Organising a conference is a really super thing to have on the academic CV. As the organiser you get to see papers early in their development stage, be part of the future direction of your field, have some nice dinners with high level keynote speakers, and get to (hopefully) bask in the glory of a well run event that sticks in the minds of your peers.

We have run numerous conferences, ranging from small symposia of 40 persons to 600 plus delegate three day multiple parallel track behemoths. For the past 11 years we have run the Infiniti conference (600 plus paper submissions, 180 papers, two and a half days, 250 delegates). The tips below are gleaned from that experience

1) Be organised. This is going to take time, and probably some resources beyond yourself. Make sure your line manager is in agreement and that you specify more resources than you think you'll need. Finally, make sure all this is recognised as part of your workload.

2) Get professional help. As an academic you probably suck at management and organisation. Stick to the academic side of things, selecting special papers and keynotes and managing the creation of paper sessions. For the practical side of things, get help. There are many professional conference arrangers and companies out there. Use them.

3) Take a delegate's perspective. Be honest, people don't go for the papers. They go to meet other researchers, to exchange ideas and network. High quality papers are the skeleton around which you must build a lot of breakout and coffee sessions. Make it easy for people to meet and exchange ideas.

4) Budget budget budget. Good things cost money. So charge. Build into the registration fee the cost per delegate of the professional help. Budget does not mean do it cheap. Cheap is usually nasty. Be nice. Set a rate that covers professional help, ample coffee and tea, a decent lunch or dinner, plus a contingency.

5) Keep it tight. A conference's success is not neccessarily dependent on the number of people running it. We run the Infiniti conference on international finance with two people – a chair and an organiser. That's it. One makes final binding academic decisions, the other organisational ones. Yes, there may be others doing stuff – local organisers selecting restaurants, paper selection committees etc. They are not running it. You are. Resist conferences that foist a pack of CV stuffing useless mouths onto you.

6) Be selective. As with predatory publishers there are more or less predatory conferences. These sound great, and you talk to the high panjandrum about running it, then it turns out you have to charge a fortune. You have to fly them and their mates first class intercontinental and run the conference on sponsorship. Pass. Let someone else do it. Note that these conferences never go back to the same university.

7) Hold it somewhere nice, but not too nice. You want to attract people to come and visit the conference and enjoy the locale. But not so much that they slope off and not attend any sessions. Holding it on campus is usually the best bet.

8) Embrace technology. Make sure that every room has audiovisual technology and secured between sessions. Use a conference organising software or conference maker site, to receive, manage and organise papers, distribute to reviewers, arrange sessions and so forth.

9) Keep track of time. There is nothing worse than someone taking 45 minutes for their allocated 20 minute presentation slot. Make sure that you keep on time. If needed, go into rooms and tell people "stop now please". Make the sessions so that they run on time. At our event, we even make the last speaker the chair to encourage them to be on time.

10) Make sure people pay. You will be astonished at how many people try to get in for free. Don't put anyone on the schedule until they have registered. Some alas get papers accepted and then don't turn up, just to have the CV hit. People will try sneak into interesting and keynote speakers. No ticket, no show. You're charging a registration fee for a reason.

Brian Lucey is professor of finance at Trinity College Dublin and editor of International Review of Financial Analysis and Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance – follow him on Twitter @brianmlucey

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