Postponed Event 101: A Complete Guide To Managing Event Postponement And Cancellations

The decision to reschedule a postponed event requires careful consideration and effective communication. Whether it’s due to a public health emergency or a natural disaster, sometimes postponing or canceling an event is the best option.

However, event cancellations can also be stressful, costly, and damaging to your reputation as an event planner. How can you minimize the negative impact of a canceled event and turn it into a positive opportunity for future success?

As we explore further, we will show you how to handle event cancellations and postponement smoothly with our 11 helpful tips. We’ll also give examples of common situations that might make you need to reschedule or cancel an event and how to do it professionally and gracefully.

11 Tips to Turn Your Postponed Event Into a Successful Event

Communication is Key

When dealing with event cancellations or postponement, communicate to attendees the reasons behind postponing the event; consistently update them via email, social media, and the event website on a well-defined timeline for rescheduling.

Implementing effective communication as a best practice improves accessibility and ensures all stakeholders stay engaged with timely information.

Flexible Rescheduling

Choosing a new event date can help keep your attendees, sponsors, speakers, and partners on board and prevent losing money on deposits and contracts. Pick a new date that doesn’t clash with other events to make sure more attendees can come.

If it’s difficult for participants to attend in person, consider holding the event virtually or in a hybrid manner. By doing so, you will determine how to raise the likelihood of a strong turnout.

Thorough Risk Assessment

The next step in handling event cancellations and postponement is to check for possible problems and create a backup plan. Determining potential obstacles, such as inclement weather, health concerns, or technical glitches, is necessary for this. Once you know the risks, prioritize them based on how likely and severe they are. Look at what you’re already doing to prevent issues and see if there are any gaps. 

Additionally, make a backup plan that includes clear steps, who’s in charge, what resources you’ll need, and how to communicate. Keep updating your backup plan as things change to always be prepared for any crisis

Reassure Your Stakeholders

When facing event postponement or cancellations, maintaining trust and credibility with stakeholders is vital to prevent confusion and frustration. Inform stakeholders promptly about the cancellation or postponement, explaining the reasons behind your decision. 

Don’t forget to apologize for any inconvenience and express gratitude for their understanding. Provide details and options for the rescheduled event, including the new date, time, program, format, and registration/refund policies. 

Additionally, keep stakeholders in the loop with regular event updates on the status of the rescheduled event and any pertinent changes or developments.

Stay Connected with Attendees During the Delay

When events get postponed, the fourth important thing is to stay connected with your attendees. Build anticipation through pre-event engagement activities, such as contests, polls, or sneak peeks.

Encourage attendees to share their excitement on social media. Additionally, show appreciation by offering rewards, like discounts or freebies, to encourage them to attend the rescheduled event.

Enhance Networking Opportunities

When handling event changes, anticipate networking opportunities with attendees, sponsors, speakers, and partners. Recognizing that networking is a key reason people attend events, they take this as an opportunity to enhance their experience.

As per the data, 88% of event experts stated that the primary motive behind event attendance is to engage in networking opportunities. Furthermore, 76% of all event participants attended with the specific intention of networking.

To enhance networking opportunities, create a unique online space or app for your event. Where your attendees can sign up, make profiles, and chat before, during, and after the event. Also, prepare fun activities and games, such as icebreakers and trivia, to get people talking and building relationships.

Enrich Your Program with Value

In the sixth step of managing event changes, add exciting features like keynote speakers, panel discussions, entertainment, and workshop ideas to make your event more enjoyable. Listen to what participants are saying. Adjust the event based on their ideas about how long it should be, how it should run, what’s on the schedule, and who’s speaking. 

Tailor your event using social media platforms to elevate its value. Offer extra perks such as networking opportunities, enhanced learning experiences, increased exposure, and recognition for attendees.

Coordinate with Vendors and Partners

Communicate with vendors, sponsors, and partners in the event industry promptly. Inform them about the impact of the event change and collaborate on resolving any outstanding issues in event planning. If possible, explore rescheduling the event or collaborating on future projects for the next event.

As an event planner, ensure that this communication happens on time to foster effective collaboration.

Evaluate and Strengthen Partnerships

Focus on checking and strengthening partnerships with sponsors, speakers, and partners. Listen to what they need and say, and quickly solve any problems related to event changes.

Most importantly, be flexible in talking about and changing your agreements to fit their needs. 

Show that you recognize and appreciate what they do, and let attendees know about their brands and businesses.

Communicate Refund

Be clear about refund and registration rules to ensure fairness to attendees and sponsors. Communicate how and when you will issue refunds to maintain transparency and build trust in your event planning process. Align these rules with local laws, regulations, and industry standards. Explain to them how these rules apply to event changes and guide them on requesting refunds or moving registrations to another event. 

