, current attendee numbers rather than optimistic projections, since sponsors will hold you to whatever figure closed the deal. Design the expo floor layout and the day's break schedule together, not separately, so sponsors actually get the foot traffic they paid for: breaks routed through the expo, not around it, and enough break time that people linger instead of rushing straight back to their seats.
- 5
Confirm production, AV and recording
Lock staging, sound, screens and recording separately for every room running sessions, not just the main stage, since a breakout room with bad audio undermines a session as fast as a keynote would. Multi-track means multiple simultaneous AV setups, so confirm each one with a single named point of contact you can reach directly during the event, rather than a general vendor number that routes to whoever picks up.
- 6
Build the master run of show
Create one master run of show that shows the whole day at a glance, plus a detailed sheet per room with owners and durations for that room's specific sessions. Breaks and room changes are where conferences fall behind fastest, because a session running five minutes over in one room delays the next session's start in every other room too. Time transitions tightly and build a few minutes of buffer into each one.
- 7
Brief volunteers and run the day
Brief room hosts and volunteers on their slots, their room's schedule and what to do if a session runs long, then run the day from a live run of show so every room stays on time together instead of drifting apart independently. Assign one floating producer whose only job is to walk between rooms and unblock problems in real time. Everyone else owns a station; the floater owns the gaps between them, which is where conferences actually break down.
See it in Event70
RSVPs
- JAJordan Avery+2confirmed
- SPSam Patel+1confirmed
- RCRobin Cho+1pending
- DNDevi Nair0declined
Event70 turns this into a working plan: a live run of show, an assignable checklist, RSVPs, a budget and the day-of, all on one event.
Frequently asked questions
How far in advance should I start planning a conference?
Four to six months out for a mid-size conference, mainly to secure a venue with the right mix of main stage, breakout rooms and expo space, and to give your speaker call time to attract good submissions. Larger conferences with hundreds of attendees or well-known keynote speakers often need six to nine months. Speakers and sponsors both commit earlier to conferences that reach out to them first.
How do I keep multiple tracks running on schedule at the same time?
Build a master run of show for the whole day plus a separate detailed sheet per room, all built from the same start time and synced breaks, so tracks realign at each break instead of drifting further apart across the day. Assign a floating producer whose only job is moving between rooms to catch problems early, and give every room host a clear, rehearsed process for what to do if a session runs long.
How much expo traffic should I promise sponsors?
Promise what your schedule can actually deliver, not a hopeful estimate. Route breaks physically through the expo floor rather than around it, and make breaks long enough, generally twenty to thirty minutes, that attendees have time to actually stop at a booth instead of just walking past on their way to the next session. Sponsors judge the event by foot traffic they can see, so design for it deliberately.
What's the biggest scheduling risk specific to conferences versus single-track events?
Cascading delays across rooms. A single-track event absorbs a late start by shifting everything after it; a multi-track conference has to keep several rooms synced to the same break and lunch times, so one session running long in one room can throw off attendees trying to switch tracks in every other room. Tight, buffered transitions between sessions are what prevent this from compounding across the day.
How to write a run of show
A run of show is the minute-by-minute script that runs your event. Here is how to build one that holds up on the day, step by step, with a free template.
Read 5 stepsThe event planning checklist
A practical event planning checklist organized by how many weeks out you are, from first booking to the day of, so nothing slips through the cracks.
Read 7 stepsHow to budget for an event
How to build an event budget that survives contact with reality: the line items to include, tracking estimated vs actual, and where costs quietly hide.
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