You’re hiring a company picnic planning company, but really it’s more like shopping for one. How do you know which company is the right fit for you? What are they like to work with? Can you return it if you don’t like the one you choose? Kidding, of course.
While there is no substitute for experience, these five questions can help you determine who you are about to hire before you actually commit:
- What is your favorite company picnic you’ve ever planned? This question invites the planning company to show what is important to them. What they think was the best part about the picnic may reveal their priorities when it comes to planning an event for your company. It also gives them an opportunity to talk about their strengths in company picnic planning, which may or may not align with your own preferences.
- How many company picnics do you typically plan for a single day? At the height of the season, company picnic planning companies may schedule several events for one day. Weekends can be especially busy, so don’t be surprised if they say more than one happens concurrently. But this question isn’t just about how many events they schedule; it’s also about how they manage the number of events. The company may have 10 or 20 picnics on the agenda, but it’s really whether or not they have enough event operations managers and staff that truly matters. Knowing how many years the company has been in business executing this many picnics on a given weekend is a great clue to their ability to run your event well. Also, getting referrals from existing clients is another great way to check on the company’s ability to execute many events in one day or throughout a business summer season.
- On the actual event day, who will be managing and executing my picnic? When you are talking with an event planner, generally that person oversees a large number of events, managers and staff. It is very common for companies planning many picnics over the summer to rely on an event operations team to manage and execute the events while the event planner and client services work through the event details from sales up until event execution. They key issue is to understand who will the company have for boots on the ground the day of the event? Will these managers and staff be internal members of the company’s fulltime or part-time staff? Will they be the teams executing many events each week with lots of experience in handling the unexpected twists and turns the day of the event? Are the staff paid members of the team or volunteers from a local high school or college who have never run a picnic before? Some planning companies aren’t even local business but companies who hire out a team of volunteers to manage the event. Make sure the managers and staff working your event are paid members of the team with experience and not working that day so their school gets a donation. It makes the event cheaper but generally does not improve the quality of the event and more times than not lowers the event quality. Remember, the old saying – you get what you pay for when it comes to staff on your event.
- How will you make sure people attend my event? For some companies, getting employees to attend the picnic is the biggest challenge. To solve this problem, your company picnic planning company should offer you some ideas on how to increase attendance. After all, they’re the experts – so you shouldn’t have to be.
- Are you insured? Maybe this one seems a little over-the-top, but any company responsible for planning your company picnic needs to be insured. This protects the safety of your employees and guests, and gives you peace of mind to enjoy the event.
Want to try out these questions on a professional?
Windy City Fieldhouse (WCF) Events is Chicago’s #1 company picnic planning company. We work hard to customize corporate events your employees will love, and we do it all year long. Oh, and we don’t shy away from the hard questions, either. Give us a call today at (773) 486-7403 or request a custom quote.
