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Event Hero Survival Guide: Week 2

This week, we continue our three part series on surviving events and becoming the hero. Click here to read Event Hero Survival Guide: Week 1

The Big Day is here

On event day, make sure you have all your communication devices. Cell phone, headset, radio and mobile devices, everything you need to stay in touch. Other items you will need are, printed schedule, speaker contacts and contact numbers of all the people you may need to stay in touch with.

Event Hero Survival Guide: Week 1

What you need to know to survive an event

What would Superman or Wonder Woman do if they were event planners? I can image a mild-mannered young woman dressed in a shapely suit, standing with a clipboard while she oversees all the attendees and happenings of the event. Suddenly, a call comes in from her sidekick and she rushes off to solve the problem at hand.

How does this SUPER event hero stay calm, cool and collected as she deflects bad sound systems, grumpy speakers and lost powerpoints for the breakout rooms?

We’ve come up with a list of ways for you to stay cool and save the day for your clients! Over the next three weeks we’ll progressively share our top fifteen tips for surviving an event and becoming the hero!

Pick a venue that works

When choosing an event venue, make sure you think about traffic flow. Are all the rooms on the same level? Do attendees have to travel a long distance between the General session, trade show and breakout rooms?

Keeping all of the event spaces close keeps your attendees close. If they have to travel up and down the elevator or from one venue to the next, you are likely to lose a few.

Dealing with stairs and elevators is also hard on you, as the event planner, to try to manage event spaces that have a lot of distance between them.

Make sure you have an event office close to the meetings that are going on.

Stay close to the venue

Make sure your hotel room is close to the venue and whenever possible, stay on property. There might be times you need to run down to the ballroom or meet with one of your VIPs or speakers on site the evening before the event starts or bright and early in the morning. Staying close will make it easier for you to do so.Make sure you aren’t driving while tired or after dark in a strange neighborhood.

Having your room on property will allow you to run to your room when you have a chance to freshen up or just escape for a few minutes.

Create your dream team

You will need all the eyes you can find for an event. Make sure you have introduced yourself and “made nice” with the venue staff. This includes the custodial staff, craft services, set up staff, sales and event staff, your tradeshow vendors, volunteers and your event staff. It takes a village to make an event happen. And remember every person you work with is as important as your VIPs and should be treated as such.

Dress for Success (and of course, work too)

We know you love those great shoes you just purchased and they look amazing with that pencil skirt, but leave the new shoes at home! Or save them for the dinner function where you get to sit down for a while.

We suggest you take shoes that will be comfortable for long days and many hours on your feet. We also HIGHLY suggest you bring a second pair. Switching out shoes midway through the day will keep your feet happy and you rely on them for many days in a row – be nice to them!

NEVER take your shoes off and expect to get them back on again. Switching pairs will do the same thing as taking off your shoes. Being barefooted is not acceptable in public places.

Wear clothing that will allow you to move easily and offer you the ability to bend, stretch, lift and look amazing. It’s a challenge but you will build your event clothing wardrobe fairly quickly.

Dress in layers and take a sweater. Facilities often wait to turn on the air conditioning or heating until the night before the event starts, you will want options during the event.

Preparing for event day

Before you turn in at the end of the day, make sure you have everything done for the start of the event. Check the General session room and breakout room/s to make sure they will be ready for your morning sessions, check with your event team and the venue team. Knowing everything is set and ready for the event will allow you to rest easy.

We even lay out our capes, super hero outfits and shoes to make sure we know exactly what we will be wearing in the morning and for the day. In fact, we go as far as hanging our credentials (name tags and tickets) on the hanger with our shirts so we make sure we have everything we need to jump into super hero gear for any early morning emergency that might arise.  If we had a magic phone booth we could jump in and instantly be dressed, we would take that with us!

Be sure to tune in next week to see the next five tips to survive an event!

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Final Celebrations: A New Trend for Event Planning

Event planning is finding a whole new industry where planners can make a difference. In fact, this might possibly be the greatest impact an event planner can make in their clients’ lives.

People are increasingly turning to event planners to celebrate the end of this life with their families before they move on to the next adventure. Instead of the standard in-the-box funeral, planning an all-out party might be more to your client’s liking. A “final celebration” is an opportunity to control ONE LAST thing in this lifetime. Some people find this a much more appealing way to ‘go out’ than the standard funeral.

If the family doesn’t get the opportunity to celebrate with the deceased, a party instead of a funeral can still be an option similar to that of an Irish Wake that was common practice until the 1970s. Irish Wakes celebrate the life of the deceased and ensure a proper “departing”. Many funeral homes in the U.S. are offering different types of services to make the funeral less depressing and more uplifting.

