This guide is rather blunt and honest. There have been a nice handful of user-run events that have come to pass - and about as many that have never made it out of the planning stages. Even the ones that made it to their own event have had varying degrees of success. This guide is to help you decide if you want to put in the time and effort and to warn you about what you should expect.


-> Pre-Planning Your Event: Ideas and Dates

TIP: You absolutely need an idea for your event before you even set up the planning thread in Community Discussions.
WHY: You will not interest helpers or people who might donate to your event if you do not have a clear direction. The only people you will attract will be those who are as disorganized as you currently are and those who would normally make donations will keep their items or gold firmly in their pocket.

TIP: Choose a strong theme.
WHY: If your event doesn't have a theme that is exciting, who will be interested? While an event idea you have might be a "worthy" and "thought-provoking" idea, do they have the power to draw in users? Do they lend themselves to ideas for sticky-thread games or giveaways? Will people have fun?

TIP: Do not plan an event that will fall just before or just after a site-run event.
WHY: If you plan an event to run just before a site-run event, users will be saving their gold and preparing for the site-run event and ignore yours. If you plan it to run just after a site-run event, people will have spent their gold and be "burnt out" of events. It is recommended that you plan an event no sooner than two weeks before or two weeks after a site-run event.
Your very best bet for running a user-run event is either the "Menewshaversary"/"Yumeh's Birthday" (January 20th being the anniversary) or during the summer, between mid-May and mid-July.


-> Choosing Helpers/Assistants

TIP: Remember that user-run events are "sink or swim". Do not expect the staff to help you out.
WHY: User-run events are exactly that - user-run. That does not mean staff are not allowed to run events as a "user", but they can expect no more privileges than a regular user.

TIP: Be ruthlessly selective when choosing your helpers. Choose those with the best organizational skills, are active users, are dependable, and have common sense.
WHY: A big reason why user-events have a bad reputation is because of how disorganized and slap-dash they tend to be. You need people with good organization skills, or they will lose information or will put together awful-looking threads which turn people off to the event. You need people who are active, or how will they keep up-to-date with how the event planning is going? They need to be dependable users so things get done on time or they will let you know if they are having issues with being dependable (rather than simply disappearing on you with no word). And them having common sense is, well... common sense.

TIP: Expect people to bail on you and have stand-by helpers just in case.
WHY: Doubling up on thread hosts is always a sensible idea. Things come up. People get sick, have problems at work or school, or have personal issues crop up at the worst possible times. Be prepared for that! Be ready to assist your assistants.


-> Advertising Your Event

TIP: Expect people not to care about your event. At all.
WHY: People need a reason to care. Give them a reason and they will. But first they have to know about your event in the first place - and that requires a lot of very hard work.

TIP: Advertise legally.
WHY: Don't spam threads about your event. Don't make a thread to advertise your event (your event planning thread in Community Discussions is your "advertising" thread). Don't do anything that would get you an infraction on your account or the account of any of your helpers.

TIP: Don't just rely on the front page banner and Announcement to do the work for you, get word of mouth out there in as many legal ways as possible.
WHY: Relying on only the front page banner and Announcement will only get you those people who log in and happen to see the main page or Announcements forum. Ask and encourage people to advertise your event in their signatures, in their link-exchange sections of their permanent threads, and so forth. The more people who know about the event, the more likely they will be to show up or direct other users to the event when it's underway.

TIP: Have signature banners that advertise your event planning thread, a different one to promote the event just before it starts, and a third one to advertise during the event. Other, alternate banners are even better.
WHY: Users will "tune-out" a banner if they've seen it too many times. The more, different banners your event has, the more likely people are to notice them and remember your event.

TIP: Have nice signature banners.
WHY: Ugly banners will indicate to users that you're an unprofessional event and quite likely a cheap one as well (ie: "will not have a lot of nice free stuff").


-> Tips on Sticky Threads & Prizes

TIP: Pre-plan your sticky threads. Spell-check them, grammar check them, have others read over your threads and see if there's anything they'd suggest for improvement, and look over your thread's formatting before the event opens to users.
WHY: It looks rather unprofessional to have errors everywhere or ugly formatting. It will turn people off to your entire event if your sticky threads look shoddy! Use the weeks you are given in your private event forum to test the formatting and perfect the looks of your threads.

TIP: Use fonts, colors and sizes that are easy to read!
WHY: The more trouble people have even reading what your threads say, the less likely they are to care. Bright yellow, hot pink and ice blue size super-tiny may be your favorite way to post, but to most people it hurts their eyes.

TIP: Make certain your rules are clear and cover everything.
WHY: The less confusion there is over what is won, how, and who can enter for it, the better.

TIP: Have your banners/other event artwork done in plenty of time for the event. They should look as cohesive as possible.
WHY: It looks unprofessional to have your banners/artwork done last-minute. And the less they look like they belong to the same event, the more disorganized and unprofessional your event looks as a whole.

TIP: Have all your prizes decided before the event even starts.
WHY: Who wants to enter a contest if they don't even know what they might win?

TIP: Have a lot of free stuff to give away/win.
WHY: Because people will likely not bother if you don't have a mountain of things to give them. Your event will not have an event rare or event rares associated with it. Nor will it have a release of new commons. Essentially, your event will be a boring sub-forum with only the fact that it's an event forum and has things to win going for it. Make it worth their while to participate.


Tips last updated: May 29, 2009.