10 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Planning Large-Scale Brand Events
"What’s one mistake you see brands make when planning large-scale events—and how can it be avoided?"
Here is what 10 thought leaders had to say.
Start Small Before Scaling Your Event Strategy
The most common mistake is trying to scale too quickly before you've built a repeatable foundation. Big events aren't created from a single effort. They are the result of momentum, consistency, and careful planning.
As a marketing director at a global tech company, we grew an annual industry event from just 90 attendees to over 2,500 over a four-year period. The key was to start small, deliver an excellent experience, and then analyze what worked. Every year, we improved the experience based on feedback, refined our recruitment channels, and steadily grew our repeat attendee base.
Scale doesn't come from momentum alone though. You also have to break the challenge down into manageable components. That's where many teams go wrong. Large events involve hundreds of moving parts. We made sure every part had structure and ownership.
For example, we didn't just say "We want 2,500 attendees." We broke that down into tangible targets. How many registrations did we need from email campaigns? From partner promotions? From media? From direct sales outreach? Each channel had an owner, a realistic quota, and a timeline.
The same applied to the agenda. Rather than building the content all at once, we developed a thematic structure and assigned team leads to each track. Each topic area had clear objectives and sub-owners who were responsible for speaker recruitment, session development, and logistics.
Chunking the work this way made the entire event more manageable, more organized, and ultimately more successful. It also gave the team confidence. No one was trying to "boil the ocean." Everyone understood their piece of the puzzle.
So the advice is to master repeatability before chasing scale. Start small, document everything, improve what matters, and break the big goals into small, accountable parts.
Steven Manifold, CMO & Director, B2B Planr
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Test Everything Before Your Event Goes Live
One important problem I notice with brands when organizing big-scale events is not paying enough attention to preparation and checking ahead. From what I've seen, many companies put most of their effort into making the final product and guest experience great and miss some of the details that keep things running smoothly. To illustrate, they always book the latest and most impressive equipment but don't try it out before the event. This often causes serious problems such as your sound failing, having troubles accessing the internet, or without necessary components. This has happened before with my clients, as they didn't examine their servers or guarantee the registration sites worked properly for the expected users. So, it's important to schedule test sessions far ahead and check all the equipment. All tech aspects as well as the physical setting have to be considered. Because of this, the event can run smoothly on the actual day.
Hone John Tito, Co-Founder, Game Host Bros
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Align Inventory and Fulfillment for Event Success
One of the biggest mistakes I see brands make when planning large-scale events is underestimating the coordination required between inventory positioning and fulfillment capabilities. Many brands focus exclusively on driving traffic and sales without proper back-end preparation.
What typically happens is this: a brand spends months planning a product launch or holiday promotion, invests heavily in marketing, and then gets blindsided when their fulfillment operation collapses under the volume. I've seen companies that normally ship 500 orders daily suddenly need to process 5,000, with no scalable plan in place.
The solution is two-fold. First, invest in demand forecasting that accounts for your specific event dynamics. Generic historical data isn't enough – you need to analyze your particular customer behaviors and product mix. Second, ensure your fulfillment strategy has built-in elasticity.
I recently worked with an apparel brand that was launching a limited-edition collection with a major influencer. Rather than simply stocking up at their regular 3PL, we helped them distribute inventory strategically across multiple fulfillment centers based on anticipated regional demand. This approach reduced shipping times by 32% and shipping costs by 18% during their event.
The right 3PL partner should function as an extension of your operations team during these high-stakes moments. They should proactively suggest solutions like temporary kitting stations, specialized packaging processes, or staggered inventory releases.
Remember: customer excitement built during your event can evaporate quickly if fulfillment fails. The post-purchase experience is just as crucial as the pre-purchase marketing. Plan for success across the entire customer journey, not just at the point of sale.
Joe Spisak, CEO, Fulfill.com
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Focus Your Event: Less Noise, More Impact
One big mistake brands make when planning large-scale events? Trying to do everything for everyone.
In the rush to impress, they overload the agenda, stack too many speakers, and build sprawling activations that dilute the core message. The result? Attendees feel overwhelmed, underwhelmed, or just plain lost.
How to avoid it? Start with ruthless clarity on your event's purpose. What do you want attendees to walk away thinking, feeling, or doing? Build everything—from content to creative to flow—around that central goal.
Less noise, more impact.
Curate your sessions like a great playlist. Design moments that breathe. Give people space to connect. And remember: memorable beats massive every time. A focused, intentional experience will resonate far more than a chaotic one packed with "cool stuff" that lacks cohesion.
Taylor Bartlett, Director of Marketing, Executivevents
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Empower Staff to Execute Your Event Vision
One of the biggest mistakes I've seen when planning big events is not realizing how complicated it is to manage staff and flow on the ground.
