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The Definitive Guide: How To Become An Event Coordinator

Published on: 24 Oct 2018
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What is an Events Coordinator?

  • Job Description

    Want to get paid to throw a party? Don’t get too excited – it’s not as easy as it sounds! If you have excellent organisation skills, you’re creative and love planning for a big day – then an events coordinator career could be perfect for you.

    You’ll be in charge of every aspect of an event from planning to clean up. You could be coordinating corporate meetings, or more personal events such as weddings. Whatever the occasion, the client will be expecting you to go above and beyond to put on an event that they will remember, leaving all of the stresses to you.

    The pressure pays off though – helping to produce an event that someone has dreamed of and seeing it all come together (especially for personal events such as weddings and birthdays) will be worth all of the hours that you will put in.

    You are unlikely to get bored in this job – you will be working both within an office, as well as on your feet – running around and setting things up for the big day.

  • Hours of Work

    As a full time events coordinator, you’ll be expected to work around 40 hours per week. However, you could be working much more than that, especially in the run up to an event. As you can expect, you can’t stop until the job is done – you’ll have to work towards your deadlines. You will be expected to attend events, which could go on until late at night.

    You will mainly be working office hours, but as events get closer, you will probably have to work weekends, evenings and public holidays.

  • Main Responsibilities

    So, what will your main responsibilities be as an Events Coordinator?

    Duties typically include:

    • Creating proposals
    • Attending client meetings
    • Preparing budgets
    • Finding and booking venues
    • Liaising with other professionals such as caterers, florists and DJ’s
    • Monitoring teams
    • Clearing the venue after events
    • Conducting evaluations
    • Creating events listing pages
    • Training staff
    • Administration
    • Marketing

Key Events Coordinator qualifications

Do you have the qualifications to get the job?

It isn’t essential to have a degree to get into this career. If you are considering a degree though, the most relevant subjects that you could take are business studies, hospitality and marketing. If a degree isn’t for you then don’t stress – there are many other courses that could help you to get your dream job:

Vital Events Coordinator skills

Want to know if you’ve got what it takes? These are the skills you’ll need for the role

  • Excellent organisational skills
  • Time management
  • Attention to detail
  • Interpersonal skills
  • Communication skills
  • Problem solving
  • Negotiating skills
  • Enthusiasm
  • Flexibility
  • Multitasking
  • Ability to keep calm under pressure
  • Creating and maintaining relationships
  • Trustworthy
  • Creative
  • Networking
  • Meeting deadlines
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What is an Events Coordinator’s salary?

Now we’re getting down to the nitty gritty…

The average salary in the UK for events coordinators is between £15,000 and £26,000. This is dependent on many factors such as the size of the company, the types of clients that you work with, the area that you work in and of course, how much experience you have. It is possible to earn more than the average – usually once you’ve gained a good amount of experience.

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How to become an Events Coordinator

Now that you know what an Events Coordinator does, how do you become one?

Experience is key in this industry and in order to gain clients trust, you will need to have a decent track record of coordinating great events. How do you get experience, you ask? One way is by taking an internship. You can look for internships which will not only look great on your CV, but will help you to decide if this is the right career for you – and if it is, which types of events are most suited to you. You could take several internships to help you get a better feel for the industry.

Another way of getting your foot in the door is by doing an apprenticeship. Apprenticeships are great if you want to learn everything on the job. You will be trained from the ground up whilst gaining a qualification at the same time. Usually, apprenticeships lead to a full time role.

How to develop your Events Coordinator career

If you are looking for a bit of a challenge, you could look for a job in a larger company.

This could give you the opportunity to work with bigger projects, within bigger teams and larger budgets.

Career Opportunities