Steps To Successful Event Planning: Key Leadership Activities And Dimensions

Key Leadership Activities For Successful Event Planning

Discuss about the Project And Event Management.

In a well-planned event, at every step, the quality of each feature of event delivery is strived to be controlled by the event manager. It is assumed that for an event to be successful, it needs to be conducted and managed perfectly at its different steps. But, in actuality, it is found, by virtue of the relevant research and experiences of leaders in this field that chances for an event to be staged successfully, are somewhat intangible in nature. It is by practical experiences that one gets to know the importance of every opportunity handling and how one opportunity can change the outcomes of an event delivery. Also, it is found that developing inter-team compatibility in working, empowering each other, and generally, working as a team rather than in the strict hierarchy of the manager and workers, it is highly probable for an event to be successful.

On the part of the leader, for an event staging to be successful, six key leadership activities are recommended, that are, engaging communication within the team, analytic judgment, managing assets, strategies, emotional adaptability, and consideration for each other (Abson, 2017). While, these could ensure success in conducting and organizing events, but in reality, when going in- depth of demand for an event and its success, it is concluded that it is not predictable as the demand of a regular product.

Therefore, quantification of this industry and the practices to ensure success is in vain since it is highly diverse and fragmented in nature (Shone, Parry, 2004).

To make the event well planned it is mandatory to start researching relevant topics, ideas and most importantly, the experiences of those who have set their marks of success in this industry. Similar events in the past must be reflected upon, their strategies of planning and their success rates are imperative to research for. Next, resource requirement and the planning to gather resources must be done. This also includes planning for the venue, the chances of environmental disruptions of weather-related issues and the measures taken to counter them. The theme and motive of the event need to be seen, with taking the event’s social and community responsibility into mind.

There must be essentially six dimensions for better planning of an event, creatively. To make it a progressive experience, there must be:

1. Anticipation for the event: This factor is sometimes more profound than the experience itself. The invitations, marketing strategies, and the reminders set an anticipatory image in target audience so that their participation is ensured to the maximum.
2. Arrival in the event: This is the pre-experience of the event which includes scheduling, planning the dates, venue and providing information for accommodation and travel. After this, it includes guiding the participants of the event in a thorough and a well-designed manner.
3. Atmosphere of the event: This includes each factor of the physical environment, décor and general amenities provided. This also refers to the overall ambiance of the event venue.
4. Appetite: It is to be ensured by the coordination team that all variety and options of dietary needs are fulfilled. People must feel appreciated.
5. Amenities: There must be extra niceties, features and appreciation tokens for them to remind them of their pleasurable experience at the event.

 Making them practically deliverable, assessment and administrative necessities associated with the resources required, are absolutely necessary (Silvers, 2012).

Quantification Of The Event Industry And Planning Practices

 To manage the event theme effectively, five considerations must be catered to, that are, the Scale of event – Size of space requirement by the event venue, Shape- physical and the general layout of event, Focus- guiding attendees gaze and attention to the movement and vibrancy of the event, timing- the event program time, and Build- highs and drops in their attention and expectations (Tull, 2012).

Settings, staging and management systems communicate with the people to amalgamate the event experiences. There are innumerable ways to combine setting, management, and people. However, each setting poses its own challenges and opportunities.

Any event gathering together large numbers of people – require settings or staging of the whole venue that provides for sitting, viewing, listening, interacting. The team usually rents venues that have their own management, including convention centers, exposition halls, concert halls, auditoria, and arenas. Challenges include the fact that many venues are either halls or arenas with nil aesthetics, or require modification in technical or creative areas to match the event. This negative factor might be compensated adequately by the presence of team departments to facilitate this. Meeting planners seek out venues in special places with inspiring or provocative features.

‘Staging’, similar to theatrical acts, is how the event management team sets the physical layout and atmosphere to capture attendees’ attention and direct the performances smoothly. The components could be background scenes and curtains; lighting, special effects of lasers, virtual experiences, sound systems; props; costumes and makeup; and other systems (Getz, Page, 2016).

To scale determinants for the success of an event, the participation motives can be reflected on, which further can be classified in Social, Organizational, Physiological and Personal motives. Exemplary motives of these could be Social interaction with others, Status or recognition, philanthropy, Recreation activities, Learning and seeking new experiences are some of the many motives which could be tapped upon for planning of an event to be successful.

To begin implementation, one could involve local businesses, volunteers, and local artists or artisans to make the event more diverse, participative and blooming. Some part of the event proceeds collected could be given to local community groups to aid them and tap on the social responsibility factor. Having different booths of communities needing publicity could also be an option.

Next, primary and extraneous budgeting needs to be done on a comprehensive basis. Vendors must be approaches, vetted and offered unique collaboration offers. Permits must be acquired for the venue and the settings and from the neighborhood locality around if there is any. The venue must be secured on the first priority basis.  The marketing materials must be creatively designed and exchanged on a wide network basis. The caterers and other needed requirements must be vetted simultaneously. Inappropriate time, Invitations must creatively make and sent out to everyone on the guest list. Media must be remembered to be invited to ensure the coverage of the event. Keynote speakers are to be ensured approaching. Sponsors invitation must not be forgotten at all costs.

Preferably, a week before the event, the whole team, security officers, booth holders, audio/ visual components, media members and entertainment department personnel must gather to plan on a final basis. All vendors must be secured including caterer, security, venue manager, staging supplier, and printers and other accessories. All contracts must be signed duly.

One or two days prior to the event, a rehearsal must be completed making sure of all the requirements are addressed.

It is absolutely vital to have a right team to make an event successful.  Some of the lessons learnt to maintain the dynamics of the team and ensuring that it works collectively are
1. It is important to always have the objectives, goals and current situations of the event set clearly in mind of everyone to ensure no discrepancies and confusion.

1. Cultural and personality differences in the team must be accepted on a neutral perspective by everyone in the team to ensure no clashes and saving invaluable time.
2. There must be cross exchange of rewards and resources where it is needed and are due without personal motivations.
3. As nothing is constant, one must be flexible and adaptive to the change in team dynamics, like, case of inclusion of new members or alliances.
4. There must be appropriate distribution of work as per capabilities of the team members. No extra workload must be given to a single. This varies accountability of members. Exemplary departments are Program co-coordinator, Venue coordinator, Equipment coordinator, etcetera.

The evolution, sustainability and ‘institutionalization’ of events must be studied and reflected upon. Stakeholder theory, population ecology, resource dependency and other resource and knowledge-based theories of organization, present foundations helped explaining why some events succeed and others fail. Professional management of events and event organizations has to be supported by researchers and theorists.

Rational planning is taught in all our event management texts, lectures, and discourses, but appears to be lacking in the real world of event-related policy, especially event management industry. The biggest events seem to generate the most emotion and therefore must be progressed more in research and planning.

References

Abson, E. (2017). How Event Managers Lead: applying competency school theory to event management. Event Management, 21(4), 403-419.

Shone, A., & Parry, B. (2004). Successful event management: A practical handbook. Cengage Learning EMEA.

Silvers, J. R. (2012). Professional event coordination (Vol. 62). John Wiley & Sons.

Tull, J. A. (2012). Event Evaluation. Events Management: An International Approach, 173.

Getz, D., & Page, S. (2016). Event studies: Theory, research and policy for planned events. Routledge.