Party and event planning business

Start with nothing, gain a lot!

• Written by  Olaoluwa Mimiola

WHO does not like a great party? Many 

people, among those who want a great 

party, prefer handing it over to an expert, 

as that will enable them to achieve their 

plan for a great event and also relieve them 

of the burden of planning. A beautiful venue, 

fantastic music and the best of food, planning 

events is a good business.
Event packaging and management business  includes management, design, planning, coordination 

and promotion. Events can be classified into four broad categories, based on their purpose and 

objective: Leisure e.g. sport, music, recreation; Cultural e.g. ceremonial, religious, art, heritage; 

Personal e.g. weddings, birthdays, anniversaries; and Organisational e.g. commercial, political, 

charitable, sales, product launches and expositions.

Start up cost
Capital is not a threat for whoever wants to venture into the business. You can start with just a 

pen, paper and your personality. That does not undermine the place of capital in every business,

as having a good capital will help a great deal. And no amount is too big for the business, depending 

on the scale you want to run the business.

Who is an ideal planner?
To begin a career in party planning and events management, you must have a genuine interest 

in the industry, be charismatic, a good communicator and level-headed. You need to be able to 

remain calm under pressure and be a good leader. According to the Chief Executive Officer of 

Event Decorators, London, Mrs Abimbola Ashade, “to be successful in party planning and events, 

you don’t need a lot of assets to work, as much of your asset is your intellect and personality, 

and by extension, a telephone and a computer set.”

The party planner is a special mix. On the one hand, you have to be extraordinarily organised 

in order to juggle all the logistical elements of a range of projects; on the other hand, there’s 

the creative imperative, for which you need a completely different skill set. And on top of all that, 

it really helps if you are ‘bubbly and outgoing’.

Learning
Learning the basics in the business is continuous. Any form of formal education and/or training 

in it will be a huge advantage.

Planning and research
Do as much research and be as passionate about the events industry as you can. You are up 

against well-seasoned professionals who haven’t got enough work to go around. You need to be 

very clear on the area in which you want to run events. First, determine which events you will run, 

then break down whose parties you will plan, and finally, decide on the style you’re going to have 

as a business, because in event management, you need to tailor everything to your target audience.
Specialise in a niche and stick to it. Because there is tremendous competition in every single area 

you can dream of, and unless you are the best in that field, there’s not much chance of you doing 

well or surviving.

Costs and potential earnings
The needs of your clients, your contacts and relationship with venues and suppliers, and making 

a list of contacts to get good rates in printing, among others, will help in reducing your running 

cost. Your supplier costs will dictate your pricings for the most part. Just how low you can swing 

your venue rentals and printing costs will also depend on your contacts. Your overheads, if you are 

working on your own, could be as little as the cost of a phone line, and a website, if you can afford

it.
Marketing and promotions are considerations too. The biggest costs in big companies are in staff 

and you shouldn’t have to worry too much about that during the early days. One well packaged 

event witnessed or heard by the right people, time and chance will earn you an enviable financial 

breakthrough in the business.

Reputation and marketing
As with all industries, word of mouth is key. In this digital age, word-of-mouth includes online 

social networks too. Twitter and Facebook pages should form part of your portfolio of marketing 

efforts. Link your pages to your own site or blog: this will feed traffic to your site, improve your 

search rating.

No matter how successful your online campaign is, however, at the end of the day you can’t 

really buy reputation with advertising, but by running a number of successful events and building 

up good relationships in the industry, and your reputation will soon tower over your competitors.

You can as well do trial runs. Most of this will be free. Be meticulous and do it as if you have 

been paid millions for it, and get the free clients to recommend you to at least three people. 

Offer good incentives to whoever recommends you. Before you know it, you will have the crème 

de la crème on your client list, and millions of naira will start rolling into your account.

Event planning is leisure turned gold for me - Abimbola Ashade

MRS Abimbola Ashade, the Chief Executive 

Officer of Event Decorators, Canary Wharf, 

London, is an ardent believer in the saying 

that whatever you find natural and easy to 

do is your predestined profession, and you 

cannot, but succeed doing it. The Mass 

Communication graduate of The Polytechnic, 

Ibadan and United Kingdom-trained computer 

scientist and interior designer, was once 

organising events for friends, churches for 

free. It was this interest that led her into the world of event planning and management. What she 

considered her natural interest and leisure, according to her, has become gold for her, making and 

giving her a voice in the industry in the United Kingdom.

“I realised I enjoyed planning and decorating: so I ended up starting event planning and decoration 

service, while my study of interior design has helped with project management and designing event 

space.

“I left computer software job four years ago, to pursue event planning and management which is 

my passion and is capable of giving me the most satisfaction and live balance. I’ve handled a lot 

of events for both private and corporate organisations, which have in turn earned me more material 

wealth. The business has also earned me good friends, life lessons, good reputation, and also 

made me closer to God,” Ashade disclosed.

Comparing the market abroad to Nigeria’s, Ashade said: “The scale of events is mostly bigger in 

Nigeria but can be chaotic. Even large scale events abroad are broken down and micro managed

 in an orderly manner. The similarity in events in both worlds is still the fundamentals whether it is 

a wedding or the Olympics. Yet I’ll say that it’s a lucrative and satisfying business to venture into.”

She revealed that the market for the business is not limited to planning and managing event alone, 

but it also extends to training potential event planners.
“I plan, manage and promote events, and also teach whoever plans to venture into the business.”

Success Nugget
The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of 

knowledge, but rather a lack of will. - Vince Lambardi

Source: Tribune