The Business of Event Planning: Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Successful Special Events - Hardcover

Allen, Judy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 047083188X ISBN 13: 9780470831885

Publisher: Wiley, 2002

Synopsis

Practical tools and expert advice for professional event planners

Before planning an event, there is much that must be done behind the scenes to make the event successful. Before any thought is even given to timing or location of the event, before the menus are selected and the decor designed, there are proposals to be written, fees and contracts to be negotiated, and safety issues to be considered. This book takes you behind the scenes of event planning and explains every aspect of organizing and strategic planning. This book will be of value to both the professional event planner and to clients who are dealing with planners.

Its comprehensive coverage includes: how to prepare winning proposals, and how to understand them if you are the client; how to determine management fees; negotiating contracts; safety issues; designing events in multicultural settings; and new technology that makes operations more efficient (such as online registration and response management, database project management tools). The book also includes practical tools such as sample letters of agreement, sample layouts for client proposals, forms, and checklists. Professional event planner Judy Allen offers first-time or professional event planners all the top-class advice they need to make their special events come off without a hitch.

About this title

About the Author

Judy Allen is one of the world's leading authorities on staging, event and lifestyle design and the bestselling author of ten books for the professional, business and consumer markets. Allen, a master of creative design, has flawlessly executed successful special events-corporate, social, and celebrity-for up to 2,000 guests at a time in more than 30 countries around the world. She has designed and produced memorable events such as Disney's worldwide theatrical opening-night gala for Beauty and the Beast, and the orchestration of Oscar-winning director Norman Jewison's 25th anniversary celebration for Fiddler on the Roof.
Highly skilled in staging events that are strategically designed to be one-of-kind experiences and a master of transforming the energy of an event environment by engaging the senses with trademark primary design principles, Allen has worked closely with CEOs, CFOs, presidents and their executive staff around the globe to create, implement and oversee their corporate and social business events.
The many diverse events that Allen has designed and executed extend from complex one-day events to elaborate arrangements of theme productions taking place over the course of a week. These events ranged from very exclusive VIP events to multimillion-dollar, multimedia fantasy extravaganzas including seven new-car product launches and involved high-tech stage and show productions.
Allen, and her 2jproductions (www.2jproductions.com) partner, Joe Shane, are now bringing their dynamic creative energy, innovative style and perceptive insight to home, life and lifestyle design and world class resorts around the world through Sensual Home Living^TM (www.sensualhomeliving.com) and other initiatives.

From the Back Cover

Event planning is like performing a high-wire act without a safety net. Once your event starts, there are no second chance. It is all done in one take, and there are no dress rehearsals. You cannot predict how your guests and suppliers will interact and react when you bring them together, but you can organize, plan, and be prepared for the unexpected.

The Business of Event Planning covers all the behind-the-scenes aspects of special events, whether it's an event for thousands or a handful of guests. Before any thought is given to the timing or location of the event, before the menus are selected and the decor designed, there are strategic objectives to be determined, proposals to be written, fees and contracts to be negotiated, and saftey issues to be considered.

The Business of Event Planning helps event planners and their clients produce outstanding events that meet and exceed both client and guest expectations, by going beyond the details of the event itself. This book explains every aspect of the business and the strategy behind successful events. Its comprehensive coverage includes:

• How to prepare winning proposals, and how to understand them if you're the client.
• How to determine management fees and negotiate contracts.
• The safety issues that every event planner needs to take into consideration.
• Designing events in multicultural settings.
• New technology that makes operations more efficient (such as online registration and response management, database project management tools, videoconferencing and virtual meetings, and more).
• Practical tools such as sample letters of agreement, sample layouts for client proposals, forms, tips, and checklists.
• A detailed case study that runs throughout the book-- one company that is organizing two very different events.
• Features a companion website with forms from the book, as well as additional material. Visit www.wiley.ca/go/event_planning.

The Business of Event Planning provides indispensable tools and strategies for anyone who has to plan an event:

• Professional event and meeting planners―seasoned veterans or beginners
• Clients who are dealing with planners, suppliers, and consultants
• Public relations and communications companies
• Marketing and corporate communications professionals
• Fundraisers and not-for-profit organizations
• Professionals and students in the hospitality and entertainment industries

The Business of Event Planning covers all the behind-the-scenes aspects of special events, whether it's an event for thousands or a handful of guests. Before any thought is given to the timing or location of the event, before the menus are selected and the decor designed, there are strategic objectives to be determined, proposals to be written, fees and contracts to be negotiated, and saftey issues to be considered.

