Conference planning timeline template
- Weeks before the event: venue contracted
- 22
- Weeks before: registration opens
- 20
- Weeks before: call for speakers closes
- 13
- Weeks before: programme published
- 8
Every figure on this page is worked out from the inputs you enter, by the method stated below it. Lanyardo publishes no venue directory, no speaker list and no industry cost per head: the defaults are a worked example to replace with your own numbers, and the delegate count is always yours.
The figures above start from a worked example (22). Change any input and the answer updates as you type.
Download the Conference planning timeline template worked example (CSV)
A conference planning timeline is a set of milestones placed on the runway to the event, and a timeline copied from a longer plan is wrong for a shorter one in every date. This template works the milestones as shares of the runway you have, the weeks until the event: the venue contracted with most of the runway still to go, registration open at three quarters, the call for speakers closing at the halfway point, the programme published in the last third, badges and print ordered in the final weeks. Change the runway and every milestone moves in proportion, which is what a plan with twelve weeks instead of twenty-six actually looks like.
Shares, not fixed weeks
A milestone at fifteen weeks out is a good rule for a 26 week plan and impossible for a ten week one. The template takes each milestone as a share of the runway, prints the week it lands, and lets you move the shares to your own practice. The defaults are the common shape of a mid-sized conference, not a standard.
The weeks registration is open is the sales window
Registration open at three quarters of the runway on a 26 week plan is nineteen weeks of sales; on a twelve week plan it is nine. The template prints that window because the registration pace in the checklist worksheet is worked over it, and a short window with a high target is the first thing a plan should say out loud.
The print milestone is the one that cannot slip
Badges, signage and the printed programme have lead times, and the print order lands at about twelve percent of the runway, three weeks out on a 26 week plan. The delegate list is still growing then, which is why the badge order worksheet carries a spare and why the milestone is a share rather than the last possible day.
Conference planning timeline template: common questions
What if the venue is already booked?
Set the venue share to whatever is left of the runway; the milestone is then in the past and the rest of the timeline is unchanged. The template does not care which milestones are done, only where they fall.
Can I add milestones?
Not to the free template; the six here are the ones every conference shares. Lanyardo Pro keeps the full timeline as dated tasks against the event with as many milestones as the plan needs, and reminds the owner of each before it lands.
Does this save the timeline anywhere?
Not on its own. The template computes in your browser and sends nothing anywhere. Lanyardo Pro turns the milestones into dates against the event and keeps last edition's timeline for the next.