How to build an event brief that gets better agency proposals

Two panellists in conversation on a conference stage

How to build an event brief that gets better agency proposals

Every successful event starts long before the venue is booked, the content is written or the creative concepts are presented. It starts with the quality of the brief.

A strong event brief does far more than tell an agency what to deliver. It creates a shared understanding of the business challenge, the audience, the role the event needs to play and, ultimately, what success looks like. It provides the strategic foundations that allow creativity to flourish rather than forcing the creative process to define the strategy.

Research from the BetterBriefs Project Global Report found that six in ten marketers admit they use the creative process to clarify their strategy rather than defining it before briefing their agency. It’s an understandable temptation, particularly when deadlines are tight, but it often results in unnecessary revisions, weaker creative ideas and events that struggle to achieve their full potential.

A better brief doesn’t just produce better creative work. It produces better business outcomes.

How to start writing an event brief

It’s easy to jump straight into discussing venues, formats, speakers and production requirements. But these are solutions, not the challenge itself.

Before thinking about how your event will look or feel, ask yourself:

What business challenge are we trying to solve?
What role should this event play within our wider marketing strategy?
What do we want attendees to think, feel or do differently afterwards?
How will we know whether we’ve been successful six months after the event—not just on the day?

These questions create strategic alignment between your internal stakeholders and your agency partner. They also ensure every creative decision can be traced back to a commercial objective.

Why an event playbook helps to create better briefs

The strongest briefs rarely start from a blank page. Organisations that invest in an event playbook already have clear guidance on their brand, audience, event principles and measures of success. Rather than reinventing the wheel for every event, they provide agencies with a consistent strategic framework that allows creativity to evolve while keeping every experience recognisably on-brand.

A well-developed playbook helps answer questions such as:

What does our brand look and feel like in a live environment?
What experience should every attendee consistently receive?
How do our events support wider business objectives?
Which metrics matter most beyond attendance and satisfaction?

The result is greater consistency, stronger brand recognition and more efficient planning across an entire event portfolio.

Brief the challenge, not the solution

One of the most common mistakes in event briefing is presenting the agency with a predetermined solution.

For example:

Instead of:

“We need a conference with keynote speakers, panel discussions and a networking reception.”

Try:

“We need to strengthen relationships with senior clients who aren’t yet considering us for their next procurement process.”

The second brief gives the agency permission to think differently. It defines the outcome rather than dictating the format.

Whether budgets are tight, timelines are compressed or regulations create additional constraints, agencies are most valuable when they’re trusted to solve problems creatively. The more freedom they’re given to explore different approaches, the more likely they are to develop ideas that genuinely differentiate your event.

What should an event brief include? A practical template

Give your agency the context they need. The more your agency understands your business, the more valuable their contribution becomes. An effective event brief should include:

Section	What to include
Event overview	Event name, type, proposed date, location and background
Strategy	The wider marketing or business strategy, and how the event feeds into this.
Business objectives	The business challenge, what the event needs to achieve, and desired outcomes.
Audience	Who will attend, their expectations and key audience insights
Event experience	Desired attendee journey, atmosphere and key messages
Format and scope	Event type, estimated attendance, programme and delivery requirements
Budget	Available budget and any financial constraints
Logistics	Venue requirements, accessibility, accommodation and travel
Creative direction	Brand guidelines, inspiration and any mandatory elements
Timings	Key milestones, deadlines and decision dates
Stakeholders	Decision-makers, approval processes and internal contacts
Measurement	KPIs, reporting requirements and how success will be evaluated

Sharing this context early allows agencies to spend their time developing better ideas rather than making assumptions. An experienced event management agency will use this information to assess your requirements, identify potential challenges and develop a proposal that balances creative ambition with operational feasibility and commercial objectives.

When should you involve an event agency in the planning process?

Better briefing can help you to build a partnership, not a supplier relationship.

Ideally, involve an event agency as early as possible, particularly when developing the event strategy, objectives and creative direction. Early involvement allows the agency to challenge assumptions, identify potential issues and recommend the most effective approach before key decisions are made.

When agencies are treated as strategic partners rather than delivery suppliers, conversations become more open, assumptions can be challenged constructively and better ideas emerge.

The Lions State of Creativity report found that organisations with strong client-agency relationships perform better across the creative process, from understanding the business problem and writing better briefs to transforming insights into ideas and measuring success.

The most successful relationships aren’t built around simply delivering an event. They’re built around achieving a shared business objective.

At Broadsword, our strongest partnerships are those where we’re embedded as an extension of our clients’ teams. By understanding their business, audiences and long-term ambitions, we’re able to challenge thinking, bring fresh perspectives and develop experiences that support wider commercial goals—not just deliver memorable event days.

How do better briefs create better events?

Great events don’t happen because agencies have the best creative ideas. They happen because those ideas are rooted in a clear understanding of the business challenge they’re trying to solve. A thoughtful brief creates alignment, builds trust and gives your agency the confidence to develop solutions that are strategically grounded as well as creatively ambitious.

If your organisation has already invested in an event playbook, you’re halfway there. If not, it’s a worthwhile place to start. A consistent approach to strategy and briefing won’t just improve your next event—it will improve every event that follows.

Questions to ask an event management agency before you brief them

Finding an event agency that can meet your brief fully, bring your vision to life, and deliver the right outcomes across compliance and delivery can be the biggest challenge during procurement. To find the right event partner for your event’s unique needs, asking the right questions early is essential. Here’s what to look for when you choose an events agency:

1. What does “full-service” event delivery actually cover?

Full-service event delivery means managing every detail from the initial brief to final breakdown, including creative event design, venue sourcing, suppliers, logistics, technical production, and event management under a single agency partner.

