everything you need to know: the Gala Event Checklist
From planning low-key small-scale events, whipping up a levelled-up large-scale version is stressful. Like seeing the world with a brand-new pair of eyes, it’s like starting all over again with zero knowledge. But we know you can do it and we’re here to help you focus on the *end goal* without losing your mind. We prepared this quick and easy-to-follow Gala Event Checklist for whatever concept you might have.
Understanding Gala Events
Gala Events are usually private social gatherings hosted to entertain guests and celebrate certain milestones. Performances are also often included and the decor is just as prestigious as possible. Often, these are also hosted for non-profit and fundraising to help certain charitable or any community causes.
Since this is an event led by non-profit organizations, major sponsors usually extend assistance for catering, decor, and so on. But securing financial commitments can be a lot harder in real life so more than organizing, galas can be quite a whirlwind if you look at it.
The Any Day & Concept Ultimate Gala Event Guide
1. Event Vision and Mission
Before getting the ball rolling, it’s important to access and align first with the intention for the gala. Doing this can help you make the right decisions and plan seamlessly along the way. Ask yourself (or better with the team) to clearly state the event’s vision (how you see the organization should be in the future) and mission (what you want to achieve and contribute to the community). But more than this, continuously asking why can help you determine your purpose which can help you also come up with a communication strategy that encourages others too.
2. Budgeting, Ticket-selling, and Fundraising
Once you finalized the event vision and mission, you can finally start asking for the event budget to see how much room you need to wiggle into and make necessary efforts to secure sponsorships if needed. It’s also the perfect time to plan ahead the ticket-selling — how much each ticket will be and how many tickets you’ll be offering.
For the fundraising part, you can explore possible gimmicks such as giving a raffle price to certain winners from the raffle draw. Besides this, winners can be given to the last ticket buyer until the cutoff — so they can race towards the end and create a friendly competition that can further raise the pot money for the cause.
3. Securing Sponsorships
Are there a few members who are financially capable and might be willing to extend support for the gala? How about external organizations or businesses that may benefit or relate to the cause you’re raising funds for? Take a moment to list down people or companies that might be interested to secure sponsorship. Once done, you can prepare a persuasive letter of intent and invitation for the gala — hoping for their favourable support.
At the same time, you can also schedule meetings to personally discuss this further. Setting this is also ideal since you can handle objections and gracefully convince them to support the gala in another way (if the proposal is not possible).
4. Finalizing the Theme and Choosing a Venue
Now that you secured financial or in-good commitments for the gala you’re hosting, it’s finally time to take a look at the budget you prepared earlier and see if you reached your budget goal. In case yes, you can now work on finalizing the theme and choosing where to host the event.
There are a lot of venues within Toronto but choose somewhere it’s spacious and convenient for your guests. At the same time, it’s also good to check if the venue have partner vendors you can tap for other party needs. They often have a recommended caterer, decorator, and entertainment companies you can explore. This helps you save time and budget too.
5. Coordinating with Essential Vendors
But in case the venue has no vendor affiliations, you can still work on your own and look for potential partners you can secure for the event. There’s Kace Catering for amazing food in luxurious presentation without the splurging part (they also work with specific diet restrictions too).
At the same time, VintageBash and Too Perfect Events can help you with event ideation and decoration. For flower arrangements and full-on huge installations, Flower Bash can help you and deliver fantastic arrangements suitable to your event concept. Usually, you can also work with a coordinator who can communicate and align all vendors to deliver and execute the agreement within the agreed time.
6. Program and Entertainment Planning
Now that all essentials are covered, another important element in the ultimate gala event checklist is entertainment and program. You can plot what you perceive to happen on the big day and insert neceddary entertainment options to fill on the gaps and keep your guests happy.
For intimate social cocktail events, a live classic band can be a good idea. They can play over the background and guests can simply carry over their conversations and have a fun time. However, you can also get full-on guest performances if there’s a stage available — remember to keep it wholesome and professional.
7. All Hands on Deck
Of course, we know you can’t pull this off all alone. You need to hire more people or get volunteers who can man the registration, help with crowd control, and any potential event needs your guests might encounter. Have an early orientation of the team and ensure to brief them on their roles and what to do in case issues arise along the way.
After all, thinking about the potential scenarios can help you have a gameplan and keep the event running as smoothly and successful as possible. Executing this properly can also secure more sponsorships and connections for future events too.
Gala Event Checklist You Can Use
1. Diamond Mind Event Checklist
2. Go Big Event
3. Evite Gala Event Checklist You’ll Ever Need
4. Checklist For Any Events Planning
5. Turn2Us Event Planning Guide
