How to Host a Wellness Event with a Healthy Outcome

When you imagine hosting a wellness event, what comes to mind?

Maybe a crew of meditating monks sit cross-legged in states of pure zen. Or excited guests relish the shock of unbelievably tasty low-calorie vegan burgers.

Whatever comes to mind, we can assure you of this: A wellness event doesn’t host itself!

Even bona fide wellness event gurus can’t sit around waiting for reincarnation. A good event requires good planning and promotion. Not to mention a great host at the centre of it all.

Let’s cover some tips for hosting a wellness event, including:

• Digital tools
• Team organisation
• Venue preparation
• Guest experience
• Logistical planning
• Packing it all up

Digital tools of the trade

You can make life way easier with the help of digital tools. Especially tools aimed at wellness events. Ticketing websites—like Billetto—can be a great resource here.

On the day of the wellness event, you’ll be able to use your ticketing website to help with prep work and guest check-in. This includes:

• Printing out your guest list and sharing the details with your team
• Selling tickets at the door with box office software (iPads work great for this)
• Scanning tickets with your smartphone or tablet (Billetto has an app for that)
• Reaching out to guests with ongoing updates, if needed

Tip: Here’s a great tool for appointment scheduling during wellness events.

Captain your wellness team

Group partnerships with health organisations are common in wellness events. For that matter, event volunteers are also typically attracted to this sort of thing. That means very few wellness events go off without a strong team effort.

Shortly before your wellness event begins, it’s important to go over the battle plan one last time. This is an excellent opportunity to introduce the event programme, which all the organisers can reference and discuss.

This meeting can include a recap of various duties and other info:

• Guest greeting
• Schedule control
• Emergency planning
• Event coverage for social media

Get focused

The team should always be at the ready with information relevant to your wellness event.

For instance, if your wellness event targets healthy dieting, the team should be prepared to answer questions about proteins, carbs, and calories. Or if meditation is the theme, some staff should be prepared to gently assist guests with basic meditative techniques.

Tip: For maximum event prep, consider designing a cool event programme.

Venue prep

Wellness events can require a good deal of setup work. If your location isn’t ready, neither are you! Be sure you know when the venue is available for prep. You’ll want to get started as soon as possible.

What to set up

Depending on your style of wellness event, you may need to get certain equipment set up:

• Health-screening stations
• Exercise equipment
• Sports and game accessories
• First aid stations
• Healthy food cooking class accessories or buffet tables
• Wellness merchandise and vendor booths, if any. (Stress balls, anyone?)

Your partner organisations may have also requested that their promotions be set up. Keep those relationships strong by honouring that and helping to make their presence known.

Don’t be shy

Start off the guest experience with good vibes. This is always important, but especially so when you host a wellness event.

It all comes down to—you guessed it—wellness! Make your guests feel good with a hearty welcome. This can be as simple as standing at the door and literally saying, “Welcome.” You don’t have to say it in a weird zen voice, either.

Tip: Here are some sweet ideas for making guests feel most welcome.

What about early guests?

One thing to avoid is waiting times outside the event itself. This can be avoided by opening the doors a little early to allow guests to filter in and start enjoying themselves right away.

Make sure there are things to occupy them, though! Health screening booths are an easy way to keep early guests occupied. Healthy buffets can also bring good vibes and help guests feel at home right off the bat.

Tip: Early or late, guests should always feel welcome during the check-in process.

Logistics and being in the know

You don’t want anything getting out from under your sharp host awareness.

Always check in with presenters, vendors, and other booth personnel on the day of. Think of that scene in Star Wars Episode IV: “Red 10, standing by. Red 7, standing by…”

Here are a few items you might want to double check before go time:

• Is all the food fresh and looking good? Ready for serving?
• Is health screening or similar equipment in working order? (Consider personally testing this stuff)
• Is there anything lingering around the venue that might clash with the wellness vibe? (Dirty bathrooms, junk food wrappers from somebody’s lunch, and so on.)
• Do you have backups in place for bad weather? (A lot of wellness events use the outdoors.)

Say cheese!

As you host a wellness event, think in terms of the future. Images and video from this event can be used to advertise future ones.

For fitness-oriented events, you can sign guests up for before-and-after shots. A lot of health and fitness groups use this strategy, revving up motivation by taking two pictures with a year in between.

You can eventually share these images on your website and social media: “My commitment to fitness all started with Healthy Guy Fest 2019…”

Other pics to snap

Make sure you also end up with plenty of images featuring things like:

• Delicious health food
• Fun physical activities
• Kids learning about wellness
• Smiling staff and guests

The idea is to capture as much joy as possible here. It’s about wellness after all, so make sure you have staff on the hunt for fun to capture!

Tip: Learn more about the art of the before-and-after photos – and share these tips with guests if they want to try it on for size.

All about the audience

As you gear up to host a wellness event, things can get complicated. But in true wellness fashion, it is helpful to meditate on one thing:

This event is about the guests.

Don’t let your planning frenzy get in the way of a great event. All good health and wellness events come from a place of service.

Service to the event goers, whose lives should be improved by attending. Even if just a little bit.

Tip: Don’t just tell your guests they’re important, show them.

Building something truly great

If this is your first wellness event, it can feel pretty stressful. Focus on the basics of bringing in the guests and making them happy. If you can get the hang of this, you will gain experience for the next occasion.

Over time, your annual wellness event can slowly blossom into a wonderful thing.

Tip: Keep some of these ideas for throwing an awesome health fair in mind as you build your perfect health and wellness event over time.

Pack it up, pack it in

You knew this was coming. Cleanup, cleanup everywhere. Just like the old song: Everybody, do your share…

You don’t actually have to sing that.

Once this event ends, though, there is plenty to tear down and spruce up. The last thing you need is a reputation for lazy leftovers. Wellness events are all about inner and outer cleanliness. This applies to the environment, too!

Be sure you have prepared efficient waste disposal methods. You’ll want to look into compost and recycling options as well. You never know where publicity will come from. A wellness event famous for putting recyclable goods in the rubbish may struggle to deal with that public image.

Healthy bodies, healthy environment.

Tip: Event cleaning services can make things way easier on you.

A host of things to think about

Keep our guide close at hand as you host a wellness event, and you’ll be in solid shape.

Comment below with your own suggestions and experiences…or anything else you have to say about wellness events!