The organization of an event of any kind is a challenge for the stakeholder and the organizer. It is said to be one of the most stressful jobs!
All planners know the importance of the pre event organization and being a detailed freak. Control freaks, do continuously check lists and take into consideration any possible situation that may happen… and actually, anything can happen! Even if it’s for an event in 1 or 2 years.
The moment you receive the first brief and you start working on the first proposal, the planner needs to consider already:
• What the stakeholder wants as ROI.
• Staying inside the budget.
• Building an unique event that will be memorable in so many ways.
• Creating the program with the different services.
What happens when your proposal is accepted:
• Contracting venues, catering services, make real what was in the paper, etc.
• Continuously work on a event road book to keep it updated with the last changes.
• Organize 1 or 2 site inspections and menu tastings.
• Studing timings and transportation.
• If production is involved, working with the creative departmentm, in order to get all final arts to be approved by the stakeholder and produce them in time.
• Brief the staff as exhaustive as possible and assign tasks during the event to each one.
When all “pieces” of the puzzle are together and the event starts, all the possible “surprise” situations must have been measured and B plans should have been considered in advance. All the unexpected must be resolved on the spot and here is where you see the difference of an experienced planner and a junior one. You cannot panic, you must be rational and, while smiling, find a solution.
On paper, everything works but it is on the ground where expertise plays a huge role.
During the event, all must run smoothly and perfect, and if something is not, the changes must be done on the “back stage”, which means ‘don’t ever do it in front of the participants’.
We must always be prepared because in all the events there are situations where you need to act, use your imagination or take immediate decision…
Recently we prepared a media event with an important partner of us in which we did 3 site inspections, measuring all the risks there were. We prepared an unique program full of unexpected details and an amazing itinerary to surprise the participants. There were many possible situations, the one we fear the most was that, the balloons could not fly with a 20km per hour wind, and in one the days, the balloons didn’t FLY!!!! We had 5 days with the balloon experience so every day at 6h30 in the morning all the team was crossing fingers, looking at the weather report and for the balloons to be set up… luckily, the weather was impressively good the rest of the days, and our beautiful sunrise balloons could FLY and we did not have to use our plan B anymore 😊.
Anyway the team decided not to purpose balloon rides unless the client insists!