Here are some ideas for you if you’re interested in this sort of planning:

A Living Funeral

A living funeral is a great way for those with terminal illness to enjoy the nice things relatives and friends will say about them. Just like any party, you can theme this party with something that strikes the honorary guest. Below are the positive attributes of throwing a living funeral party:

*A living funeral allows family and guests to say everything they want to say BEFORE their friend or loved one passes

*This celebration helps family and friends come to reality

*Guests can leave notes behind to help comfort the VIP through the last stages of life

*The honorary guest can bring mementos to share and relive favorite memories with their loved ones

*A living funeral does not replace the traditional funeral, rather acts as a time to get together and celebrate a person’s life while they too can enjoy it with everyone

*The party can be designed to the specifications of the honoree

A Celebration of Life

Sometimes there isn’t the opportunity to celebrate life with the soon-to-be deceased, but that doesn’t mean it’s too late to throw a party. This is a good way for family members to celebrate the essence of the deceased and what was important to them. Even though that person may not be around to hear all the nice things said about them, the family is there and will appreciate the kind words.

*Use items from that person’s life to decorate, share, and celebrate

*This celebration can take place after the funeral instead of a potluck

*You may decide to have the celebration located where the family decides to spread the ashes

*This celebration can take place away from home

Lives Lost Too Early

When helping families that have lost young ones or lives lost way too early, you will need to be especially graceful in your approach. Consider incorporating the following suggestions:

*Release doves in memory of the life lost too soon

*Ask friends and family members to bring stuffed toys to donate to a charity

*Celebrate with the fellow children in mind. What is appropriate? What is comfortable? *Consider having a grief counselor on hand to handle the different levels of understanding with the children

Handling these very important times in families’ lives will take a special type of event planner. One that has the traits for understanding, patience, and a strong ability to listen. You will need to be able to contain your own feelings and listen closely to the wishes of the families and the terminally ill.

You will play counselor, confidant, friend, and adopted family during the planning process. Make sure to leave your personal issues at the door; this is definitely a time for the client you are working for. Smile and have kind words. Laughter is a good thing, even in a sad situation.

Who would want to be a life celebration planner? Someone who…

  • Can work well with vulnerable and emotional people

  • Enjoys helping families who are going through a hard time

  • Enjoys being there for someone in a time of need

  • Wants to help someone out when they can’t get things done on their own

What type of personality is required for this event planner role?

  • Really strong people skills

  • Someone with good business and organizational skills

  • Diligent work ethic

Why would someone choose to do this for a living?

  • They had planned one of their own family member’s funerals and felt capable to handle the details in a time of sorrow and in helping relieve stress for others

  • They felt strong and passionate in making their loved one’s funeral represent their life and

    what to do that for others

  • They have a strong feeling about how someone who dies should be remembered and

    well­known and can help those grieving celebrate the loved ones in a way that has lasting

    memory.

Event Planning roles or specializations can range widely. If you feel you have the traits to fulfill a final celebrations planner, you would be greatly helping families make a transition in their lives that many find difficult to grapple. With the surge in baby boomers approaching and society’s want for greater control in their lives, final celebrations event planning is likely to stick around for a while.

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8 Holiday Cocktail Party Ideas

A list of popular cocktail party themes for your holiday celebrations

The holidays are QUICKLY approaching and if you are prepping last minute – well shame on you! However, with the following list of creative and fun cocktail party ideas you can easily plan a memorable party that will WOW everyone in attendance.

1) Winter wonderland – Decorate your party with crystals and use blue lighting to create an icy effect. Add snowflakes for additional winter ambiance. Have a hot chocolate or hot tottie bar to warm guests up. Doing a company event? Surprise guests with snow from a snow machine or bubbles.

2) Naughty or nice – This theme can be created using food and drinks that are “naughty” vs. “nice.” You can also decorate one side of the room in red and black and the other side in white. If you want to be a little riskier, ask guests to dress in celebrity naughty or nice costumes.

3) James bond – This is a black tie affair. Have guests wear suits and formal dresses. Décor should parallel a royal casino or upscale dinner party with martinis being served shaken, not stirred. Tell guests to watch their favorite Bond movie prior to attending to get in character. You can even rent a red carpet for the entrance to set the stage for the evening.

4) Fire & Ice – Use red and blue décor to signify fire and ice. Guests wear red, blue, or a touch of both. A strong fire in the fire place and an ice sculpture in the center of the food display will really set the two areas apart. If you don’t have a fireplace, faux fires are safe and inexpensive and can add a warm touch to any party.

5) Ugly sweater – This is a more laid back and fun theme. Guests wear the ugliest Christmas sweater they can find and take lots of awkward photos while wearing them. Adding family pets is always a great touch.

