Once you have received responses from the bulk of the speakers you contacted, determine the structure and order of the presentations. If there are many speakers, group the speeches by topic and put them in parallel streams.
To avoid competition between speakers, place the headliners in the large room so that there are no presentations in other rooms at the same time. Otherwise, all guests will go to the main speaker, and the parallel speeches will be left without listeners.
Add a block with practical master classes to the program. This will increase the value of the conference and interest more representatives of the target audience.
Provide a lunch break and breaks between presentations. During this time, guests can socialize, discuss the presentations, and grab a bite to eat.
If you are organizing a conference for more than one hundred people, a good solution is to split the lunch time into different streams. This way you will avoid queues in the dining rooms and dissatisfied guests.
Keep a balance when planning the program: guests should not get bored or tired of sitting too long, but you don’t want to give them too much free time either.
Do not make the program too long. People’s ability to absorb new information is limited: five to six hours for the entire conference, taking into account the breaks, will be enough.
Keep in mind in the timing that guests may be delayed at registration, and you will start later. To avoid pushing back the start of the presentations, allow time for the opening of the conference, so that late guests will be in time for the first presentation. You can delay the opening by ten minutes, no longer.
Do not artificially stretch the timing of speeches, thereby delaying the announced time of the next speaker. It is possible to shift the start time and shorten the opening time of the conference, but not the presentation time.
This is due to the fact that some participants may arrive later to get to specific speakers. If the timing is shifted, you will waste your guests’ time. For a serious business format event, this is unacceptable.