Leadership and VIP coordination
Setting up VIP liaison contacts for event day
On the day, a guest's driver, the venue door team and your stage manager will each need one person to call, and it cannot be five different people.
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The short answer
Name one organiser liaison for each VIP or delegation, pair that person with a named contact from the guest's own office, and give both a backup. The liaison is the single route for questions about that guest on the day.
Keep the contact sheet short, dated and shared only with people who need it. Whether and how personal numbers may be kept and passed on is a question for your organisation's data protection contact.
What a liaison does, and does not do
A liaison stays reachable, knows the guest's confirmed plan and relays changes to the right people. They are not the decision-maker on protocol, seating or the programme.
Where a decision is needed, the liaison escalates to the named programme owner or the protocol office, so the guest is never asked to resolve an organiser's problem.
Who to pair with each VIP
| Role | Source | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Organiser liaison | Your team, volunteer or project lead | Single contact on the day for that guest or delegation. |
| Guest-side contact | The guest's private secretary, aide or protocol officer, named in the attendance confirmation | Confirms arrival, changes and departure. |
| Backup liaison | A second named person from your team | Covers breaks, handovers and phone problems. |
| Escalation owner | Programme owner or host protocol office | Decides anything outside the confirmed plan. |
| Venue contact | Duty manager or named door lead at the venue | Receives arrival and route updates. |
Choosing the right person for the liaison role
- Someone the guest's office can reach by phone and message during the event.
- Someone who is not also tied to a fixed post such as registration or stage cues.
- Someone briefed on the guest's confirmed title, seating and time window. See the leadership briefing note.
- Someone who is comfortable saying 'I will confirm and come back' rather than guessing.
What goes on the contact sheet
Keep to the minimum: names, role, one mobile number per person, the channel to use, and the hours they will be reachable. Date every version and say who owns it.
Do not include private details such as home addresses or family information. Agree with the guest's office what may be shared and see VIP privacy boundaries.
Briefing and testing the chain
- Share the sheet with the liaison, backup, venue duty manager and escalation owner only.
- Hold a short call or message check the day before: each person confirms they received it and that their number works.
- Agree a first-contact rule: the liaison calls the guest-side contact, not the guest.
- After the event, ask the data protection contact how long the sheet may be kept and delete it accordingly.
Worked example · Fictional example
Liaison pairs for a fictional forum
Fictional organisation and figures, for illustration only.
Forum Fiktif Pelaburan Tempatan expects two VIPs and one delegation of three. The project lead names three liaisons from a pool of five volunteers, each briefed on one guest, and a fourth volunteer as shared backup.
Each liaison is paired with the private secretary named in the confirmation. The sheet lists seven people, is dated the day before, and is sent to the venue duty manager and the programme owner only. Registration and stage staff are told to pass any VIP question to the liaison, not to answer it themselves.
Use this yourself
VIP liaison contact sheet
One block per VIP or delegation. Date it and name the owner of the sheet.
| Field | Entry |
|---|---|
| VIP or delegation | |
| Organiser liaison (name, mobile) | |
| Backup liaison (name, mobile) | |
| Guest-side contact (name, role, mobile) | |
| Escalation owner (name, mobile) | |
| Venue duty manager or door lead | |
| Preferred channel and reachable hours | |
| First-contact rule | Liaison calls guest-side contact, not the guest |
| Shared with | Names only |
| Sheet date and owner | |
| Retention and deletion owner | Confirm with data protection contact |
Handle it in-house, or bring in help?
Your team can usually handle this when
- You have few guests and a volunteer pool you know well.
- The guests' offices are already in regular contact with your secretariat.
- One person can own the sheet and keep it current.
Outside planning help earns its fee when
- Many guests, several offices and volunteers who are new on the day.
- Contact details keep changing and nobody owns the current sheet.
- Venue, transport and programme teams each ask different people about the same guest.
Want the liaison chain set up for you?
A conference project lead can name and brief the liaisons, collect contact details from each guest's office, circulate one dated sheet and run the check call the day before. Decisions on protocol and privacy stay with your host institution and data protection contact.
Questions organisers ask
Should the liaison be a senior person?
Seniority matters less than reachability and calm. Pick someone who can leave a fixed post, and give them a named escalation owner for anything beyond the confirmed plan.
Can we store VIP mobile numbers in a shared spreadsheet?
That is a question for your data protection contact. Ask what is permitted, who may see it, how long it may be kept and how access is removed afterwards.
Do the guests need to know their liaison?
Ask the guest's office what they prefer. Often the liaison is introduced to the guest-side contact beforehand and to the guest only on arrival.
How does this link to arrival instructions?
Arrival details for guests and speakers can be drafted with the arrival instructions builder; the liaison named here is the contact those instructions point to.
Related resources
Content record: Draft. Written from the cited sources and checked by automated rules; not yet independently reviewed.