Updated: August 2023
We are here to help answer the most common question we get –
“How do I become an event planner?”
If you have wondered the same thing you are in the right place.
First, I recommend you watch this video, then continue reading below.
Becoming an event planner can a confusing topic. You will find all the information you need to do what you love below.
Do you want to learn how to start with no money? Keep reading.
Do you need help figuring out how to price your services? Keep reading.
Do you want to get paying clients? Keep reading.
These are all very important.
It’s not as difficult or complicated as you think if you learn from the right places.
We can teach you step-by-step how to become an event planner.
Keep reading and we’ll teach you.
Getting Started
The first thing to do is decide which type of event planner you want to become.
Which types of events you are most passionate about?
The best way to learn which part of event planning you want to pursue is to know the two main categories of the events industry:
1. Social Planners
Social planning includes:
- weddings
- birthdays parties
- anniversaries
- holidays
- baby showers
- reunions
- bar mitzvahs
2. Corporate Planners
Corporate planning includes:
- meetings
- company events
- seminars
- conventions
- associations
- charities
The first thing to do is figure out which of these two categories you enjoy more.
While there are ways to become successful doing both categories of events we recommend you master one category first before expanding to the other.
How Can You Become An Event Planner?
You have three options to getting involved in the planning industry.
Option 1: Starting your own planning business.
You can take our comprehensive course on starting your own business by clicking here.
It has a 5 Star Rating and answers many of the most commonly asked questions:
- What are the first steps to becoming an event planner?
- How to start with no money?
- How do you get clients?
- How do you know how much to charge for my services?
- How do you know if you’re charging enough money?
- What is the best way to market my business?
- Do I need an event planning degree / certification?
- Plus much more
This course also has over 20 free bonus templates for event planning contracts, client proposals, business plans, budget worksheets, target client questionnaires and more.
If you’re not ready to purchase the $47/mo course, then lets talk more about starting your own business here.
By now you know that you should decide whether being a social planner or a corporate planner is more appealing to you.
Once you have this figured out it’s time to create your marketing plan so you can get clients. The goal is to get your first 1 – 3 clients within one month of reading that article (it provides so many great ideas to get clients that all you have to do is implement the marketing strategies that appeal the most to you.)
A few great places to get your first customers are:
- Asking your friends or family if they need a birthday or wedding planned. Either volunteer your services or charge them a very low amount in exchange for the ability to put on an event and build up your portfolio. You should also ask them for a testimonial after the event which you will use in your client presentation decks, on your website and in your event proposals. Be sure to take lots of photos of your event so you get to start building a portfolio for future clients.
- Yelp – Yelp is still a great place for local businesses to get new clients. The key to getting clients on Yelp is to get 10 positive reviews. It sounds like a big number but it’s really not. If you ask your friends, family and past clients that you’ve done events for to leave you a review, that will get you off to a great start. Trust me when I say that after you get 10 positive reviews on Yelp, you start to really move up the rankings when a visitor searches “Your City Event Planner”. One of our students who ranks #1 for her city in event planning on Yelp makes over $20,000 per month just from Yelp clients alone.
- Craigslist – excellent place to put an ad in the services section and see who contacts you. You’ll want to spend a good amount of time crafting your ad and remember that on Craigslist you want a nice, organized ad but you don’t want it looking too much like a template or too professional. Ads that do best on Craigslist tend to be very straight forward and not fancy.
- WeddingWire – if you specialize in weddings then placing your business listing on WeddingWire or theknot are still great places to list yourself. Just like with Yelp, you want to get some positive reviews on your profile.
Other things you must learn to start a successful planning business are:
- How to price your services. (click here to learn about pricing)
- How to receive deposits and payments (get 50% deposit at the time of the contract signing and the remainder a few days prior to event). (click here to learn about this point)
- How to build a good team around you.
- How to write proposals.
- Creating a network of the best vendors.
Option 2: You can get a job as an event planner.
If starting your own business is not right for you yet, then you can look into getting a job as an event planner for a venue or a vendor.
Many medium to large-size companies hire their own event planners. Common companies who have planners on staff are hotels, restaurants, concert venues, nightclubs and television studios.
In this role you would be responsible for things like:
- Holiday parties
- Retreats
- Board meetings
- Stockholder meetings
- Award ceremonies
- Executive trips
- Trade shows
- Conventions
- Client entertainment and
- Seminars
The nice thing about being an in-house event planner is you get a good budget to spend on each event. And you already have built-in clients without having to get them on your own. But you don’t have the freedom to use your own creativity to make an event beautiful and you don’t benefit from keeping 100% of the profit from your events.