6) Festivus – For those frustrated with commercialism and the pressure of other December holidays, Festivus is a secular holiday that occurs on December 23rd made popular by Seinfeld. Celebrations are of grievances, feats of strength, the aluminum pole, and Festivus miracles. “Festivus for the rest of us!” – Frank Costanza

7) Break your resolutions early – Before your new year’s resolutions take full effect, have a food smorgasbord with your friends. Have a pie bakeoff, bring your favorite sweets, or set up a chocolate fondue party and pair each chocolate with a wine! This is our favorite theme!

8) White Christmas – To get you in the holiday spirit with the lack of snow on the ground, have a party decorated in all white. Request your guests to wear all white too. It might be a good idea to stay away from red wines for the night. Use white leather furniture or white drape to really carry the theme through! Need help with the details? Buy this theme in our theme library.

Now that you have the theme of your cocktail party picked out, the rest of the planning elements will fall into place more easily. Make sure you choose foods, favors, entertainment, and décor that aligns with whichever theme suits your celebration best!

What is your favorite holiday cocktail party theme that you’ve created or attended before?

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Tradeshow Tips: Please Don’t Visit My Booth

Have you been to a tradeshow where the people in the booths act as if they are bored and really don’t want to talk to anyone? They only put the effort in to bring business cards and you get the feeling it was too much work to even do just that?

Or maybe there was a booth you were afraid to walk up to because they were already engaged with another attendee. You may have also hesitated because you didn’t want to interrupt their conversation with their booth mate or their social media on their phone.

Don’t be these tradeshow vendors! Use these negative tradeshow attendee experiences as a precautionary lesson on what not to do and practice the following event hero tips to be an inviting tradeshow booth host:

1) Location, location, location: you know this!

There is always the decision and race to get the right location for your booth. There are many opinions on where the best location is, but I like center of the room at the end of an aisle. This way I can stretch out a bit and I usually buy two booths to be one of the bigger players in the room.I also like to set up an activity in my booth that will attract visitors.

2) Get the LOOK!

Make sure your booth is attractive so you can attention from attendees. Use bright colors as well as some fun or attractive graphics. Be bold in your booth design!

3) Make your message easy to read and understand

Create some intrigue, make the signage POP with cutouts or big bold letters. AVOID small type or hard to read graphics. Keep the typeface for signage clean and easy to read from a distance.

4) Make your booth approachable

Have you seen the booths where the vendor stands behind the table like they are afraid you will approach them…don’t be that guy! Stand in front of the tables. Move the tables back into the booth and encourage people to come talk to you. Remove the chairs, you don’t need them. If you want chairs, bring in high bar stools, these are much more sociable.

5) Who’s hosting your booth?

Make sure your booth host is warm and friendly and will be able to engage the people that stop by. Not all of the hosts in the booth need to be well versed in your product, but they need to be able to attract those passing by. Having one or two people who know the product inside and out and a few that are outgoing and can bring in the people will work just fine.

Consider using costumed characters, models, or host and hostess dressed to convey your brand. For example, at a dog food booth for a pet expo, we had a guy dressed in a dog costume handing out free samples. Make sure the character is in alignment with your brand.

6) Offer show specials

You’ve put in the time and money to have a booth, consider what you want to accomplish with your booth. Do you want immediate sales? Offer a killer price for your product if they buy on the spot or a coupon at a lesser discount if they buy in the next 10 days.

7) Have a contest or promotions

Everyone loves to win something and that includes tradeshow attendees. If you want them to stop by and put their name in (for your later use) make sure what you are giving away is something worthwhile.

8) Treats and Alcohol

Read the fine print on your vendor contract. Make sure the facility allows outside food and drinks to be offered and that the show allows it as well. You don’t want to bring all the goodies only to be shut down on show day. The show promoter or the facility may have rules you need to abide by so really, read the fine print.

9) Offer your giveaway but make sure it is of value

Most tradeshow attendees have done this before and have seen all the items that are available. Yes, you should have a giveaway but make it something they will use and won’t just end up in the trash!

10) Put Your Social Media to Use

Work your social media connections to share where you’re going to be located and what your booth number is. Connect with as many of the show attendees you can find to introduce yourself and start communicating before the show. It’s always fun to meet someone in person after interacting with them over social media.

11) Print promotional items

Keeping with the traditional items we get at the tradeshow can be a bit mundane but they are still a giveaway. Get creative for the show and produce something that won’t get tossed on the way to the car.

I love the cute stress balls that I get at tradeshows. Especially if they are in the shape of something that relates to the company. They actually are a great massage for your hands.

Pens with your logo on them work well because people are always in need of a writing utensil and it keeps you top of mind. Other options include bags to hold all the other stuff they will get, thumb and USB drives (with this you could add a small advertisement that would play when they plugged in and opened the thumb drive), cups and mugs, badge holders, notebooks, folders and binders.

Think outside the box on your giveaways.

12) Follow up with booth visitors

The attendees that stopped by your booth and took their time to visit with you are hot leads, make sure you take the time to follow up with them. There are many ways to complete follow-up that can be set up in advance for larger shows.

