Event Sponsor Checklist

This document contains tasks that are useful when you're sponsoring an event and have a booth with staff at the venue.

Before the event

• Write down what the goal is for sponsoring the event and inform everyone involved about this goal.
• Check if the event has a Code of Conduct (CoC) with contact information.
• Sign up to sponsor the event.
• Pay for the sponsorship.
• Order additional booth equipment (monitors) or furniture (tables/desks/laptop stands).
• Order laptops/tablets for demos/presentations.
• Design & order a booth backdrop or roll-up banner.
• Design datasheets/flyers to handout at the booth.
• Order paper datasheets/flyers. Or choose the environmental consious option and use QR codes at the booth.
• Design & order stickers.
• If you have datasheets/flyers/stickers: order display stands for these so your booth stays tidy.
• Create a slide deck or video to play on a big monitor at the booth (or do something fun and create a game!).
• Find & order sustainable swag or prizes to give away at the booth.
• Decide what is the Best Next Step for a booth visitor once they talked to you? Do you point them to your website, do you want them to book a meeting? Prepare a document with QR codes or create an online form to facilitate these Best Next Steps.
• Prepare a Know Before You Go document and share this with the people who will staff the booth.
• Send calendar invites to the booth staff so they know when they should be at the booth. Include a link to the Know Before You Go doc).
• Set up lead scanning. Can the default scoring/questions be changed?
• Label all the hardware that you'll bring to the booth with company name / email. Ensure everything is insured.
• If the booth staff are staying overnight, schedule a team dinner for them.
• Setup a group chat for the booth staff using your fav communication tool that everyone has on their phone. Use this to quickly get in touch with each other.
• Things to bring to the event: breath mints, toothbrush, pain killers, blister patches, band aids, Dextro energy tablets.

Know Before You Go document

The Know Before You Go (KBYG) document contains practical information for everyone staffing the booth.

• Contains links to:
  • Event website
  • Google Maps of the venue location
  • Code of Conduct of the event
• Contact details of event organizers, sponsor/technical support, code of conduct team.
• The booth schedule: who will be on the booth, on which days including start and end times.
  • Include when the breaks between sessions are, since those are the busiest times at the booth.
  • Who will set up the booth?
  • Who will break down the booth?
  • Who will pick up and return the lead scanner?
• Prepare a script how to start a conversation when attendees stop by the booth.
  • Questions to find out if the attendee is part of your target audience.
  • Concrete examples of how your product/service is helping organizations. Use specific numbers to indicate increase in efficiency or reduction in cost.
• Describe the Next Best Steps for your audience.

During the event

• Pick up the lead scanner.
• Set up the booth backdrop / roll-up banner.
• Prepare the booth with datasheets/flyers/stickers/swag.
• Talk to people who show interest. Don't harrass people just to get more badge scans. Be kind and act how you would like to be approached. Use the script(s) from the KBYG doc and use the Best Next Steps that are suitable for the attendees.
• Drink water and stay hydrated.
• Take lots of pictures. Ask for consent if these pictures include event attendees. Share the pictures on social media during the day or immediately after.

After the event

• Write an Event Report that summarizes the event.
• Give feedback to the event organizers based on the event report.
• Send post-event social messages thanking the organizers and attendees. Include some of the pictures.
• If relevant sessions have been recorded on video, share them via social media once they are published.

Event Report document

Questions to answer in an event report:

• Was the goal that you set met?
• What went well?
• What didn't go well?
• What are concrete improvement points for next time?
• How many datasheets/stickers/swag were ordered. Was this enough?
• What was the overal cost of sponsoring?
• Is it worth sponsoring this event again?

Contributing to this checklist

Do you have more tasks that can be included in this list? Submit a PR please! 🙏