The biggest mistake an event manager can make is thinking that their job is to order banners, plan catering, handle decorations, and do the run-through before the event.
If the booklet contains an error, it can be reprinted. If the banner is crooked, it can be trimmed. If the model doesn’t come, you will find another one or offer the job to your pretty colleague. Events rarely fall apart because of these details. Because of them, they may not go as well as you wanted.
But there are worse situations... For example:
- The contractor did not know that after 24:00 nothing could be delivered to the site and the FSO would close all entrances. 10 boxes of high-quality and stylish printing will remain in front of the entrance. Outside.
- The animators didn’t know that it was a 15-minute walk from the metro and were 20 minutes late (they spent another 5 minutes trying to reach you).
The main responsibility of an event manager and the meaning of his work in a team- uhthen information management. And only for this he should receive 50% of his income. The remaining 50% is the necessary and useful fuss of ordering banners and equipment.
There are several centers within the working group. And the circulation of information between them is the task of an event manager or event organization specialist. These centers can be: the customer (represented by the client or key decision maker), the customer’s contact person, the financial director, the creative department, contractors, temporary staff, your colleagues.
Your first task- tell how, with what regularity and by what rules you will communicate with them. More precisely: by what rules will information circulate?
Your second task: Maintain established rules throughout the course of the project.
What tools are used for this?
- Working group meetings that ask questions like: Who is planning? With what regularity? Who should be invited to meetings and in what composition? Who is recording? Who sends the report? Who monitors the implementation of agreements?
- Presentation of project preparation to the customer: How often? What level of detail?
- Written preparation reports (including financial).
- Meeting reports.
- Technical scenario of the event: this document describes not only what will happen, but also how, where and thanks to whom. The function of the event manager is not just to create it, but to send it to everyone, making sure that it was received, read and understood.
Serious mistakes in the preparation of major events occur because someone did not find out the necessary information in time. Or she reached him with distortions.
We have repeatedly participated in the organization of major government events. And it was difficult not to notice the special style of work: endlessly long meetings with the involvement of all parties, where people at the level of a minister can discuss and pronounce the smallest details. Do you know why? Because they have no room for error.
We noticed a similar style of work among European specialists, with whom we were lucky enough to complete several projects. The manic ability to pronounce all the details of a future project within the framework of working meetings was amazing.
Taking a different look at the meaning of your profession, seeing it not as a seriesorganizationalactions, but as management and information management, a lot will change in your “daily practice”. Otherwise, accents will be placed. Otherwise, time will be distributed.
The second part of the question is information management at the event itself. How to build channels of information if there are a thousand people around, music and fun? And the answer to this question is the topic of a separate article.
