Being that I want to possibly start getting into event planning, I was amazed at how well together a convention for over 800 women that I recently attended was put together. From the timing of the talks to the decorations to the food, everything seemed to be planned perfectly! Every little thing seemed to go off without a hitch… Well almost.
At one point, the delegates have to walk in in a certain order and we had to practice this at night after the dinner. Everyone had just flown in on way early morning flights (why? I don’t know even know, our rooms weren’t even ready when we got there…) and our schedules for the first day were jam packed. It could stand to reason that many of us were tired, cranky, and just really wanted to put our feet up! But we all marched on to do this practice.
The woman who was attempting to run this practice was very much at her wits end, she kept saying everything backwards and leaving out valuable information that would’ve been nice to know. As we were marching in, we attempted to make sure that we had stopped at our correct seats and turned around to check the place marker.
“LADIES DO NOT TURN AROUND! AND DO NOT SIT DOWN!”
Whoops. She hadn’t told us not to do that. We were just making sure that we were where we were supposed to be!
So Why do I mention this to you all? Because with any event planning, whether it be a convention of 800+ women or wedding planning, I believe the number one thing to remember is to not lose your cool. If you lose your cool or lash out at your attendees, you may leave a bad taste in their mouth and they might not want to work with you ever again.
So just take it slow, and double check that you have everything read and know what your going to say. Also, prepare answers to common question you think you might get from those you’re working with. I can’t tell you how many times I’ll speak with someone and when they ask me a question I don’t know how to answer it. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I often forget to ask the necessary questions that will prepare me to answer someone else’s questions.
Until next week.