Choose to do personalized emails to the attendees at the show if there weren’t to many to follow up with. Don’t let those business cards fall to the wayside. They stopped for a reason to visit with you, now go make the sale.

The cost of time and money spent on a trade show are all part of your marketing budget. It should be well thought out and well delivered. It’s all a waste of time if you don’t follow up or follow through.  If you find yourself in way over your head, enlist the help of an intern, a part time employee, or someone else on your staff to handle the follow up.

In conclusion, make sure your time and money are well spent at the trade show that you’ve picked to be an exhibitor. Check it out in advance, find out who they are inviting, how they are publicizing the event and how many they expect to show up based on past experiences. Connect with past vendors for their opinion of the show and discover the pros and cons for yourself before signing the contract.

On final note: Read the fine print on the contract to make sure what you are being told you will receive in exchange for your time and money lines up with what the contract outlines.

Happy exhibiting!

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Tradeshow Tips: Better Serving Your Vendors

Planning and managing a tradeshow can be both exciting and overwhelming. There are a lot of details to provide prior to, during, and after the event. One of the most important aspects is managing your vendors. Because they’re taking their time and resources to be there, you want to be sure to manage their expectations and provide them with accurate information throughout.

Our Vendor Experience

We’ve been vendors at numerous tradeshows throughout the years and wanted to share one of our latest experiences as an example of what not to do and help you learn how to better serve your vendors.

We recently attended a tradeshow as exhibitors in order to meet and network with event and meeting planners in a different part of the state.

It was a one-day show that promised to bring in as many as 500 event and meeting planners. In order to extend our reach and visibility in the community we took the plunge and paid the booth fee, hired labor for travel and hosting the booth. On top of this, we created new graphics for a fresh look and produced flyers and additional collateral to furnish our booth. Preparation wasn’t cheap – we put in several thousand dollars to make this happen as vendors.

One cost saver was that the event was from 3-7 PM and didn’t require an overnight stay. We arrived and setup in four hours, had a pleasant check-in experience, and were able to grab lunch at the local café before the show began.

Less Than Expected 

After doors opened, there was a VERY light crowd. We thought attendance would increase, but boy were we wrong. The expected crowd of 500 turned into a potential 100 and by the end we only saw about 25 meeting planners.

To say we were disappointed in the turnout is an understatement. To say the show was well organized, well, I’m just not going there. This was especially surprising with a room filled of vendors with extensive meeting and event planning experience.

Taking Advantage of Our Situation

To turn this negative experience into a positive one, we spent our time visiting with other vendors. We were able to set future appointments with them and have in depth conversations with the few meeting planners we were able to find in the slim group that attended.

Vendors are the core of tradeshows, so it’s important that you understand how to best serve them in order to ensure the success of current and future tradeshows. Learn our top tips for vendor management and appreciation from our most recent tradeshow experience below.

Here are a few ways tradeshow organizers can better serve their vendors:

1) Offer a vendor hospitality room

Although we weren’t there for a long amount of time, a place to put our coats and grab a water and small snack would have been nice. Any time you have people standing on a hard floor for a long amount of time, it’s nice to have a place for them to get away. Even for five minutes.

2) Underpromise and over deliver

Gather friends and friends of friends that are in the demographics you promised and make sure you deliver on the promises of attendees made. Trade shows are expensive ventures for your vendors so make sure you deliver the crowd.

3) Pay special attention to noise levels

Keep music and presentations to a level where the attendees and vendors can have a conversation. We could not hear the people that attended our booth and they couldn’t hear us over the very loud bands that had been booked to play during the event.

4) Make sure your deliverables are outlined and clear

I was told by the tradeshow intern that I would get a list of attendees. In this group the attendees this probably didn’t make that much of a difference, as they turned out not to be my audience. However, there was one person whose business card I didn’t get that I would have really liked to communicate with later. I was later told by the organizer that no list would be delivered. I understand that several of the other vendors were expecting a list as well. This should be clearly outlined for both the vendors and the attendees.

5) Offer incentives to help pull in attendees

For the companies and meeting and event planners in this area, an educational series or discussion might have made the difference deciding to attend. Tapping into the speakers’ or performers’ social media followers could have also increased the opportunity to reach more of the audience and incentivizing them to attend.

6) Don’t forget signage and/or mapping

Make sure there is a banner for each booth to hang on the drape at the back of the booth. If the vendor has their own signage, this is a waste of money but if they don’t, this would have certainly helped to identify the vendors. In this case, those were not provided and several vendors didn’t have any signage to identify them.

We know it’s a lot of work to put on a tradeshow, we know that there are a bazillion things to manage, but keep in mind that your vendors have paid you money to attend and are expecting what you promised in return. They too, have taken a risk of time and money to be there and it can be quite costly for them. Make sure you deliver!

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