You can offer simple choices for refunds or changes, like full or partial refunds, credits, vouchers, or donations. Let your attendees and sponsors choose what suits them best. Process their requests quickly and confirm completion for a smooth experience.

Utilize Technology for Communication

Use technology to talk about and share your event with attendees and sponsors. Technology helps overcome challenges from cancellations, letting you connect with your audience. Pick a user-friendly online platform like Zoom, Webex, or Skype with video, audio, and chat features. 

In addition, test it beforehand, have a backup plan for tech issues, and train your team, speakers, and partners on how to use it. 

Evaluate Insurance Coverage

Evaluate event insurance coverage for comprehensive protection. Invest in event cancellation insurance to safeguard against unforeseen circumstances. Regularly review and update insurance policies to ensure adequate coverage for the live event, catering companies, venue, and location details. 

Make sure the event insurance policies are up-to-date to effectively deal with any unexpected situations. Keep in contact with insurance providers to stay informed about what is happening in the event industry and ensure a well-prepared approach for the next event.

Learn from the Experience

Take the chance to learn and get better at planning events. Look at feedback from attendees, sponsors, speakers, and others, and see how well you managed cancellations and rescheduled events.

Additionally, find out what you did well and where you can improve in planning and managing an event. Use what you learn to make your future events even better while celebrating your successes with your team.

Learning from experience is not just a challenge; it’s also a great opportunity for you to grow and become a better event planner.

Example Circumstances for Postponing an Event

Here are some unforeseen circumstances that may require you to postpone or cancel an event, and how to handle them professionally and gracefully:

Public Health Emergencies

Public health emergencies, like pandemics or disease outbreaks, are unexpected events that significantly impact planning and organizing events. They pose a serious threat to the well-being of attendees, speakers, staff, and the wider community. Event creators need to closely follow guidelines from health authorities such as the World Health Organization (WHO) or local health departments.

It’s essential to communicate effectively with everyone involved, sharing information about health risks, necessary precautions, and available support.

Natural Disaster

Natural disasters, such as hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, wildfires, and other adverse events, can create unsafe conditions. Organizers of events are frequently forced to change their original plans as a result. These unexpected events bring challenges, affecting the safety of attendees and the possibility of holding the event. 

When dealing with natural disasters, you need to check the situation, focusing on the well-being of participants. You might decide to change the event date, use backup plans, or find different ways to make sure the event is safe and successful.

Severe Weather Conditions

Bad weather like storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, or extreme heat can mess up your event plans. It affects how attendees get to your event, the place itself, and things like electricity and water. 

You must evaluate the circumstances and put participant safety first when handling such tragedies. Decisions may involve changing the event date, implementing backup plans, or exploring alternative formats to ensure a safe and successful outcome.

Security Concerns

Sometimes, an event may face security risks that could endanger the well-being of the attendees, speakers, and staff. These risks could include terrorist attacks, violent protests, riots, coups, or wars that may occur in or near the event location or region. In such cases, the event planner may decide to postpone the event to a later date or a different location, where the security situation is more stable and peaceful. 

By doing this, you can safeguard the event safety of participants, preventing any potential harm or damage that security threats may cause.

Technical Failures

Technical failures can be a compelling reason for event postponement if they affect the presentations, registration, or accessibility of your event. And it might be smart to delay the event until everything is working properly.

Speaker or Performer Cancellations

Last-minute cancellations by key speakers, performers, or presenters can seriously impact your event’s quality, leading you to consider event cancellations or rescheduling. Events often depend on these individuals to attract and satisfy attendees, sponsors, and partners. 

If they cancel unexpectedly due to reasons like illness or professional commitments, it might affect the event’s content, experience, and reputation of the organizer. In such cases, you might choose to postpone the event to find new speakers or performers to avoid disappointment and expectations.

Logistical Challenges

Unforeseen issues, such as transportation challenges or disruptions in the supply chain, may prompt the event organizer to delay the scheduled event. For instance, airline strikes or complications with suppliers could trigger delays and potentially even cancellations.

To avoid visa or customs issues caused by political or environmental factors, event planners may need to reschedule or relocate their events to ensure a hassle-free event experience for the attendees.

Turn Your Postponed Events Into Triumph with Event Espresso

Event cancellation or postponement is a challenging situation that every event planner may face at some point. However, with proper planning, communication, and mitigation strategies, you can minimize the negative impact of rescheduling and turn it into a positive opportunity for future success.

One of the tools that can help you manage event cancellations and rescheduling is Event Espresso, a WordPress plugin that lets you create and manage online event registration and ticketing websites for any type of event.

Event Espresso also integrates with various online platforms and software, such as Zoom, Webex, Skype, etc., that can enable you to host and deliver your event online, if needed.

With Event Espresso, you can transform your postponed event into a success. You can customize your forms, sell tickets or event registrations, collect data, and access your event information 24/7.

Start your free demo now!