9 Free Conference Planning Templates | Smartsheet (2024)

Download Conference Proposal Template
Microsoft Word | Google Docs | Adobe PDF

Speakers, vendors, suppliers, and organizational partners matter at a conference. Members of a brand’s target audience may agree to attend upcoming conferences or participate in conference activities if brands they are interested in or associated with decide to partner with the conference’s organization. This conference proposal template helps organizers analyze and choose the best organizational partners for their conference’s goals and target audience.

• Use: This template is best for client and speaker proposals.
• Benefits: This template allows potential clients and speakers to propose their services or partnership to an organization holding a conference.
• Key Elements: This template includes space to outline services, performance expectations, pricing and payment terms, estimated fees, event information, and work scoping.

Download Conference Budget Template
Microsoft Excel | Google Sheets | Adobe PDF

While planning the budget for a conference, there are plenty of moving parts to account for, including venue, entertainment, and marketing costs. A conference budget template can help coordinators track conference costs, budget for expected and unexpected expenses, and account for conference budgeting restrictions.

• Use: This template is best for calculating projected and actual conference subtotals.
• Benefits: This template provides users with categorized sections for calculating individual item subtotals and overall conference budgets.
• Key Elements: This template includes sections for projected subtotals and actual subtotals for each item across various categories.

Download Conference Agenda Template
Microsoft Word | Google Docs | Smartsheet

Organizers can use conference agenda templates to keep track of potential conference facilitators and attendees, schedule presentations, and provide attendees, presenters, and other conferencegoers with detailed presentation descriptions. This template can also help organizers estimate presentation times and session durations.

• Use: This template is best for scheduling conference presentations and calculating their duration.
• Benefits: This template allows coordinators and creators to schedule agenda items and describe their contents, presenters, and possible attendees.
• Key Elements: This template includes spaces for a conference’s call-in number, call-in code, and web link, as well as the attendees requested, conference schedule, description of the agenda items, and the event’s presenter, start time, and duration.

Download Conference Call Agenda Template
Microsoft Word | Google Docs | Adobe PDF

Whether on video or by phone, a conference call agenda template can help coordinators plan schedules and deliver agenda item descriptions to attendees before a conference starts. This clear agenda can help keep conference calls on schedule and provide attendees with additional information.

• Use: This template is best for scheduling conference call agendas.
• Benefits: This template allows conference call coordinators to schedule agenda items, create item descriptions, and account for attendees.
• Key Elements: This template includes space for the meeting title, subject, facilitator, attendees, description of agenda items, presenters, and event duration.

Download Conference Planning Checklist
Microsoft Word | Google Docs | Adobe PDF

It’s no secret that people love checking items off a list — with this conference planning checklist, you can organize and complete essential conference planning tasks. This template can help you visualize your progress while planning a conference and help organizers understand what needs to happen 3 to 24 months before it begins.

• Use: This template is best for all stages of conference planning.
• Benefits: This template provides users with a checklist of items to consider when planning any type of conference.
• Key Elements: This template includes planning sections for every stage of the conference, from 24 months pre-event to immediately post-event, with each stage including a separate checklist of items.

Download Conference Planning Worksheet Template
Microsoft Excel | Google Sheets | Smartsheet

A conference planning worksheet can help organizers estimate projected expenses, complete conference purchases, and track pending items needed for a conference. This template also allows users to organize conference items by category, gauge the amount allocated and spent per item, and provide the difference between a projected and actual conference subtotal.

• Use: This template is best for tracking the purchases — both pending and completed — of all your must-have items.
• Benefits: This template provides a variety of conference item categories for tracking your expenses and having your conference needs in one place.
• Key Elements: This template includes sections for venue, decor, food and beverage, event programming, entertainment, travel, guest services, registration, communication, public relations, marketing, social media, advertising, sponsors, logistics, and other items.

Download Conference Workflow Template
Microsoft Word | Google Docs | Adobe PDF

Conferences that frequently launch marketing campaigns have a variety of digital assets that need to be created pre- and post-event. These assets — blog posts, social media campaigns, email campaigns, press releases, and more — must be assigned and executed by specific dates. Conference workflow templates help conference owners organize these projects and approve their completion.

• Use: This template is best for conferences with a marketing campaign.
• Benefits: This template allows conference organizers to create workflows covering a project’s pre- and post-event items.
• Key Elements: This template includes sections for different categories and tasks related to the campaign, along with each one’s respective manager, deadline, and approval status.

Download Conference Sign-in Sheet Template
Microsoft Word | Google Docs | Adobe PDF

Not all conferences require attendees to check in, but a conference sign-in sheet template can be a helpful tool for organizers hoping to track conference attendance. Organizers can use this template for conferences of all sizes to list observations or write comments during a conference’s duration.

• Use: This template is best for conferences where tracking attendance is necessary.
• Benefits: This template is a streamlined organizational sign-in sheet for conferences of all sizes.
• Key Elements: This template includes sections for conference information, including its organizers, location, and attendee names and their signatures.

Download Conference Evaluation Form
Microsoft Word | Google Docs | Adobe PDF

When a conference is complete, there’s no time to sit back and relax. Instead, conference organizers should send follow-up communication to suppliers, vendors, and speakers and post-conference evaluations to attendees. This conference evaluation form can help organizations discover strengths and weaknesses in their events and help organizers get a jump start for new conference preparations.

• Use: This template is best for post-conference evaluations.
• Benefits: This template allows conference organizers to collect post-conference data about attendants’ experiences and recommendations.
• Key Elements: This template includes post-conference survey questions covering attendant demographics and backgrounds.

What you should include in a conference planning template depends on which template you choose to use, if you plan an in-person or virtual conference, and what your conference needs to succeed.

It’s best to include some general information in all conference planning templates:

• Conference Description: Include a conference description on each planning template to ensure each document gets completed according to its specific event.
• Conference Goals: A conference’s goals are the core of the event. Outlining these goals can consistently keep all investors aware of their expectations and collaborate on goal-specific ideas.
• Budget: You must account for many conference expenses — big and small — during every stage of the conference planning process.

Like any good template, a conference planning template is a great place to start when diving into the planning process for a big event. To best utilize any type of conference planning template, you should also use a project management system to organize your planning documents.

Share your conference planning templates with others involved, including marketers, advertisers, content creators, web developers, sales managers, and more. Conference planning should be a collaborative process, so keeping templates updated and shared across teams is the best way to use them.

Additionally, you should use conference planning templates along with other process templates. Organizers can use our library of conference templates in tandem to create a structured, organized planning process from start to finish — no matter the size or theme of a conference.

During the pre-planning, duration, and post-planning stages of an event, conference planning templates can produce many valuable benefits:

• Conference planning can occur virtually and asynchronously.
• Updates are easy and quick to share across teams.
• All data, including attendants, vendors, suppliers, and speakers, are accounted for and tracked in a central location.
• Calculate budgets before purchasing begins.
• Organizers and staff are assigned expectations in advance of due dates.
• Streamline timelines and task assignments.
• Checklists allow organizers to visualize the planning progress.
• Automatic status updates are available, and plans are shareable across wider teams.
• During a conference, tasks can be managed, assigned, and finished.

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