This relieves clients of the responsibilities and offers numerous advantages. Having one team manage all aspects of an event reduces the number of stakeholders and minimises miscommunication. A single supplier ensures better accountability, faster problem-solving, and consistent execution of the creative vision across design, production, and execution.

That is why Broadsword works as one multidisciplinary team from pitch to post-event. The people thinking about your objectives and audience are connected to the people developing the creative, building the content, planning the delegate journey, designing the technology and the production. This results in consistency across the entire event lifecycle.For our clients that creates something valuable: fewer gaps between the strategy on the page and the experience in the room.

During the briefing stage, ask event agencies for a breakdown of what services they can offer in-house. An agency may deliver a service you aren’t aware of such as videography or registration tools, that you can add in to the partnership rather than outsourcing to another supplier.

2. Which event agencies specialise in which sector?

The team that builds an intimate twelve-person dinner for an influencer programme is not the same team that produces a large scale conference series for a fintech. A room full of agencies is likely to tell you they specialise in “whatever you need”, making it harder for brands to find the right partner that is capable of making their event the best it can be.

Different agencies specialise in a events ranging from automative events, employee experiences, or even golf days. Specialisation leads to expertise. Expertise leads to excellence.

Broadsword’s specialism lies in producing high-end corporate events and conferences for finance, fintech, professional, and public sector brands. These sectors deal with complex, highly regulated content and need an agency that they can trust and rely on to deliver seamless and meticulous experiences. Balancing this with a creative touch is what we do best. Creative thinking helps transform complex topics into compelling narratives to engage audiences.

As different industries have different requirements and audiences, ask the event agency for proof of experience in your sector including their case study portfolio and testimonials.

3. How can you scale events globally?

If you are scaling events across global markets, time zones, local relationships, regional compliance, and cultural understanding make event delivery more complex.

Ask the event agency what global capabilities they have and their ability to manage international programmes. How do they manage global multi-market logistics? Do they have genuine on-the-ground relationships, offices or personnel in the regions you operate in?

Agencies who operate from a single region and rely heavily on third-party suppliers to deliver global work on a project-to-project basis don’t have access to in-house on the ground support.

Broadsword has strong established teams based permanently in two major financial hubs – London and Hong Kong.

4. How do you design events for audience engagement?

Some event planners might treat the brief like a checklist to ensure that logistics and scheduling work. But, for event agencies that go beyond the brief, this is the bare minimum.

When designing an event, a memorable audience experience should be front and centre.

Ask how an event agency uses creative formats, innovative event technology, and personalisation to engage audiences and achieve goals – rather than simply filling the space. This is where agencies can show their creative thinking.

Bonus question:“If you were given complete creative freedom, what would you do differently to make this event truly exceptional?”

5. What does your delivery team look like on event day?

Pitch teams and delivery teams aren’t always the same people. It’s helpful to meet the delivery team early to ensure everyone is on the same page and get an idea of how communication with the agency works.

Ask directly:

Who would lead the account, manage delivery and act as the day-to-day contact?
Who runs the floor on event day, and what’s their track record at this scale?
What’s the ratio of agency staff to delegates?

The strongest agency relationships are not built on a presentation at the beginning and a handover at the end. We work closely with client teams and between departments, allowing us to operate as a genuine extension of the team rather than starting from zero each time.

6. What does post-event reporting look like?

An event doesn’t end when the last delegate leaves the building. Event planners must prove the value of their event to stakeholders. That means clear reporting on attendance, engagement, budget reconciliation, and measurable outcomes against whatever the event set out to achieve.

Our partnerships don’t just cover the event day. For Broadsword, full service support means we are hands-on from pitch to post event to drive measurable results and make continuous recommendations tailored to your goals.

Ask what a typical report includes. An agency confident in its own delivery will have a structured, repeatable process for this which they should be able to explain.

7. How do you approach event budget management?

You want to understand how an event agency would manage the available budget while delivering the strongest possible event experience. See how they approach cost planning, supplier negotiations, budget tracking and contingency planning, as well as how they identify opportunities to maximise value without compromising on quality.

8. What are your sustainability credentials, and how would you incorporate sustainable practices into the event?

Many businesses claim to be sustainable through vague claims and by meeting minimum requirements. In an industry where impact isn’t an abstract idea, who you work with matters and directly contributes to the impact of your event.

As one of the highest scoring B Corp certified agencies, we are accountable to measure our impact and recertify against rigorous standards. Sustainability isn’t an add on for us, it is embedded into our mission and values and we are committed to continuously improving and having a positive impact across every touchpoint of our operations. We evidence this through a CDP score, being awarded the highest climbing sustainable UK agency, and releasing an annual impact report.

Find an event agency that understands your objectives

The quality of your event starts with the quality of your brief, but choosing the right event agency is just as important. Look for a partner that understands your business objectives, challenges your thinking and brings the strategic, creative and operational expertise needed to turn your ambitions into reality.

At Broadsword, we work as an extension of our clients’ teams, combining event strategy, creative thinking, event management and technical production to deliver experiences that create meaningful connections and measurable business impact.

Whether you’re planning a global conference, leadership event, awards ceremony or brand experience, our team can help you develop the right approach from the initial brief through to delivery.

Discover Broadsword’s event management services or talk to our team.