What's included
A conference is four businesses running at once: a programme, a sponsorship pipeline, a ticket funnel and a production build. They share one date and almost nothing else, so the template gives each its own lane:
- Venue & dates — Date selection against the sector calendar, venue search and site visits, contract and deposit, room block and the capacity decision everything else is sized against. Milestone: venue contracted.
- Call for papers & programme — Themes and tracks, call for papers open, submission deadline, review and selection, acceptances and rejections, and the published agenda. Milestone: agenda published.
- Speakers — Keynote invitations and confirmations, speaker agreements, travel and accommodation, briefings, slide deadline and rehearsals.
- Sponsorship & exhibition — Prospectus, tier pricing, outreach and renewals, contracting, sponsor deliverable collection and the exhibitor floor plan. Milestone: sponsorship target hit.
- Registration & marketing — Ticketing build, early-bird, standard and late tiers, launch campaign, email waves and the delegate communications sequence.
- Production & run of show — AV and staging brief, room specs per track, signage and print, staffing and briefings, build days, the show itself and post-event. Milestone: doors open.
How to customize it
- Set the event date first and count backwards; every deadline here is a lead time from that date, not a start-forward estimate.
- Add one row per track if you are running parallel programmes with separate chairs and separate review pools.
- Adjust the ticket tier dates to your own pricing — the template uses early-bird, standard and late.
- Expand sponsorship into a row per tier or per named target account once outreach starts.
- Split build days by room if the venue hands over spaces at different times.
- Add abstract or paper publication deadlines if your conference produces proceedings.
Scheduling tips
- Publish the agenda before early-bird closes. People buy a programme, not a date; a closed early-bird with no published speakers is money left behind.
- Confirm keynotes before the call for papers opens. A named keynote raises submission quality and volume, and it is the anchor your marketing needs from day one.
- Set a slide deadline you actually enforce. AV cannot test what it has not received, and last-minute decks are the single most common cause of session overruns.
- Run sponsorship on its own calendar. Sponsor budgets are set annually, so outreach that starts six months out is talking to a budget that closed.
- Schedule the debrief before the event. The week after is when everybody disappears, and it is the only time the detail is still fresh.
Related templates
- Event Planning Gantt Chart Template
- Trade Show Planning Timeline Template
- Marketing Plan Gantt Chart Template
- Browse all Gantt chart templates
Frequently asked questions
How far ahead should you plan a conference?
Twelve months is typical for a multi-track conference with a call for papers, and nine is tight. The template uses a twelve-month schedule anchored on the event date; venue and keynote lock happen first because everything else is sized against them.
How is this different from the event planning template?
The event planning template is generic and works for any single event. This one is built for running a multi-track conference — call for papers, review cycle, speaker management, sponsorship tiers and a run of show. Use that one for a party or a launch, this one when you have a programme.
What if I am exhibiting rather than running the event?
Use the trade show planning timeline instead — that covers booking a stand, booth build, lead capture and follow-up. This template is for the organiser side.
When should the call for papers close?
Far enough before the event that review, acceptance, agenda publication and speaker travel booking all fit. The template allows about five months between submission deadline and doors open, which is realistic when reviewers are volunteers.
Is the conference schedule template free?
Yes. Free Excel, PowerPoint and CSV downloads, and free online editing with no sign-up and no watermark.