Surprises are generally a part of the event industry. Things like your conference materials have not been delivered, or your volunteers didn't show up, or the speaker's presentation is crashing, are all examples of bad surprises. These "mini-crises" can cause some stress for an event manager. Sometimes no matter how hard you plan the unexpected happens. In these moments of crisis: DO NOT PANIC! Whether you realize it or not, you set the tone for how people around you react. Instead, make a plan and spring into action. I have a motto that I like to use:
"We are not saving lives"
This week I had materials not show up for the morning of my conference. I spoke with our contact in charge of communicating with the printer and he let me know the situation. The materials did not arrive on Friday as we anticipated, instead they are at the Chapel Hill office and are set to be delivered this morning. They are aware that it is urgent and will likely arrive by 8:30 a.m. I made sure not to panic, though I realized I had a problem on my hands. Luckily for me, the first session at 8:30 a.m. did not have any required materials. Around 8:45 a.m. the materials were delivered and at 9:00 a.m. we were passing out the notebooks to the participants. Crisis averted!
Fortunately for me, I have experience in situations that were exponentially more stressful than this. While I worked at Rider, I had a variety of stressful situations like a student that lost a ping-pong match to a girl, punched a chair, and fractured his wrist, or miscounting the students on the bus and accidentally leaving two students in the middle of Times Square, NY to take a cab back to campus an hour away. Ultimately, these situations were resolved.
Broken Down Bus
One of my favorites was when a bus broke down on our way to the overnight stay in San Diego. We were 8 coach buses strong on our way to La Jolla. One of my staff members alerted me that their bus was having issues and was going to have to pull over and stop. I sprang into action. I called all the other staff members and said I needed 3 buses to stop where they are, turn around, and meet me a the specified mile marker. We were going to disperse the students from the broken down bus onto the other buses and continue on with our journey. We had enough empty seats on the other buses to accommodate this, so I had a plan and we executed flawlessly. The total time lost for the trip was approximately 30 minutes, which is precious time when you have a jam packed schedule of sights to see. We managed to get to La Jolla spent some time near the beach there and then went on to San Diego. The broken down bus caught up with us at the hotel and we finished our excursion the next day at the zoo. The other chaperones on the trip were singing my praises for how efficiently the problem was fixed and I got to play hero for a day. It was nice to be able to make their experience in America so pleasant!
Managing Crises Tips
- Identify the problem, but don't dwell on the problem. I was told during my leadership training in college that you want to strive to be the problem solver not the problem identifier. You obviously need to start with the problem, but the majority of your time should be spent on step 2.
- Find a solution. Hopefully, your problem is not in the "Act of God" category like a storm, terrorist attack, or government shutdown, which requires quite a bit of moving parts. Beyond that use your resources and work towards a solution.
- Communicate the plan. Some of the best event planners out there are the ones that communicate effectively and delegate a plan of action to the people around them. These people will be incredibly important when you're solving a crisis.
Obviously, you want to provide the best customer service possible for your clients. Sometimes that means you take on some stress that you didn't intend to, but at the end of the day you can let it go and remember that no one died and we are not saving lives.