How do you create a clear floor plan for your event?

What helped you navigate through those endless lines and crowds? Perhaps you were at a user-friendly airport with easy-to-understand signs and directions. Of course, you can't compare this situation to how your guests feel when they can't find your event location or the right workshop rooms. However, their experience is similar, as it all depends on how well you direct traffic flows by providing a clear map for your event with specific details and necessary explanations.

As Anton Shone and Bryn Parry point out in their book Successful Event Management: A Practical Handbook: "An important part of the process of providing information to the public for a large-scale or outdoor event is likely to be the preparation of a model or clear map of your event."

And according to Julia Rutherford Silvers: "A clear floor plan ensures that a person can find their way around the macro environment of the event location. The floor plan also helps to establish the hierarchy of facilities and important locations."

However, if you want to provide an easy-to-understand event map, you need to follow a few basic rules. The most important ones are explained below.

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Rule #1: Indicate all important locations

Whether it's seminar rooms or restrooms, it's your responsibility to provide clear information about all areas. If you don't, you can bet that you'll be faced with unexpected questions from your guests during your event. Will you have time to explain where the elevators are? Or would it be easier to simply provide them with a detailed and understandable map showing all the important locations? The answer is obvious.

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Rule #2: Add photos to the locations

Let's take a large-scale academic event held across multiple campuses or university buildings as an example. To ensure your guests don't get lost, you can add a few photos to the map as visual reference points, such as a photo of the library or auditorium. You can do this by adding the numbered photos to the back of the map.

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Rule #3: Write down the quickest and easiest route(s)

In some cases, if you are organizing a large-scale event, it may still be useful to note the route from one building to another. You can do this by drawing dotted lines on the map.

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Rule #4: Use different colors or symbols

As Julia Rutherford Silvers points out: "A person's ability to navigate correctly (or conveniently) is enhanced when you create 'visual magnets' or offer sneak previews of areas or activities further ahead." The author further notes: "You can do this by 'storytelling' on signs, using clear landmarks, or arranging the space in such a way that attractive sightlines are created." With that in mind, it is important to use the same color codes on the map to make it easier for your visitors to navigate the event space. This also ensures clarity.

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Rule #5. Provide additional explanation (if necessary)

Let's say, for example, that after the exhibition is over, you have planned a city tour after lunch for your visitors. However, the venue does not provide lunch, which means that your guests will have to leave the venue to find nearby restaurants or cafés. Chances are that not all visitors will go to the same restaurant or café, so they will go in different directions. To ensure that everyone returns to the same point after lunch to start the tour, it is useful (in addition to announcing it during the exhibition) to note a meeting point on the map, as well as a meeting time and a description of the activity.

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When creating a clear map for your event, ask yourself what the important locations are. Make sure to include areas for different dynamics or activities, as well as (emergency) exits, facilities, catering zones, etc. Put everything your visitors need to know on the map. Consider adding photos, as well as roads, landmarks, or other details that make the map easier to understand. Finally, use a coherent and consistent color code to simplify the spatial layout for your visitors.

Source: article from eventplanner.nl

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