The Business of Event Planning helps event planners and their clients produce outstanding events that meet and exceed both client and guest expectations, by going beyond the details of the event itself. This book explains every aspect of the business and the strategy behind successful events. Its comprehensive coverage includes:

• How to prepare winning proposals, and how to understand them if you're the client.
• How to determine management fees and negotiate contracts.
• The safety issues that every event planner needs to take into consideration.
• Designing events in multicultural settings.
• New technology that makes operations more efficient (such as online registration and response management, database project management tools, videoconferencing and virtual meetings, and more).
• Practical tools such as sample letters of agreement, sample layouts for client proposals, forms, tips, and checklists.
• A detailed case study that runs throughout the book-- one company that is organizing two very different events.
• Features a companion website with forms from the book, as well as additional material. Visit www.wiley.ca/go/event_planning.

The Business of Event Planning provides indispensable tools and strategies for anyone who has to plan an event:

• Professional event and meeting planners—seasoned veterans or beginners
• Clients who are dealing with planners, suppliers, and consultants
• Public relations and communications companies
• Marketing and corporate communications professionals
• Fundraisers and not-for-profit organizations
• Professionals and students in the hospitality and entertainment industries

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Business of Event Planning

Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Successful Special EventsBy Judy Allen

John Wiley & Sons

Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-470-83188-5

Chapter One

THE STRATEGIC PLANNING OF EVENT DESIGN

There is a specific rhythm or flow that must be incorporated into event design and there is a reason behind every choice from food to program elements. Subtle tactical action is brought into play as well as strategic thinking. Mastering event design becomes an art form. Planners who apply strategic planning to their event design process have discovered a method that successfully works to elevate event planning to a new level. Strategic planning is one of the secret ingredients that leads to producing outstanding events that meet the expectations of both clients and guests.

Event planners using the psychology of strategic planning are skillfully wrapping their events in subtle layers of event planning elements (known as inclusions) that have been designed to evoke specific responses from attendees. They are staged for effect to accomplish specific goals, which for the event planner is to produce an event that meets all of the client's objectives. A company's objective is what they are looking to achieve by holding an event. Objectives can be internal or external. The client's internal objectives are company mandated. The client's external objectives, which may never be formally verbalized, are clearly visible to event planners who have mastered the art of the psychology of event design.

Psychology is the study of mind and behavior. Behavior can generally be predicted, so creating the right set of conditions can bring about a desired result. For example, in business management classes, students are taught that if they want a meeting to end they merely stand up. The predicable behavior that follows that action is that others in the room will stand up as well. If they want someone to leave their office, they move towards the door and the others will follow. It can be that simple and effective. That sequence of events is played out successfully repeatedly in business offices around the world. It is an automatic response to the action taken.

Of course, those who attended the same training sessions may choose to remain seated to play out their hand, but they would be fully aware that the intended outcome of the act of the person standing up and moving towards the door was a subtle signal that the meeting had come to its conclusion, and it was time to leave.

Strategic event design follows the same principles-there is an intention, an action and a predicable response. This is a valuable tool to use when creating an event to produce the results desired by the client. Events that are strategically designed work with the best interests of the client and their guests in mind at all times. They are built to achieve intended results that will benefit both the client and guest alike.

EXTERNAL OBJECTIVES

External objectives are the clients' secret wishes. Were they hoping for a match between the selected destination and what brings them personal pleasure? One company president, who is an avid golfer, only chooses destinations that allow him to indulge in his favorite sport. Planners who have not noticed this have wasted time and money on preparing proposals that will never be selected no matter how perfect the destination may be, unless it also includes great golfing. Another president loved watersports-scuba diving, sailing, water-skiing-so, any inland destination did not stand a chance. One president did not like New Orleans. It is a fabulous destination that is perfect for a bilingual group that is active, fun loving, likes to shop and explore. It was a perfect match for the group's client history and profile but it wasn't a match for the president's tastes. In fact, it wasn't his dislike of the town itself, but the fact that he had a sister who lived there, and he visited her frequently. So, given the choice of a new destination he was not familiar with, it won every time.

