Event Planner

Career Area: Hospitality, Food, and Tourism

Occupation Group: Hospitality and Travel

Salary

Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.

An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.

A typical Event Planner earns the following wages (national and state):

State

The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $42,280

National

The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $45,093

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

Coordinates promotional sales events, professional meetings and family events. Works with clients, develops event plans and budgets, finds appropriate sites, contracts for services and supplies, coordinates with on-site staff, oversees finances and assists during an event.

Employment Trends

The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.

Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:

Skills

A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:

Baseline Skills

The following are baseline skills every Event Planner is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:

• Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
• Planning: Working experience with the process of thinking about and organizing the activities required to achieve desired goals.
• Organizational Skills: Experience with a systematic process of structuring, integrating, co-ordinating task goals, and activities to resources in order to attain objectives.
• Detail-Oriented: A detail oriented person is someone who pays attention to the details and can make a conscious effort to understand causes instead of just the effects, and that does this in a second nature type of way.
• Microsoft Office: Microsoft Office is an office suite of applications, servers, and services developed by Microsoft.

Specialized Skills

These skills are specific to working in this career:

• Event Planning: Event management is the application of project management to the creation and development of large scale events such as festivals, conferences, ceremonies, formal parties, concerts, or conventions. The process of planning and coordinating the event is usually referred to as event planning and which can include budgeting, scheduling, site selection, acquiring necessary permits, coordinating transportation and parking, arranging for speakers or entertainers, arranging decor, event security, catering, coordinating with third party vendors, and emergency plans.
• Budgeting: Experience planning how the financial resources of a business or department are to be allocated during the next business period.
• Scheduling: Working experience making schedules, which are basic time-management tools, consisting of a list of times at which possible tasks, events, or actions are intended to take place withing an organization.
• Customer Service: Working experience with the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.
• Project Management: Project management is the discipline of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria.

Distinguishing Skills

Any Event Planner that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:

• Banquet Event Orders (BEOs): Working experience of Banquet Event Orders (BEOs). A Banquet Event Order is a document that outlines the details of an event. It serves as a guideline for the hotel to execute and communicate logistics to all necessary hotel departments.
• Audiovisual: Working experience of Audiovisual, which means possessing both a sound and a visual component, such as slide-tape presentations,films, television programs, church services and live theater productions
• Fundraising: Fundraising or fund raising (also known as development) is the process of gathering voluntary contributions of money or other resources, by requesting donations from individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies (see also crowd funding).

Experience

This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.

Common Job Titles

It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:

• Event Coordinator
• Event Manager
• Planner
• Event
• Event Assistant

Similar Occupations

If you are interested in exploring similar occupations, you may want to research the following job titles:

• Event Marketing Specialist
• Event Marketing Manager