Leadership and VIP coordination
Event VIP requirements intake
A senior guest has agreed to attend your conference, and the committee is already guessing what the guest will expect.
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The short answer
Ask the guest's own office, in writing, what the guest needs and who may confirm it. Record each answer with its source and date, and leave anything unconfirmed as an open question.
Protocol, titles and precedence are decided by the host institution or the guest's authorised office, not by the organiser. Use this intake to gather answers, then route them through VIP protocol approval and titles and honorifics verification.
Start from the guest's office, not from assumptions
Committee members often describe what a senior guest probably wants. Treat those as guesses and write them down as questions.
Find out who in the guest's office handles the visit, and ask whether they will give you a single named contact. Everything after that goes through that person.
Areas to cover in the intake
| Area | What to ask | Why it matters later |
|---|---|---|
| Attendance | Confirmed attendance, in what capacity, for which part of the programme | Programme and seating |
| Contact | Named contact in the guest's office, and a day-of contact | Liaison contacts |
| Titles | How the guest and any accompanying officials are to be named and addressed in print and on stage | Programme, badges, stage script |
| Arrival and departure | Mode of arrival, entrance preference and whether an escort is expected | Arrival sequence and the arrival instructions builder |
| Party | Number of accompanying persons and their roles | Seating, access, catering |
| Programme role | Whether the guest will speak, receive or hand over anything, or be photographed | Run of show |
| Speech and content | Who prepares the speech and how it is approved | Clearance process |
| Privacy | What may be published about the visit and when | Privacy boundaries |
| Access and dietary needs | Anything the office chooses to share | Venue and catering |
What not to do at intake
- Do not offer protocol arrangements. Ask what the office requires.
- Do not assume precedence or seating order from titles. Ask the host institution or authorised office to confirm.
- Do not share the guest's movements outside the people who need them.
- Do not promise any element of the programme before the office confirms it.
Running the intake
- Agree internally who is the single point of contact with the guest's office.
- Send the intake questions in one message and ask for a reply by a set date.
- Record every answer with who gave it, the date, and how it was received.
- List unanswered items as open questions with an owner and follow-up date.
- Send a short summary back to the guest's office and ask them to correct it.
- Pass the confirmed items to the programme, arrival and liaison plans.
Worked example · Fictional example
An intake for a senior guest of honour
Fictional organisation, office and details, for illustration only.
A fictional association invites a senior public figure to open its annual conference. The secretariat writes to the guest's private office with nine questions. The office answers five, says the arrival and security arrangements will follow, and names a day-of contact.
The secretariat records five confirmed items and four open ones, each with a follow-up date. It does not announce the guest's role in any public material until the office confirms the programme details.
Use this yourself
VIP requirements intake form
Send as a list of questions. Fill in the source and date for each answer, and leave unanswered lines open.
- Is the guest attending, and in what capacity?
- For which part of the programme?
- Who in the guest's office is our contact, and who is the day-of contact?
- How should the guest, and any accompanying officials, be named and addressed in print and on stage?
- Arrival and departure: how, where, when, and is an escort expected?
- How many people will accompany the guest, and in what roles?
- Will the guest speak, receive or present anything, or be photographed?
- Who prepares and approves any speech?
- What may be said publicly about the visit, and when?
- Any access, dietary or other needs the office would like us to know about?
- Is there anything we have not asked that your office would like to raise?
Handle it in-house, or bring in help?
Your team can usually handle this when
- The guest's office is responsive and already sends clear instructions.
- Your team has hosted the same guest before.
- One person can be the single contact.
Outside planning help earns its fee when
- Several senior guests with different offices and different requirements.
- The committee is making assumptions that nobody has checked with the guest's office.
- Many people want to contact the guest or office directly and need one coordinated route.
Want the guest's requirements collected and routed?
A conference project lead can send the intake questions to the guest's office, record each answer with its source, keep the open-questions list, and pass confirmed items to the programme and arrival plans. Protocol decisions stay with the host institution or the guest's authorised office.
Questions organisers ask
Can we follow a standard protocol guide?
Treat any guide as a prompt for questions, not as the answer. The host institution or the guest's authorised office confirms what applies to your event.
Who should contact the guest's office?
One named person from the organiser. This avoids conflicting messages to the guest's office.
What if the office does not answer?
Keep the items open, follow up on the date you set, and do not announce or arrange anything that depends on the answer.
Related resources
Content record: Draft. Written from the cited sources and checked by automated rules; not yet independently reviewed.