Business Events Sydney (BESydney) launched its new event planning portal to support event organisers to access tools, resources and funding to host their business event in Sydney.

The event planning portal has been designed in consultation with customers who run small events and agents to address the challenges they are facing during the event planning process. It will support all stages of the event planning process including researching, pitching, planning, budgeting and marketing the event, all in one place.

BESydney CEO, Lyn Lewis-Smith said, “We are continuing our digital transformation journey to provide efficiencies and tailoring our service to specific customer needs with our new event planning portal. The portal provides insights on event considerations including delivering a socially impactful event or checklists for inclusivity and accessibility, as well as ideas for venues, entertainment, and speakers in Sydney. We want to support conference, meeting and event owners pitch, win, plan and promote business events in Sydney”.

The new events planning portal is personalised by event sector with resources and content tailored to event sector requirements. Users are also able to create custom supplier lists based on unique event preferences. The portal is designed to be of benefit to smaller events which may not have an events team behind it, and it provides access to the Sydney Meeting Fund which supports business events with between 100-500 participants or delegates.

With offers from AU$40 per person, the Sydney Meetings Fund is dedicated to helping business events become a success—this may include conferences, incentives or corporate events that are deemed eligible.

The site has a video guide to explain navigation – across the pitching and bidding process; researching and planning; and then promoting the event and boosting delegate attendance. Some of those tools include downloadable event marketing toolkits, video and image galleries; Sydney destination guides and presentation templates.