As an organiser you should know exactly where you are going on the day and what you need. [...] As an organiser you see all the small behind-the-scenes crises, but if they are invisible to the average attendee, then you're doing really well.

She makes suggestions about the little things - ensuring name badges are ready, a posted schedule of the happenings at the event (not every event will have programs), check in on all of the tech like projectors, wifi and the like as well as keeping track of things like hashtags on twitter to see what people like and don't like more immediately.

For people organising events for the first time there are definitely some pitfalls that might not be obvious until you actually, well, until you fall into them! I thought I'd capture my experiences into a series of blog posts, in case they can help any future organisers to avoid some of the traps. First up: what to do before your event starts.

She makes a few recommendations such as getting a website for the event out early and include all of the important details right up front and picking a hashtag for the event so that folks on the various social media sites have a way to start developing the community around the event.