Being an event planner is like setting up dominoes. You place each piece meticulously one after the other and make sure that none of them knock over or the entire operation might fall apart. It feels just like this video - which I couldn't take my eyes off of by the way. I found a shorter video first, but this one was just epic!
After months of planning, and hours upon hours of preparing, you set the dominoes in motion and hope that you've done enough so that they all fall into place appropriately. You've communicated to the venue, participants, and speakers, ordered enough materials, audio/visual equipment, and food, thought about any last minute requests you might encounter, and recruited staff to help with various tasks during the event, just to name a few.
Sometimes during the planning process you have unexpected things come up, as was described in a previous post:
Keep Calm and Carry On... Study Tours Style
, and it can cause a domino effect. If you're lucky it is way before you've set your dominoes in motion. A good majority of the time, your dominoes are already in motion and you have to stop them and change direction, which isn't always easy and sometimes not possible.
I have pretty common examples of needing an extra room for a session, which leads me to change the agenda, contact the hotel to negotiate another room, order additional audio/visual equipment, add materials to print, notify the participants, all for a small change. I've had to do this months before a conference and have had great success. The day of the conference is a different story.
Another is when you close registration for a program, but have an influx of interest at the last minute. You want to be accommodating and reap the benefits of the additional revenue. On the down side, you then have to try and add more chairs to your rooms, print additional materials, make more name tags, and order more food, which seems fine when you're the one pulling the strings, but is less fine for those that are jumping through hoops for you. If these things are already in motion like materials, you just have to hope that there is enough time to order more copies or make them yourself.
I always try to be mindful of the domino effect. If I make one change it could create work for 15 more people, and in a stressful "I need it yesterday" kind of way. I always want to protect those around me that make me look good because it's the behind the scenes people that really make the event happen.
These types of things are normal everyday occurrences in the life of an event planner, but it definitely reminds me of dominoes. You work in anticipation for the big event and then (as in the video) some dominoes don't fall as you expected, but most of your planning goes off without a hitch.
At the end of the event, you clean up and debrief, which is always way easier than the preparation! I bet the people in this video took one big broom and swept the floor to clean the dominoes... at least that's what I would have done after all that hard work!
What do you think meeting planners? Do you think planning events are like dominoes?