How to brief an events agency (without wasting six weeks)
Most event briefs leave out the three things that actually decide whether the project succeeds. Here's what to include and what to leave out.
We get around a dozen serious event briefs a month. Maybe two are good. The rest either say too much about the wrong things or leave out the three questions we'd need to answer before we can be useful.
Here's the short version of what makes a useful brief.
Start with the outcome
Not the format. Not the venue. The outcome. What does success look like the morning after? Press coverage? Pipeline conversations? Quiet acknowledgements from the principal? A video that lives on the homepage for a year?
The outcome determines everything downstream. Budget goes to the thing that delivers it. Other things get cut.
Tell us who's in the room
Not "200 VIP guests". Who actually? Partners of the firm? Journalists from three specific titles? Private clients from a named book? We can only design an experience if we know who we're designing it for.
Say what you're worried about
Every event has a risk the client isn't saying out loud. The CEO who never does live speeches and the brief is built around a 20-minute keynote. The budget that's half what the last one cost. The donor who pulled out two weeks ago. Tell us. We'll plan for it.
Don't send a brief that could be for any event
If your brief could be sent to three agencies and they'd each interpret it the same way, the brief isn't sharp enough. Specificity is a discipline. The more specific the brief, the better the work that comes back.