A strong event brief has five building blocks. Without any one of these five, the brief is incomplete.

The first building block is context: what is the occasion for this event? What is the background of the organisation, the culture, the recent history that is relevant to this event? The second is objective: what does this event have to achieve? Not 'a nice evening', but concrete outcomes. Third: the audience. Describe who the participants are, what they expect and what they already know about the organisation. Fourth: budget. An honest, concrete number, or at least a range. Fifth: constraints. What is fixed? Date, venue, brand guidelines, sensitivities?

Each of these building blocks matters equally. A brief without an objective is a wishlist. A brief without a budget is an invitation to guess. A brief without context is an instruction without a story.

The audience is the section that is thinnest in most briefs. '400 employees' tells you nothing. Who are those 400 employees? Think about their average age, their diversity in background, role and seniority, and their experience of large events last year. Are they people who like to dance, or people who would rather stand chatting in a quiet corner?

The more detail you give on the audience, the more targeted the agency can be. It makes a difference whether the 400 employees are mostly 25-year-old IT staff or a mixed group of 25 to 60 covering both management and operational staff.

Also add: what does the audience already know about the organisation, what previous events have there been, and what were the reactions? An agency that knows that can go one step beyond repeating what happened last year.

Budget is the most painful part of a brief and at the same time the most decisive. Many clients are reluctant to name a budget, afraid the agency will spend all of it. But without a budget indication the agency makes a proposal that may be three times too expensive. Or three times too cheap.

An honest budget makes the work better. The agency knows what is possible and can advise on the best split. It helps to specify: is it including or excluding VAT, catering and entertainment?

If you genuinely do not know the budget: give a range. '€20,000 to €40,000' is enough for an agency to put a realistic proposal together. More on the cost of an event agency and how to build a budget.

A good brief tells what you want. What you do not want. What cannot be done, and what has already happened. Context is the information an agency needs to understand what is really at stake.

What is fixed? Think date, venue and maximum running time. Are there brand guidelines, house-style requirements, sensitive themes or particular circumstances in the organisation or the group the agency needs to know about?

Anything you leave out of the brief, the agency has to guess. Anything you include makes the proposal better. An agency that understands what has already been decided can build from that starting point instead of reinventing the wheel.

Live Impact never works from a stock proposition. Every event starts with the brief. We read it carefully and ask the questions that are missing. From there we build a concept that fits your organisation and audience.

Don't have a full brief yet? No problem. Send us what you have. A few paragraphs about the occasion, a budget indication, a date. We ask the questions that take you further. A good conversation is also a way to build a brief.

Send your brief through live-impact.nl/briefing or get in touch directly via live-impact.nl/contact. Call 085 401 40 14 or email hello@live-impact.nl. We respond within 48 hours.

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