Event planning

The Conference Planning Checklist

Last updated October 2026.

This checklist is the runbook we use on every event: what happens, in what order, and what each step produces. It is written for a 300 to 3,000 attendee conference with a public web presence, run by a small team.

Step 1: Lock the essentials

Fix the title, dates and venue as soon as the contract allows. Everything downstream, the call for speakers, registration, the website, hangs off these three facts. Create the event record now with the real dates, not a placeholder: a real build makes every later step cheaper.

Step 2: Open the call for speakers

Six to nine months out, publish the application form and share the link. Keep the form to questions you will score, and set a close date you publish. Early, confident speakers drive early, confident ticket sales. Run a call for speakers.

Step 3: Collect speaker info properly

As speakers accept, each one gets a portal link and files their own bio, headshot and links. You approve rather than transcribe. This is where old-school events lose weeks: chasing fifteen people for the same details. Collect speaker bios without chasing anyone.

Step 4: Design the cards and walls once

One template per card type: speaker, sponsor, attendee. Place the fields, save, and rendering is automatic thereafter. The same records feed the walls, so speaker and sponsor surfaces on your website are a byproduct of approved profiles, not a separate design job. Make speaker promo cards.

Step 5: Build the schedule while speakers commit

Create the tracks, then add sessions as acceptances land, linking speakers, sponsors and decks. Publish a first version even if it is partial: a live agenda markets the event better than a perfect draft. Build a conference schedule.

Step 6: Build and publish the website

Section, theme, address, publish. The walls and schedule embeds mean the site is never hand-ported from the event data. Two weeks after opening the CFP you can have a public site that is already selling. Build an event website.

Step 7: Sync registration and attendees

Connect your ticketing so orders become attendee records continuously. Publish the attendee wall when the count justifies it, and let attendees claim their share cards: they are your cheapest marketing channel. Sync attendees from Tito.

Step 8: Run the event week calm

Final edits: retime rooms, approve last decks, republish. At the door, check in from the attendee list. One platform means one last edit, one republish, and the website, app and cards all agree. Embed the schedule and keep it current all week.

Step 9: After the event

The Content Library is already the archive: decks with versions, owners and linked sessions. Export galleries of speakers and attendees for the next announcement. Start next year's event from this one's data, not from zero. Organise decks and make the gallery.