Look for the common denominator in past history. It can provide major clues. Some clients have a company policy requiring a minimum of three destinations from three different suppliers. The deck can be stacked against a destination without the event planner being aware if they are not in tune with the questions that need to be asked. Better to present three dynamite destinations that address all-internal and external-objectives and position yourself for their next event as well as the two following that.

The president may not be the final decision maker. If spouses or partners are attending do not underestimate the influence or input that the executive partners will have. Again, look to the past history for clues. Where did they go before? Did they look for prime shopping meccas? Was it the theater or the arts that seemed to beckon? What type of destination did they travel to-city, resort, fun and sun, heritage-and look for the common element in all of them. Some companies go back and forth, alternating between fun and sun one year and history the next. The patterns can tip you off as well as the destinations. Examine carefully if what is being said matches what has been done in the past. Find out if there have been any changes to management and make sure you know who the decision makers are. Make it a point to find out why the past destinations were chosen. What was their appeal? Ask questions.

Think strategically, not only about event design, but in all areas of your business. Strategic design is meaningless if it is focused on the wrong destination. Combining strategic thinking with strategic design leads to producing successful proposals and special events.

INTERNAL OBJECTIVES

The purpose of an event planning proposal meeting is for the event planner to come away with a clear understanding of the company objectives as well the event elements, guest demographics, budget and past history. Event planners cannot begin to construct an event without knowing the conditions the foundation is to be built on. The "client" may be the company itself and the event planner may either be in-house, from an event planning company, a supplier (such as in the case of a client working directly with a hotel) or an incentive house.

The "given" objective to any client will be to produce a quality event within a set budget, and company objectives can include:

Launching a new product

Creating a corporate team environment

Celebrating sales success

Creating an opportunity for employees to be updated and interface with one another

Holding a company wide brainstorming session

Hosting an award presentation celebration

The event planner's role is to create the conditions in which these events will occur under the client's event and budget guidelines. The ways and the means that they are executed successfully is where strategic event design comes in.

How each event element is presented will achieve a different outcome. Take the example of a cocktail reception where guests are gathered together for a stand-alone reception or presentation or to take part in a predinner event. The components of a basic standard cocktail reception are bar beverages and some sort of food. Optional enhancements to a basic standard cocktail reception could include background music and decor.

The bar drinks can be either dispensed by waitstaff or guests can help themselves at the bar. Food will either be dry snacks; an assortment of hors d'oeuvres passed by waitstaff and perhaps a cheese and fruit display table. Music is usually inoffensive and played quietly in the background. Nondescript floral arrangements may be included (Set out on the registration table or by the cheese and fruit display. However, it is never recommended to have them on the bar as they get in the way.).

We have all attended cocktail receptions that have been set out in this manner. Where early arrivals walk into a room devoid of any animation, stand around holding a drink in hand, looking and feeling awkward until more guests arrive. Guests then stand in tight little clusters, seldom moving from the spot they have staked out in the room until a welcome speech, after which they quickly disperse or the doors open for dinner and they go in and sit down. If they do venture from their spot, it is to go directly to the bar or the cheese table and quickly head back to the spot they vacated before it is filled.

On the event planning excitement scale this type of cocktail party would not even register a one. There is barely a ripple of energy in the room and this is the tone that the event planner has set for the rest of the evening. It becomes a ho hum affair, colorless, forgettable. One of countless others, an energy drainer. The only objective this cocktail reception will have met would be to serve as a gathering place for individuals to kill some time and to hold off hunger pangs before heading home after a short speech or sitting down for dinner.

A step up from the basic cocktail reception is one that has been themed. The same basic elements will be in place but the bar drinks may be a little more exotic, the passed finger food will have a bit more novelty, the decor and floral arrangements may be more colorful and the music more intense. The energy level of the room will have been brightened. The guests' senses are starting to be addressed. Good vibrations will be felt in the room but there still is no movement or true animation in this setting. Guests may begin to move to the beat of the music while standing in place, conversations may move from the mundane-the weather and how busy it has been at the office-to something a little more upbeat in tempo. Guests looking for ways to enter into the conversation-especially if they are in an unfamiliar setting or group-can begin commenting on the food or the drinks, a safe topic and a way in which to break the ice. The stress relief felt around the room can actually be tangible. For the most part, guests are still firmly in place in their comfort zones, and intermingling is minimal, but for those who do set forth a means has been created to spark discussion. Guests heading into dinner will be more alert and responsive to the evening's events that are about to unfold. For some event planners accomplishing this-getting the audience warmed up-is where it stops.

