When Kristen Hudgins of TRC Events began planning her annual Christmas in July arts and craft show, she was using a free application that simply wasn’t cutting it. The constant cutting and pasting, inaccuracies, and headaches were pulling her focus from the actual planning of the event – forcing her to spend her time working and reworking a less-than-perfect site map.
Then Kristen discovered OnePlan. She’s now planned four separate events in OnePlan with over 5,000 attendees. Here are five things that have stood out.
1. Infrastructure (especially tents!)
Kristen’s Christmas in July event brings together dozens of artists at a local farm for a day of selling their goods. This requires tents – lots of them!
“We have over 170 tents and exhibitors across the Christmas in July event,” shared Kristen. “The ability to scale the tents and make sure everything is perfectly placed is a great benefit of OnePlan. It’s been a huge time-saver, and I feel more confident in my site map.”
OnePlan allows Kristen to mockup custom tent sizes, ensuring that her site map is accurate down to the inch in both location and scale. This is essential, because miscalculating by even a few inches can mean blocking an exit or overcrowding. OnePlan is precise. Enter exact measurements (imperial or metric) for all event elements in the OnePlan studio.
2. Vendor Management
From tent rentals and food vendors to the dozens of artists that Kristen works with at her Christmas in July event, vendor management is an important part of her process. Fortunately, OnePlan is set up for vendor management. Each item placed on a map has a vendor management section where planners can track information like vendor name, cost, in-and-out date, and availability status. Learn more about managing vendors in OnePlan.
On top of this, the ease of collaborating in OnePlan makes it easy to involve vendors at any stage of the process.
"My vendors very much appreciate how I’m able to involve them in the process. OnePlan makes managing vendors so much easier, having it all in one system.”
Kristen Hudgins
TRC Events
3. Time-Saving
OnePlan has streamlined many processes, saving Kristen tons of time. For instance, OnePlan’s Bill of Quantities tool automatically tallies the items placed on her site map so she can see what infrastructure and items she needs all in one place. It automatically calculates and displays the items she needs to source from suppliers.
Let’s face it, event planning isn’t easy and managing a million moving parts at once can be time-consuming. We all want to be spending our time doing what we do best – making event magic! What we don’t want is to be spending precious hours building sub-par maps or dealing with vendor logistics because we don’t have the tools to save our time and save our client’s money. OnePlan eliminates or simplifies tedious tasks. Event planners save time, allowing them to focus on the more important details.
4. Collaboration
While Kristen is the sole event planner behind TRC Events, collaboration and ease of sharing is still a huge priority for her. She has to keep her clients and vendors in the loop. That’s where OnePlan’s collaboration functionalities have come in handy.
Using OnePlan made collaborating with key stakeholders easier than ever. Before OnePlan, her previous event planning methods had her copying and pasting each element of her event plan to send over to stakeholders to keep them in the loop. OnePlan allows for easy collaboration, and sharing with stakeholders. Sharing relevant people on the plan happens in just one-click, and giving them view-only access means they won’t be able to change anything on the plan. She’s also shared her plan with attendees by using the screengrab function in OnePlan and posting a picture of her plan to her website. Attendees and vendors can easily see the event map and know exactly where to go.
Kristen has a vision for her events, but it’s sometimes difficult to transfer that vision into something concrete to show clients and other stakeholders. With more detailed maps and various ways of viewing, OnePlan has helped Kristen illustrate her ideas in a more exciting and vibrant way allowing for more collaboration in real time.
5. A More Accurate & Detailed Site Map
Parking, restrooms, tents, and vendors are just a few of the elements that need to be illustrated on the Christmas in July site map. With OnePlan, Kristen’s site maps are now more accurate and more detailed. Not only because of her event site planning she’s done in OnePlan but also using the OnePlan’s selection of up-to-date, 2D, HD, aerial and satellite maps to plan your events. Kristen can view and switch between high-resolution maps and images of global locations with multiple options including map, satellite, and black and white mode.
Kristen’s event also has unique items not used at every event, including a fire pit, ring toss games, a petting zoo – each one of these unique items has a bespoke icon in OnePlan. “OnePlan means I can now plan my Christmas event precisely. It’s super accurate which gives me confidence when I get on site,” said Kristen.
Get started using OnePlan for free, or book a 15 minute demo with one of our event planning specialists to start your OnePlan journey.
