Things to Consider When Choosing A Date For Your Event

featured plan virtual summit 101 May 02, 2023

Regardless of if you are planning a virtual summit, digital conference, or live webinar series, there are many considerations that you need to make when it comes to timing!

Choosing A Date For Your Event

Maybe you're thinking to yourself... choosing a date for your event is simple! You hip out the calendar and point to an open square. You can clearly see you don't have any prior engagements on that date, and as a matter of fact- the whole week is open!

Not so fast... choosing a date is easy.

But choosing the right date is one of those important decisions that can end up making or breaking your event. So it's best to put some thought into this decision and make the most of all the work you'll be putting into your event planning.

Consider These Points When Choosing A Date:

Pick something too soon, and you may not have the time or bandwidth to get everything planned and pulled together.
Pick something too far out and you may procrastinate, lose interest or call the whole thing off because you got tied up on another project.
Pick something that doesn't align well with your speakers and sponsors, and you may not have enough participation or content to actually deliver the value you had in mind.
And if you pick something that conflicts with another event in your niche or even outside your niche that is still reliant on your target audience, then you may not have the registrations or conversions you expected to see for all your hard work.

How I Choose My Virtual Event Dates

As you may know, I'm a paper-and-pen type of gal!

I love to write things out by hand and give my eyeballs a little break from the computer screen every now and then, so any chance I get to grab a notebook or a sack of computer paper and doodle... I'm all for it!

If you're like me, then you'll love this because when I'm choosing my virtual event dates I start with a simple year-view calendar spread, so I can see everything I have planned.

Year View Calendar

You could easily take a piece of paper and split it into 12 boxes.

It's nothing fancy, but I just keep a few printed copies at my desk in a file folder that I can grab when I need to, and it makes everything (especially drawing the straight lines) a little easier. I also found that using the same 'tools' to do routine tasks like picking dates helps me stay focused.

Make Note of Big Events

Okay, once you have your planner or your sheet of paper, take a moment to go through one category at a time and list all the events you can think of in the correct month. Don't worry about getting them in the right date order at this point, the main focus here is to get them on paper.

Your business events
Other big events in your industry
Product/service launch plans
Special sales and promotions
Your vacations and time off
Special occasions and birthdays
Holidays
DE&I Holidays and Observances

Not familiar with Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Holidays, and Special Observances? Check out this DE&I Holidays and Observances Google Calendar curated and produced by Liza Wisner, Global Talent Development Expert and Enterprise Curator of DE&I at OpenSesame. You can subscribe and add it to your Google calendar, which will help you stay up to date on these events as well as make sure you're keeping them in mind when picking your date!

Now, don't get me wrong this is a lot to think about.

But do yourself a favor a put in this work at the beginning of thinking through the logistics of planning and hosting a virtual event, so you don't have conflicts later and feel like you've overbooked yourself.

I Love To Say Yes To Events!

But doing so, means I have to make sure they line up and fit well with everything else happening in my life outside of work. Planning a virtual job fair that hits on my twin's birthday almost happened once when I was in the middle of a conference call and dates were being thrown out.

If I hadn't had my little event date planner in front of me with a big pink and blue heart around their birthday- I may have said yes and they may have had a cow!

So write down all the special events you think of, and decide which ones you can work around and which ones you can't. Once you see what you already have planned, where you have space and where you absolutely do not, it will help you ultimately decide where a virtual event can fit in best.