Creating a Conference with the Setup Wizard

Updated July 22, 2026·Planning a Conference·Share on X

Every event you attend or exhibit at is a conference in Conference Hero. The setup wizard walks you through five steps and leaves you with a conference that has dates, a team, goals, a task plan, a budget, and target leads. You can skip any step and come back later; nothing in the wizard is locked in.

To start, go to Conferences in the sidebar and click New Conference.

Step 1: Details

The basics that everything else hangs on:

  • Name - the official event name, e.g. "SaaStr Annual 2026".
  • Location and dates - the conference shows as Upcoming, Live, or Completed based on these dates.
  • Attendees - pick the team members working this event. Assigned people see the conference on their dashboard and can be given tasks and booth shifts.

You can also add Event Staff right here: booth crew or contractors who need to appear on schedules but have no login and use no paid seat. Enter a name, optionally a company and job title, and they become assignable everywhere. See workspace roles for how Event Staff differ from regular users.

Step 2: Goals

Pick what success looks like before the event starts, so the ROI report has something to measure against. Choose from goal templates or add a custom goal with your own metric, target value, and unit. Typical goals: leads captured, meetings booked, pipeline generated.

Goals are visible on the conference overview, so the whole team knows the number they are working toward.

Step 3: Tasks

Three ways to build your prep list, and you can combine them:

  • AI Task Planner - upload your exhibitor manual, order forms, and logistics documents. Claude reads them and proposes a task plan with real deadlines and attachments. This is the fastest way to a complete plan; see the full guide at AI Task Planner. Tasks generated here are applied when you finish the wizard.
  • Templates - apply a built-in checklist like Full Conference Playbook, Pre-Show Preparation, or First-Time Exhibitor. Details in managing tasks.
  • Manual - add individual tasks with a title, assignee, and due date.

Step 4: Budget

Set the planned budget and category allocations: booth space, travel, sponsorship, swag, and so on. Actual spend is tracked later as budget items with an approval flow. See budget planning.

Step 5: Leads

Define who you want to meet. You can add target leads by hand, or upload a prospect list or notes and let the AI lead planner extract names, companies, titles, and priorities for you to review and edit before applying. These targets give your booth team a hit list and seed the lead pipeline before the event starts.

After the wizard

The conference page becomes your home base, with tabs for:

  • Tasks - the board from step 3, plus anything you add later.
  • Booth Planner - shifts, sessions, and day schedules. See Booth Planner.
  • Budget - allocations and spend tracking.
  • Event Landing Page - a public page where prospects submit their own details. See event landing pages.

During the event dates the conference shows as Live, and every capture method files leads against it. Afterwards, the Post-Event ROI report scores the event against the goals you set in step 2.

Tagsconferencewizardsetupplanning
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