The attendee comms plan

Attendees don’t read kickoff emails. They skim the subject line, search their inbox at the airport, and ask their manager. A good comms plan works with that: fewer messages, each with one job, sent when someone needs it, from a sender they recognize.

The calendar at a glance

T-0 is Day 1, as in the 90-day plan, so arrival day is T-1 and Day 3 is T+2. Slide the dates to fit your contracts.

The save-the-date

The 90-day plan puts the save-the-date in the T-75 to T-61 window; send it at the front. Anyone who needs a visa should hear the dates much sooner; planning for international attendees explains why.

Keep it to what people need to hold the date: the program and travel days (arrival window, earliest departure), the city, who’s invited, any remote option, when registration opens, and the sharing policy, so nobody learns about a roommate at registration. Attach a calendar hold covering the travel days.

Registration and the form

Open registration once the room block and booking link are live, around T-65, and close it at T-45. That leaves time to reconcile the list before the hotel’s cutoff date (see travel and room-block math).

What the form collects:

• Names: legal name as on their travel ID, plus a badge name.
• Role, team, and manager, which drive breakouts and the manager cascade.
• Travel: room needed, arrival and departure dates, sharing opt-in, and flight details as required fields. If people can register before booking, let them reopen the form, and auto-remind anyone whose flight fields are still blank.
• Dietary needs: checkboxes, free text, and a separate question about allergies and their severity.
• Accessibility: one open question, such as “Is there anything that would help you take part fully?”, and a private way to follow up. An accessible, inclusive kickoff goes further.
• Sizes, if swag is sized. If the swag order date falls before registration closes, order on the sizes you have, plus a buffer.
• Emergency contact, with a line saying who will see it. Your plan for duty of care at kickoff covers how it’s used.
• Photo and recording consent, or an opt-out, in wording legal writes.
• Mobile number and text opt-in, plus a home time zone for timing sends.

Privacy, briefly

Dietary, accessibility, and emergency-contact answers can reveal health and personal details. Before the form goes live, check with legal (and HR, for accessibility) on what you can ask, how to word consent, who sees each field, and when it’s deleted. Then share narrowly: the caterer gets what it needs to feed people safely, not the whole spreadsheet.

Confirmation, reminders, and nudges

The confirmation is automatic and immediate: everything the attendee entered, how to change it and by when, and a monitored address for questions. If it doesn’t show people what they typed, you’ll find the misspelled name at the airline counter.

Reminders go only to people who haven’t registered; anyone else who gets “Don’t forget to register!” learns to ignore you. As a rule of thumb, two are plenty: one near the midpoint, one a few days before close with the deadline in the subject line. Then the list goes to managers. After close, nudges are about gaps (blank flight fields, a hotel not booked before the cutoff, pre-work due) and go only to the people with the gap.

The know-before-you-go email

This is the email people search for at the airport, so make it answer everything. A common planning number is about ten days out, once the agenda and room assignments are stable. If something material changes later, send a short update with the change in the subject line.

In this order:

1. The top three: when to arrive, where to go, and an onsite number someone answers day and night.
2. Getting there: hotel address, check-in time, airport transfers by arrival window, and what’s reimbursable outside them.
3. The agenda, linked, not attached, with Day 1’s start time and room.
4. What to bring and wear: laptop, charger, travel ID, the dress code by day and for awards night, and the weather.
5. Pre-work and its due date.
6. The event app, installed and signed in before travel.
7. Expenses and per diem, with a policy link.
8. Departure: when Day 3 ends, checkout, luggage storage, and coach times.

Field note: Write the know-before-you-go email first, around T-30, even though it goes out late. Every other message is a subset of it, and drafting it early flushes out the decisions nobody has made, starting with the dress code for awards night.

The manager cascade

Reps ask their manager before they read your email, so brief managers first. A common approach is to send them each major message two business days ahead, with answers to the questions reps will ask: Can I bring a partner? Can I leave before Day 3? Is awards night formal?

At T-48, managers get the list of their reps who haven’t registered, and they own the last nudge. A message from your own manager gets an answer; a third automated reminder doesn’t. At T-14, the manager brief covers what the team must finish before travel, the pre-work deadline, and talking points for the next team meeting.

Onsite: the day before and every morning

Send the day-before message the afternoon of T-2, the day before arrival day. Early arrivals flying that day will read it at the airport, which is when they need it. Keep it to the next 24 hours: transfer pickup points, registration desk hours, the welcome reception, and the onsite number.

Then send one scheduled message each morning before breakfast, by email and push: the first session and its room, the one change worth knowing, and tonight’s plan. Put Day 3 checkout and coach times in the Day 2 message too, because nobody reads anything after awards night.

Push, email, or text

Texting needs numbers and an opt-in from registration. Check with legal on consent and on the rules where your attendees live, and decide in advance who may send a safety text.

Who signs what

The calendar follows one rule: the CRO signs what people should remember, and the events team signs what people need to do. Keep the CRO to the save-the-date and the Monday-after email; each extra one makes the next easier to ignore. Events-team mail comes from a monitored shared inbox, never a no-reply address, because people reply with questions worth answering. Managers nudge in their own words.

Keep the tone plain. Start subject lines with the event name and the action, as in “Kickoff: register by Friday, 5 p.m. your time.” Every deadline gets a time zone.

What not to send

• One email per department. Fold each note into the next scheduled message.
• Attachments. Agendas change. Link to the current version.
• Anything personal, to the whole list: room numbers, roommates, flights, and dietary or accessibility answers.
• Territory, quota, or comp news. That belongs with managers and RevOps.
• Anything that tips off award winners, like a “make sure you’re at awards night” note sent only to winners.
• A list people can reply-all to. One “please remove me” becomes a thread.

The Monday after

The survey goes within 24 to 48 hours of the close. If Day 3 ends Thursday at lunch, send it Friday morning with the expense deadline, while receipts are still in pockets. Then the CRO’s Monday-after email goes to everyone invited, including people who joined remotely; post-kickoff follow-through covers what goes in it and what comes after. Last, cancel any scheduled pushes still in the queue, so nobody gets “Doors open in 10 minutes” the following Tuesday.

For someone who registers in the first week and fills in every field, that’s eleven messages from save-the-date to the Monday after, each with one job, one sender, and one inbox search to find it.