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Hello 2018! With a full year ahead, does your team have any events on the horizon?
Events can be a great way to announce changes to your business, celebrate milestones or success, recognize staff or clients or simply unwind and celebrate your team.
When you’ve decided to host an event, it’s a good idea to look at your team to see if they have the skills necessary to plan, prepare and execute the event.
Here are the skills and abilities we’ve found most useful when planning events:
- Not afraid of deadlines
- Ability to multitask
- Can seamlessly blend décor and feel with function and purpose
- Can mobilize many people quickly
- A master at making lists
- Can manage budgets
- Ace trouble-shooters
- Calm under pressure
- Able to see and maximize the skills of their team members
- Watch for potential issues
- Manage expectations
- Be on-site throughout event
As an event planner, I am so proud of the skills that I have developed over the last ten years.
These skills have been useful not only on the work front, but on the personal front too, especially in recent months as we prep for the arrival of Baby Brown.
Those skills became even more important when we learned baby was going to arrive weeks earlier than we expected. Getting that news just days before Christmas meant the event planner in me went into action.
Look out world!
Here’s how those skills have been valuable as we get ready welcome baby.
(Love to my husband and family who’ve all been pressed in to action too.)
- Event planners aren’t afraid of deadlines.
Was I afraid of an end of January baby? Nope. Three weeks early? Okay, I’ve got this. No need to panic. (Okay, you can panic a little and then make a plan.) We just have to pack up Christmas a little early. Our house was fully un-decorated and un-holidayed by the 27th, a record in our house.
- Event planners have the ability to multitask.
As the mother of a toddler, this is one that I’ve got done pat. Thank goodness because when you are trying to clean up Christmas, find all your baby stuff stored in the basement, turn the guest room in to a nursery and set up a “big girl room” for your oldest, life is all about multi-tasking.
- Event planners can seamlessly blend décor and feel with function and purpose.
It takes skill and vision to get the look and function you want. Others might appreciate that you want everything to look perfect, but might not understand why you have to buy four cans of paint to find just the right colour for the nursery. Or why the crib has to be in just this place and the adorable throw pillows you just have to have are actually vital to the final look. That’s when you need members of your team to simply trust you know what you are doing. Thanks hubby!
- Event planners can mobilize many people quickly.
Thanks to our family for all the help and to my mom for making several runs to the paint store with me to get just the right colour. You can’t do an event on your own. It takes a team and we couldn’t be more thankful for ours.
- Event planners are masters at making lists.
My husband loves my lists — things to do, things to buy, things to find, names to consider. The lists go on and on.
- Event planners can manage budgets.
It’s a great skill to have as an event planner. It’s a little harder to stick to a budget when you are nine months pregnant and hormonal and you’ve fallen in love with a certain area rug or piece of art that just has to be a part of the décor. (This is why we also incorporate contingency into our budgets.)
- Event planners are on-site throughout event.
We always plan to be on-site for events we are involved in. From set-up to take-down, we are hands on. Well, in this case, there are no ands if or doubts about it. I will be on-site and involved for every second of this big event!
I look forward to hearing about all the events our team is involved in and you can rest assured that although I will be on maternity leave, our event team is ready, willing and more than capable to handle all your event needs.
Sincerely,
Jocelyn
Planning an event?
No matter the size or the scope of the event, there are consistent elements in all event management.
We’ve created a workbook that can guide you as you plan your next corporate event.
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