Planning Tips, Passions & Experiences: Event Teardown

Sorry guys, I missed a blog post yesterday because I was out all day running errands with a bride-to-be and networking with some great ladies.

Last week I discussed event setup and so today I going to talk about what happens after the event is complete, which is called event teardown. It's important to plan your event teardown ahead of time, be efficient and organized. At the end of an event, you want the teardown to be as smooth and easy as possible so that you can clear out quickly and not waste time. The last thing you want after a long and busy event is to be running around trying to determine how everything should be torn down and put away. Just like your event setup, you want to have a detailed plan.

Here are some guidelines for a smooth and organized event teardown:

Create a schedule. Creating a teardown schedule will ensure that all the items are torn down in the most efficient manner. The schedule should include a list of all the items and the associated teardown times. Like I have said before you should expect the unexpected, so make sure you allocate more than enough time to complete each item As you go through each item you should check it off the schedule. Make sure to double check that all items are complete.
Create a floor plan - To have a visual to go along with the schedule, you should review the floor plan that was used for the setup. The floor plan is a great way for you to see the overall vision of the teardown
Create an item check list. To ensure you don't lose any event items and all items are accounted for you should create a thorough checklist of all the items. Make sure to check off each item as you pack it away.
Determine how much help you need. Just like the setup, you will need a lot of of help to teardown. You should definitely determine how much help you need beforehand by reviewing how many items need to be torn down and how long the teardown will take. It's much better to have more than enough people to help than not enough as teardown will take longer and won't be as efficient. If there is any heavy lifting or tall items to take down make sure you have the appropriate staff/volunteers on site to help.
Keep track of time. Most venues would like you to be finished tearing down at a certain time so you need to make sure to keep track of how long everything is taking. If you have planned out everything, you should not be going over your allotted time, unless something unexpected happens (if you have allotted more than enough time, something unexpected happening shouldn't be an issue).
Be careful not to damage the venue. Sometimes during the hustle and bustle of event teardown, the venue property can get damaged. You and your staff/volunteers need to be extra careful not to damage anything because you will lose your venue deposit and may also be charged an additional fee depending on the damage.