A Beginners Guide To Creating Events
Events are a great way to get to know your fellow community members, but creating a quality event can be tricky and can result in poor organization, and low turnouts. Today we will be discussing ways you can make sure you create quality events that the community will enjoy.
Step 1 - Choosing An Event Type
- Events don’t come in different shapes or sizes, they usually are mass flyouts from a single airport or group flights. These are usually fun but sometimes feel free to shake it up a bit. Fly in’s can be quite an organizational hassle but turn out quite fun. The Community always loves new and fresh ideas for events.
Step 2 - Choose an Airport
- Events can be at an airport, but try to choose something that is new and interesting. The trick is to find the sweet spot between popularity and irrelevancy for the best outcome.
Step 3 - Get Informed
- In order to organize your event, you need to be aware of the procedures, gates, dates, and more. Be sure to collect this information and double check that it is valid. Gates can often be a tricky thing to get right so I recommend going into Infinite Flight and using the gate list at the pre-spawn menu to figure out what part of the airport you want your pilots spawning in at and at what gates. One more thing you need to make sure you are informed about dates. Make sure that you are 100% free and can give your full focus to your event. Check and mark your calendar because no event is worse than an event without a host. Additionally, if you are having a flyout it is usually easier to have pre-established routes rather than letting pilots choose as it provides more realism. For fly in’s make sure you have your time frames right and that the airspace can accommodate the incoming traffic or you will have huge holding patterns which will put your flight behind schedule. For group flights again make sure that the airspace can accommodate large amounts of traffic or try and be spaced out, and try and find a realistic flight plan for the flight you are replicating.
Step 4 - Set Up Your Thread
- Now that you have chosen your event and where it is going to be held, it is time to set up the event. In my experience people sign up to the events that look more professional, have more pictures, and are more informing. Having a bare-bones thread isn’t going to attract a lot of pilots. In the useful links section, I have linked some great events organized by our community. Try to make your thread appeal to the pilot. Also if you are on training server try and ask for ATC sign-ups. Usually the best ATC are the IFATC officers or one training to become one. One way I choose is by searching up if they have established a tracking thread or asking how many operations they have.
Step 5 - Be Active!
- If you have followed the previous steps, you should be getting quite a few sign-ups for your fly out. It is important that you be active from the day the thread is published to the day of the flyout so that you can take sign up’s. It reflects poorly on you if you create an event but are not active and nobody can sign up.
By now you should be getting sign-ups and getting ready for your event. Below is part 2 which will tell you how to act and lead during your event in order to maintain organization and professionalism.
Step 6 - Days Leading Up to The Event
- Try and make sure you remind pilots of the event date and time. Lots of pilots can easily forget about the flight and it is in your best interest to remind them. Usually, a group PM works the best and comes in handy later on.
Step 7 - Day of Event
- Spawn in about 30 minutes early and start preparing for the event. Make sure you are active on the IFC and have a Group PM ready to go. If you are on the training server, remind your ATC to spawn in and get ready. If you are on the expert server I would recommend using tower view and acting as ATC through the group PM. Usually, it is best to establish a pushback list stating who will pushback when, but if you can’t this method usually works too.
Step 8 - Flight
- (Only applies to group flight) For flight order, it is recommended that you take off first and ask somebody you trust to take off last. This ensures that nobody is left behind and allows you to keep a watchful eye on your pilots to make sure that they are not misbehaving. Once again communication is key, try to stay active on the IFC and your Group PM to help pilots deal with any issues.
Step 9 - After Flight
- Congratulations, you have successfully completed your event. Make sure you change the title of your event to close and ask a mod to close the topic. As a lest gesture I usually like to thank my pilots for attending.
Vocab And Terms
Coming Soon
Have something you want to add? Let me know below! This is a wiki topic.