Banquet Dinners

Well Everyone, hope your all doing well.  Time for another event run down!  Last night was the A. Robert Rainville Leadership awards banquet for the university of rhode island.  I was not involved with planning this one, but did receive the award for outstanding student leadership.

I had a great time at this banquet and thought I would tell you how to plan one! 

First: why would you plan a banquet?  You could do it as a celebration (to close out a year, acknowledge seniors, or executives who might be leaving) or you could do it as a fundraiser.  To hold this event as a fundraiser the primary difference would be to charge each person who comes for a ticket.

Step One:
Pick a date:  Avoid holidays, or days that have other big things happening (superbowl for instance).  Have some back up dates in case you have trouble finding a location.

Step Two:
Reserve a Venue:  Consider size.  A fundraiser would likely require a larger area, a celebration is often more intimate.  Think of your expected attendance.  Some dinner Venues require you to use their catering services.  Compare prices and menus.  Find something that works for your budget.  Also consider tech needs.  If you would like to have a slide show or some other form of entertainment, you would like to ensure that your venue is equipped to handle it. 

Step Three:
Menu:  This can be done two ways.  You can have buffet style, or a more formal style in which the guests are served.  In either case remember to offer vegetarian options and to ask quests to inform you if they have any food allergies.  You can offer one main option and a vegetarian, or more.  Find what fits into your budget. 

Step Four:
Guests List:  You need to decide who is coming, and what your cap is.  For a celebration banquet this is much easier.  You just invite the organization and any special guests and work on an RSVP function.  Invitations should be going out as early as possible in order to give people to time respond and clear schedules.  I recommend a month at least.  I also recommend having the menu prepared at this time so that you will be able to inform guests of prices (if there is one) and to ask which option they prefer for a meal choice.  When doing this for a fundraiser your approach could take two paths.  You could invite past donors, members of a certain community etc... What this means is that there is a set number if invitees and who ever responds from that will be your guests (you may want to put a cap on how many guests each invitee is allowed to bring.  Even if you don't you should request to know if they are bringing anyone, how many, and what their dinner choice would be as well).  The second way to do this is to keep it an open event.  This would mean that you advertise to the general public and a larger less specific audience.  You would manage this by having a registration deadline and by limiting the amount of people that you allow to rsvp.  IE (first 150 people).


So these are your first few steps to planning a successful banquet dinner.  I have to run for now, but there is a bit more that you need to do.  Step 5
is going to be designing your programming and that's a big one, so we'll talk about it next time.  Time to go celebrate, have a good rest of the week everyone! TTFN!