Our Favourite Event Management Disasters (And How You Can Avoid Them)

Event management has consistently been ranked in the top ten of most stressful jobs. More stressful than being a police officer, apparently. If you’ve ever run an event, you might understand why. I’ve helped run events for corporates and it’s like juggling water balloons that are tightly filled with lava.

It’s more stressful than most other business functions because the deadline is immutable. If you’re launching a new product and your shipment is delayed or damaged, that is disappointing and sad. But you just push that launch date out and roll with the punches. But if you’re running an event and something goes wrong, you can’t stand up in front of a room of people who have travelled to attend, paid for tickets, and say ‘ah gee we’re gunna have to move this to next month, I’ll email you to let you know the new date’.

Adding to the stress, is the multiple moving parts with no room for error. Literal moving parts, such as people. For example, when all your speakers are ready to go on stage, miked up, and you realise you’re missing someone. A frantic head count, a brisk look around, but then there’s no choice but to send your panel onto the stage. And as they confidently stride out on stage, through the sound system, you hear an unmistakable tinkle, and flush. Oops.

Why Is Event Management So Stressful?

If you’re planning an event, there is a lot to think about (quite aside from unscheduled bathroom breaks by your speakers). You visit the venue, walk through, book, and start planning. Then, sort out the catering, making sure there’s plenty of halal, vegetarian, kosher, gluten-free options. Next, arrange the technology. There has been more than one event go awry when one rare AV cable was mysteriously missing and was not in stock at any nearby store. You design and order a bunch of collateral and giveaways, organize multiple vendors for the fit-out, technology, and set production. There are speakers and panellists to book, partners to negotiate with, advertising to arrange, and a million other tiny details.

And on the day, things happen. Vendors not showing up, speakers disappearing or not being prepared, or realising (too late) there’s another Marriott hotel 10km down the road and half your attendees are there.

The best thing you can do is have a dedicated events team, either in house, or working as a contractor. They do this, day in, day out. And they are kind of absolutely insane people who thrive on adrenaline, are hyper-vigilant, who run on caffeine and air, and who can hold a million tasks in their head at once.

If you don’t have this kind of luxury, we have the down-low from one of the best in the business on how to make your event fantastic.

1. Have the Best People on Stage – and Prepare Them

Attendees come because they want to hear from people who are more experienced and smarter than them. You need to choose high quality people that are experts, highly innovative, or who are doing things differently in their industry.

You need to prepare them. Even if it’s your CEO (maybe especially if they are your CEO), that means notes of what you expect to cover, practices and run-throughs. Make sure they are familiar with the planned content for the discussion.

2. Have a Team That Is Tight, and Can Think on Their Feet

When the event is on, the team need to be solid; one person who isn’t doing their share is dead weight. One memorable day, I was on reception, meeting attendees, speakers, and various vendors, and sending them all to the places they needed to be, an air traffic controller of the human variety. Suddenly, there was a problem- the CEO needed something fetched for him right then (because of course he did). I couldn’t leave and was frantically calling for my team member to help. He ignored my repeated calls over the earpiece until someone else found him snuggled up to a coffee at the back of the venue.

The dream team (aside from him) turned our events in a success. Because no drama was too big, no problem too small. We worked alongside each other, long days, long nights, with meals eaten seated together, wilting, in burger joints, aching feet, exhausted and craving sleep. The kind of team that worked relentlessly together. It’s essential you can trust each other.

3. Care About Your Attendees

Put some thought into the little details. Think about your attendee’s food and drink preferences. More people are ditching alcohol, are there nice non-alcoholic drinks? Are there food options to suit everyone? If you’re expecting a lot of people from a particular culture, you should think about how to embrace that.

All organisations think about giveaways, but often don’t think very hard. Pens with your logo on the side, snore. Notebooks. Yawn. Food items that won’t get eaten, gifts that can’t be packed into suitcases, poor quality items that look like they were created by three legged dogs operating a sewing machine.

Gartner once gave us a super cute, high quality, teddy bear wearing a ‘Gartner’ T-shirt that our toddler son immediately loved and is still a bedtime buddy two years on. One supplier gave us a large monogrammed leather satchel that fits my laptop and a notebook and my wallet and looks stylish doing so. Think about high quality, useful, and something different.

Thought + Planning + Lists + Organization = Event Success

Like all marketing, your event is about your relationship with your customers, potential customers, suppliers, vendors, and the wider industry community. They want to attend events that inspire, inform, and influence change.

Every event planner has a story about an event that was an unmitigated disaster. One inexperienced marketer ran an event in Germany, and only three people showed up (granted the company ended up hiring one of the attendees as an employee for the next 15 years).

There’s a reason it’s a stressful role. Juggling balls of lava is a tough job. But get the basics right, and you’ll succeed. Eventually. Maybe after a few epic fails. Or, just hire us.