Another good idea is to work for a vendor. By working for a vendor like a catering company, floral shop, decor rentals, etc you get to see how events function without competing with hundreds of other people for the few in-house event planner jobs available.
Getting an internship or volunteering as an event planner for a short time are also amazing opportunities to learn.
To get a job as a planner at a company you can be qualified if you have an existing college degree in event planning, hospitality management, marketing, communication, or tourism. If you do not have a college degree in one of those, we do not recommend jumping into getting that degree immediately.
You can still land a great job as a planner without a degree.
Taking an at-home course or even a few classes at your local community college can qualify you to land a job.
Volunteering
Volunteer or charity experience can land you a job as well. It really comes down to understanding the industry, being able to creatively put on nice events, negotiate good rates with high quality vendors, and having a portfolio of work that you can impress your future boss with.
The key to starting out with volunteering is to not settle for any role as a volunteer. Make sure you take on a meaningful role that you will be able to learn in or that you can use photos for your portfolio.
For example – if you volunteer at a marathon in your local city, don’t just be the event check-in person. You want to be part of the event planning committee. That’s where you’ll network with the right people and let your creative work be seen.
Let’s Recap Some Resources For You So Far
- Become An Event Planner Course – If you prefer a home study course about becoming an event planner and starting your own business then click here. This course is $47/mo.
- Private Group for Event Planners – Excellent resource of a close community of event planner’s who are working on growing their business and helping each other.
- Event Planning School – If you are still interested in classroom classes, you can search for colleges near you that have event planning degrees here.
Option 3: You can get a job with an event planning company.
The last section talked all about getting a job as an event planner at a non-event planning company.
Now we’ll talk about getting a job at an event planning company.
A planning company can give you valuable experience to build up your career. The reason is because everyone you will be around is already an experienced event planner.
You can learn so much from being around people who really know what they are doing and are successful at it.
One of our common recommendations is that every prospective event planner find a mentor. An important criteria for the mentor is for them to be 10 years ahead in experience of where you currently are.
The chances of you finding excellent mentors at an event planning company are very high.
In order to get this type of job, you should get your resume ready. Be sure its organized, clean and stands out. Planning agencies highly value creativity and organization so be sure to make your resume creative and different than others.
One way to do so is to buy a nice template online and create a really snazzy PDF version of your resume. These stand out very well!
Another idea is to create a little mini-site about yourself. There are a lot of nice templates on sites like this.
Or if building a site is not your thing you can use About.me.
You also want to make sure you have a portfolio of your past work – this can include any events you put together for friends or family; it can be a styled photoshoot you did yourself at home with tablesettings; or it can be events you put together as a volunteer or intern.
As you are creating these items, remember that event planning companies often specialize in weddings, catering, special parties, industry conventions, seminars and fund raisers. So be sure you address that in your resume or portfolio.
Jobs at event planning companies are hard to get so you want every advantage over your competition.
If you have planned any events, even as a volunteer or for friends and family, be sure to include photos in your application.
Option 4: Virtual Event Planning
Since the pandemic in 2020, there has been a significant increase in virtual and hybrid events. This new trend has stayed even post-pandemic with many companies realizing the advantages of virtual events such as cost savings, avoiding travel and overall effectiveness while still being able to reach large audiences. Therefore, learning how to plan and manage virtual events can be an important addition to your skillset. We recommend you familiarize yourself with virtual event platforms such as Zoom, Hopin, Run The World, and online collaboration tools like Slack, Trello and Asana.
Virtual events is something you can teach yourself and become better at by trying out these new technologies for yourself.
What Classes Should You Take To Become An Event Planner?
There are two main ways to study to become an event planner:
1. You can take college classes at a local school or online.
2. You can buy our study at-home course to learn the basics of becoming an event planner. Our course is very good at teaching you the ins and outs of event planning and it is a self-paced home study course. If you would rather get a degree in Event Planning then click the form above.
Educational Requirements for Becoming an Event Planner
There are no formal requirements to get into the events industry, although if you are applying for a job it sometimes helps having a college degree. Industry certifications like the CMP (Certified Meeting Professional) and CSEP (Certified Special Events Professional) can sometimes replace a college degree on your resume. If you are starting your own business then having a college degree does not play a role in getting clients.
The problem is there aren’t many classes you can take in college to learn the exact day-to-day skills that make you an asset to an event planning company. Nor are there many classes that help you start your own event planning business. This is why we created a complete guide to walking you through the important steps of creating your own business (above). Most online event planning courses charge over $1200 for the same material.
If you have gotten this far but have not yet watched the video at the beginning of this post, we recommend you scroll up and watch the video. You can also read the other articles linked above. Good luck and let us know how you do!
