Hosting your very OWN Biznik event, Part 3
This is the third installment in a multi-part blog spelling out the ins and outs of hosting your very OWN Biznik event.
This series comes of the tail of a great event hosted by Joe Shirley, Dominic Canterbury, co-founder, Dan McComb and myself called ‘How to Host a Biznik Event’ earlier this month.
Hosting Your Very OWN Biznik Event, Part 1 answered the question: What exactly is a Biznik event?. Part 2 talked about exactly What kind of event YOU can host.
This post will go through the web form and comment on How to choose a date, a venue, a time and a title.
I’ll leave the lengthy, What to include in your description for part 4; and discuss What to charge, What materials to bring, and What pre-event communication and post event follow-up should you have in later posts.
PART 3
So now you know that Biznik events are put on by members who have something to share with the community.
You know what qualifies and what doesn’t.
You know WHY you’d want to host one and what exactly YOU’LL get out of it.
You understand the 95/5 rule.
And you’ve thought about all the different things you have to offer that could somehow be worked into an event.
It’s time to look at the tools.
First, a recap of the four types of Biznik events:
If you’re ready to host an event, you’ll need to visit the Events page and click on ‘Create an Event’. You’ll be given a form and will need to provide the following:
Choosing a date.
First, consider the culture of your community. In Seattle people prefer to hang with friends on Thursday, Friday & Saturday nights. Sunday nights folks stay home and get ready for the week. Saturday & Sunday days are often reserved for home & family time. That leaves Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday evenings for business networking. You’re welcome to host an event at any time, just keep these generalities in mind.
That may not be the case in your neck of the woods. We recently learned from a UK Biznik that in London, most people take off work early on Fridays and spend time with their work chums. If you’re an indie, you might not have a group of chums to hang with and therefore might be very interested in attending a Biznik event on a Friday evening.
Second, consider other scheduled Biznik events being hosted in your area. If three or four events are scheduled the same week you’re looking at, you might unknowingly force people to choose another event over yours. Consider waiting a week.
Choosing a venue.
First, consider the location of your target audience. If you live/work 45 minutes out of the city and are hosting an event that would appeal to a large group of people who live/work inside the city, you may draw less participants than if you made the commute into where the majority of the people are.
Next, consider the atmosphere, the venue’s regular clientele if applicable, and other events that venue might host. If possible, check out the place at the time and on the day of the week you’re considering, to see if it fits.
Dan and I once found a great space close to where we live. It had a large board table and parking and was free. What we failed to cess out ahead of time was that the African import store next door taught drumming classes at 7pm on Tuesday nights.
You’ll want a place that is easy to find, has low ambient noise, and has a layout that is conducive to your type of event - whether that’s a lecture style workshop, a small round-table type discussion, or an open and casual social networking.
Types of venue’s used so far have included cocktail lounges, coffee shops, community centers, and the board rooms of members who work for or rent office space from larger companies. With rare exception, Biznik events may not be held in private residences.
We have been surprised by the following free options: rooms in community centers and libraries, meeting spaces in the back of some coffee shops, courtyards and little nooks at some cocktail lounges.
If you’re planning to host more than 8 people in a public venue, we recommend calling the manager ahead of time and letting them know that you are coming. Some lounges we’ve called have asked for a credit card upfront or insisted on only one tab. We have chosen not to use these places. Not only are we bringing business to them and advertising their place in the events calendar, but we are showing them the courtesy of letting them know ahead of time that we would like to come. It seems unreasonable to us that they would then ask us to jump through hoops.
If you need help finding a venue, would like suggestions of where to look, or have an idea for a place you’d like to bounce off of us - shoot either Dan or I, Lara a message or a call. (We are compiling a list of free and low cost venues used in the past and will publish that on the events page.)
Choosing a time.
Though many of us are self employed, most people work regular hours and might now finish with clients or projects until 6 or so. Traffic in Seattle is getting worse and so we generally recommend starting educational events at 7. Happy Hours are more casual and we’ll put a 6:30 time on those, inviting people to drop by at any time.
With the exception of the social Happy Hours that are often attended by over 40 people and will stretch beyond midnight, an evening Biznik event should last about 2-2.5 hours. If you list your start time at 7pm and provide a 15 minute buffer for light conversation and excess traffic, you could finish up with introductions by 7:30 and finish your presentation by 9:30. Question/answer periods can go longer and some people will linger talking with one another, but most people will want to get out of there before 10.
Choosing a catchy title.
Think of something descriptive and catchy - don’t get too wordy. As the list of events grows, people will spend more time scanning through the titles lightly and you’ll need to hook your audience. Scroll down the Events page and scan the list of archived events to get ideas for titles used in the past.
That’s enough for today. This is the end of Part 3.
Since Biznik’s birth less than a year ago 30 members have hosted events - with the exception of Glennette Clark’s Happy Hour occurring tonight in Washington DC, and David Amann’s Happy Hour in San Francisco last April, those members are all in the Seattle area.
I want to hear from you about your experience hosting an event and find out from Bizniks outside Seattle what would entice you to host an event in YOUR town.
Check back for the lengthy, What to include in your description and a discussion on what to charge, what materials to bring, what pre-event communication should you have, and post event follow up in the next couple posts of the Hosting your very OWN Biznik event.