How to Run a Successful (online AMV) Event

[violet_skies]

I really enjoy running events, especially editing challenges. I have had the great pleasure of running a few smaller challenges and one large editing challenge on the BentoVid discord server, and I have really enjoyed the outcomes of all of them. I enjoy sharing my crazy ideas with others. Most of all, I love giving people opportunities to flex their creative muscles and create new and unexpected art. The goal of this blog post is to share my end-to-end process when I plan events. With guidance and a simple toolset, anyone should be able to pursue the fun of running their own unique and interesting events.

Events, editing events in particular, generally follow a four-part process for me:

• Planning: figuring out ideas and concepts, anticipating issues, defining the scope
• Set-up: organizing any resources needed, such as file repositories or meeting notices
• Execute: from event launch to event deadline, answering questions and supporting participants
• Close-out: sharing the results, getting feedback

 

Each part of the process can be broken down into smaller, manageable chunks that will make running an event a more formulaic task. To discuss the individual steps, I’m going to use two events that I ran in BentoVid. First, the Fun with Fonts IC  was fairly straightforward and encouraged the usage of text work in videos. Second, Shabu Showdown was a highly complex editing challenge with weekly themes and many moving parts.

 

Step 1: Planning
 

I spend a large percentage of the time planning a video event. A detailed plan will prevent a lot of headaches while the event progresses. Fortunately, planning can be broken down into smaller components rather than making it an insurmountable task. 
 

When you first come up with your event concept, consider the following items:

1. Subject
2. Scope
3. Schedule
4. Needs

Addressing and considering these four items will set you up for event success.
 

First, subject-the subject is essentially your core concept. This can also be described as the event theme. What do you want your event to be about? The subject can be summarized by a catchy title and a few short concept sentences. Perhaps you want to get a lot of AMVs for your favorite artist, or maybe you only want to get live action videos. Those would be fairly simple, easy to plan events to get your feet wet.
 

For Fun with Fonts, the subject was font work: encourage people to add text to their videos. It was a simple subject, easy to explain in a single sentence. My other example, Shabu Showdown was very different: this was a four week editing challenge, with one new theme per week, with the ultimate goal of filling out a bingo card. Shabu was a highly complex event requiring a LOT of forethought and planning.
 

Second, scope-these are the boundaries that you place around the event. What will you accept? Will you allow all types of media, such as anime, video games, live action? Do you have any song or length limitations? For both fonts and Shabu, they both allowed any type of song and source. One of the Fun with Fonts videos was fully typography with no source whatsoever. In addition, because the events that I run are not competitive, I place very loose boundaries. For Shabu Showdown, the minimum length was 45 seconds. For fun with fonts, there was no minimum.
 

Third, schedule - When does it start? When does it end? Depending on the type of event, there is definitely a sweet spot between when you announce it and when it should start. I generally aim to announce an event two months in advance of its start to build excitement, and some people may even shift schedules depending on how much they want to participate. For editing challenges, also consider AMV contest due dates and other potentially conflicting events.
 

Finally, needs - identifying your inputs, what you have to contribute to make the event run smoothly. There are a few common things that you might need, such as a submission link, a When2Meet if you’re going to stream, an event thread. These pieces are only going to be identified in this phase; set-up is Step 2 of the process. Specific events will need custom items, such as a font bank, a song bank, etc. 
 

For many people, the Planning stage is the hardest part. Depending on what elements are needed during the Set-up phase, it may also be the longest part. Maybe planning isn’t inherently your thing, but hopefully just defining Subject, Scope, Schedule, and Needs makes planning much easier. If you aren’t sure how to handle some aspect of the event during the planning stage, you can always poll the participants during Set-up. Not to mention some people enjoy the planning phase, and they will likely help you if you ask (if you join Bento, I’m staff there and easy to find)

 

Step 2: Set-up

This is when you gather all the things that you need to run your event. These items should have all been identified during the planning phase.
 

Submission link is the most important part. Google forms is the most common way to collect the videos that people have made for you. Most often, you’ll ask participants to paste links to their personal Google Drive. For Shabu Showdown, however, I set up a separate Google account for people to upload the videos directly. This made it easy for me to make the videos readily available for viewing for all participants with a much faster turn-around.
 

If you plan on streaming the videos at the end of the event, it’s good to know when most people will be available. I have historically used When2Meet, a simple website that lets you choose dates and times to schedule an event. There are other similar sites out there, so choose what suits you best.

I also type up my discord posts in advance during set-up. An initial announcement post plus a launch post are good to have ready and waiting. The initial announcement post can include surveys if you aren’t sure about things, any little detail that you think may be solved better with more opinions. The launch post might be more than one post if there are a lot of rules. The launch post should include the submission link and the When2Meet all at the same time for a shorter event. I would recommend sharing the When2Meet about 4 weeks in advance for a longer event. The more advanced notice you give people for a stream, the more ability they have to keep their schedule clear. 
 

And finally, if you’re going to do an event where you are supplying anything to the participants (fonts, songs, clips, bingo cards) this is the time to set it up.

 

Step 3: Execute

This is usually the fun part. After the event kicks off, you only have to be handy if anyone has questions, and participate yourself if the event structure permits. Make announcements, clarify rules, keep energy up, formally schedule the stream, monitor submissions. If you successfully completed Steps 1 and 2, it should be smooth sailing during this part.

 

Step 4: Close-out

Celebrate the event with a stream of all the submissions at the end. I also like to do a survey of how people felt about the event overall if I plan to run the event again in the future. I have a ton of feedback from Shabu Showdown that I plan to implement for Shabu 2025.

 

 

Is there anything I missed? Anything I got wrong? Ask any questions about my experiences or let me know if this guide helped you run an event!
 

Comments

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I added this to the resources over in newcomers. Thank you for taking the time to post it.