It's not important how many people you hire; what's important is how well you prepare them, give them power, and make sure they all agree on the experience you want to give. I've seen events go wrong not because of low attendance or bad advertising, but because the staff didn't know what to do in case of an emergency or, even worse, were cut off from making real-time decisions. At one tech conference we helped grow, the key wasn't getting more people there; it was making a live Slack bridge between catering, security, logistics, and talent.
To avoid problems, plan your staffing like a military operation, with a clear chain of command, smart communication tools, and regular practice runs. Yes, act like chaos is going to happen before it does. It costs a lot not to.
This isn't just a theory; it's scars from times when a miscommunication at one entry point caused a 45-minute delay that ruined the opening keynote.
Martin Weidemann, Owner, Weidemann.tech
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Anchor Events in Your Core Brand Identity
One common mistake brands often make when planning large-scale events is failing to fully align the event's purpose and messaging with their core brand identity. In the excitement of planning, it's easy to get caught up in flashy ideas and overlook how every aspect of the event should reinforce the brand's mission and values. This can result in a disjointed experience that confuses attendees or leaves them with a diluted impression of the brand.
To avoid this pitfall, it's essential to anchor all event decisions—whether it's speaker selection, venue choice, or promotional materials—around the brand's core narrative and goals. This ensures consistency, clarity, and resonance with the audience, ultimately delivering an experience that not only stands out but also reinforces the brand's identity and leaves a lasting impact.
David Grossman, Founder & Chief Growth Officer, Lessn
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Prioritize Audience Relevance Over Flashy Spectacle
One common mistake I see brands make when planning large-scale events is focusing too much on spectacle and not enough on audience relevance. It's easy to get caught up in flashy production, big-name speakers, or trendy activations, but if those elements don't align with the actual needs, interests, or challenges of your target audience, you risk creating a beautiful experience that feels hollow or disconnected.
To avoid this, start with audience insights, not just event goals. Before you plan the "wow" factor, do the homework—talk to your clients, customers, and frontline sales teams to understand what kind of experience or content would genuinely resonate. Then, build your event around that.
In my experience, the events that generate the most ROI are those that spark real connections, whether it's peer-to-peer learning, tailored content tracks, or even simple networking done right. Show people you understand them, and the impact lasts well beyond the event.
Naima Ch, Marketing Head and SEO Specialist, Morse Code Translator
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Allow Breathing Room in Your Event Schedule
I see so many brands make the mistake of over-scripting their large-scale events, trying to control every second of the experience. It makes the entire thing feel stiff and unnatural for attendees. People attending events, especially something big, want flexibility, a bit of downtime, and the ability to move around naturally and discover things on their own terms. For example, I have seen events where there's a speaker scheduled every fifteen minutes with no breaks, or every single exhibit has a mandatory presentation at a specific time. This type of rigid schedule doesn't allow for organic conversations, impromptu networking, or simply for attendees to take a moment to absorb information. It feels more like a forced march through a checklist rather than an engaging experience.
This is why, when we organize events for Keyzoo, whether it's a community safety day or a real estate open house, I make sure there are designated "free-flow" periods. At a recent residential security event, for instance, we had a main stage for brief talks, but around it, we set up several smaller, open areas. One area had our automotive locksmiths demonstrating key programming, another offered quick home security assessments, and a third was just a lounge with refreshments. People could wander between these at their leisure, asking questions as they came up, rather than being herded from one scheduled activity to the next. This allows for organic conversations to develop and for attendees to feel more comfortable, which ultimately creates a much more memorable and positive impression of our brand.
Eli Itzhaki, CEO & Founder, Keyzoo
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Prepare Backup Plans for Event Contingencies
A lot of brands miss one crucial step: they avoid worrying about all the necessary planning for the unexpected. Therefore, you need to make an event plan that considers any obstacles that may occur. This means planning extra venue sites, suppliers, and technical services, plus using well-defined ways to communicate among all the parties. Moreover, if rehearsals and system tests are done ahead of time, chances of surprises at the event are reduced. Make sure your business is well-prepared and adaptable, so the event will go more smoothly and bring better results.
Nilesh Yadav, Event and Exhibition Planner, NS Events and Exhibitions Fzc.
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Design Events Around Attendee Experience, Not Spectacle
I often notice that brands planning large events focus too much on the spectacle. They invest heavily in big stages, flashy lights, or celebrity appearances. But sometimes, they forget about the attendees' actual experience. How people engage, connect, and feel during the event is what really matters.
To avoid this, it's important to start by understanding the audience. What do they want? Networking? Hands-on demos? Useful content? Designing the event around these needs makes a big difference. Collecting feedback early on through surveys or small focus groups helps reveal what will work best. Testing parts of the event with a smaller group also helps catch problems before the main event.
In the end, creating real, memorable experiences beats just putting on a show. When attendees feel valued and involved, the event leaves a lasting impact. That's what truly makes an event successful.
David Reynolds, Digital Marketer, JPGHero
