Space requirements:
You are going to need around 500 square feet of office space in your house; you can go bigger if you want. The office needs to hold a computer desk and a waiting area for clients. In the waiting area, you want to include a few chairs, perhaps a couch, and a coffee table. Having a separate room for your office and waiting area is also an option, if you have the space available.

Time requirements:
With event planning, you are not going to be working your normal eight-hour days. If you plan to become an event planner you are going to need to put in time during the evenings, weekends, holidays, and sometimes some seasons are busier than others. How much time you spend working is going to depend on the area that you choose to specialize in. The actual events are going to be taking up your evenings, weekends, and holidays, but you are going to have to put in hours planning the vent during normal business hours. Becoming an event planner is going to be very time consuming.

Income potential:
3 - Event planning is not that popular so your services are going to be limited somewhat. However, in order to make a profit you are going to need to make sure that you mark up your prices enough to cover all of your overhead expenses. Just keep in mind that social events have a different fee structure than corporate events. In social events, you receive a fee for your services, plus a percentage of some or all vendor fees. In corporate events, you charge a fee for their services, plus a handling charge for each item they contract.

Keys to success:

• You will need to find your target market to do business with. In event planning there are two target groups that you have to choose from corporate and social. You need to decide which group you plan on working with and then specialize in those events.


• Make sure that you do your research when planning an event, no matter what kind of event it is. Doing your research before you plan the event is going to help you reduce all of the risks that you might face, such as event failure.


• Plan the events well in advance. Some events take a year or longer to plan so you do not want to wait until the last minute to start planning things. The sooner you get started planning the event the better your chances of getting the vendors and supplies that you want for the event.

Risks:

• With event planning, the biggest risk that you are going to face is event failure. This happens when the event is poorly planned because you didn't know that there was something else going on that same weekend that conflicted with the venue that you wanted to hold the event at.


• Procrastinating is another risk of event planning. If you wait until the last minute to get things done you run the risk of vendors being booked or something else not being available to you.