This is where strategic event design comes in. Event planners must be skilled in this art, and they must approach the structuring of their cocktail reception with the intensity of a general directing their troops. They are on a mission and that is to turn the cocktail reception into an event element that will bring them one step closer to achieving their objective. To a strategic event designer even a cocktail reception is viewed as an opportunity to do so. Their cocktail receptions may be themed, but know that the theme will be wrapped in purpose-on purpose.

Strategic event planners begin by reviewing the group dynamics, which plays a big part in determining the style of event that is proposed. A cocktail reception designed for high-end stockbrokers or board of directors would be quite different in makeup than one for an active sales force, even if the client's corporate objectives were the same. Strategic event planners know this. The high-end senior executives are more likely to enjoy events where they are pampered with proven activities, whereas the active sales force prefers events that have a more competitive edge and are more adventurous.

The strategic event designer goes into the planning process clear on the client's objectives and the results they want to achieve. They know exactly who the client's intended targeted audience is. They are ready to move into their battle plan and map out their strategic points.

Their first step is looking at the big picture. An event can be a stand-alone or one that takes place over the course of a day or several days, and may be a meeting, conference, convention or incentive. Strategic event designers need to develop their principal plan of action for the event and look at how they can use the event as a vehicle to move them closer to their client's goal. Where a particular event element, such as a cocktail reception, is scheduled to take place is important in determining the event content. A welcome cocktail reception will be structured to produce different results than one that is scheduled to take place later in the week or one that is to act as the prelude to a farewell event. This applies to all event elements. Timing and overall structure play major roles in strategic event design.

Laying what is "known" out on a grid will create the shell from which the strategic event planner begins to work. Known elements are those outlined in the proposal request qualification meeting. The client may have said they would like to have daily meetings as part of their agenda, with a welcome cocktail party and dinner, as well as other program inclusions. The event planner will have been given the basic outline the client would like to see take place. For a seven-night meeting event elements could include:

Round-trip transfers between the airport and the hotel

Hotel accommodation

Welcome room gift

Welcome reception with a one hour open bar and hot and cold canaps to be followed by dinner with wine

Private group breakfast daily

Five full days of meetings with audiovisual, staging and lighting requirements

One half day meeting to take place on the final day

Morning and afternoon coffee breaks to consist of beverages and light snacks

Private group lunch daily-no alcoholic beverages to be served

One afternoon group recreational activity-team-building-to take place on the final day

Private group dinner nightly with wine

Farewell reception with a one hour open bar and canaps to be followed by dinner with wine

Event planners know the itinerary, the budget, the group demographics and dynamics, the client's objectives and the group's past event history. The elements as they are known are laid out on the day-by-day grid, which is then divided into sections (see Appendix for example). Each day has a square for breakfast, morning activities, lunch, afternoon activities, reception, dinner, and evening activities. The known event elements are then penciled into the appropriate section of the grid. For some event planners, it is merely a case of filling in the blanks and moving directly to telephoning suppliers to check availability and rates. What the client will receive is exactly what they requested. Will it meet the objectives? Not necessarily, unless the objectives were to simply move the office environment to another location with a few drinks thrown in. Requesting a half day team-building activity on the final day, however, suggests that team-building and creating company camaraderie is an objective-whether verbalized or not. A planner must be able to read what the program elements are telling them when they are laid out in the grid beyond what has been spoken or formalized in the written event outline.

In this case, the event outline is saying that they want to bring their guests together to relax and talk over dinner (and wine) every night at the end of their business day to create a mood of esprit de corps and fellowship, and to boost morale by including a team-building event.

Once the grid has been filled in, it becomes a map from which event planners begin to break down the process of how they can achieve all of the client's objectives-the ones they have requested as well as the ones they may not be aware of. For example, the minute an event planner skilled in strategic event design hears that a client requests a single team-building event at the end of a program, red flags will be going up. In their qualification meeting with their client, they will be able to address the problem of meeting the client's objective of bringing their staff closer together, if the team-building activity is left until the very end of the stay. The time to create a feeling of fellowship and companionship is at the beginning of the program not at the end, because you can use the week to build upon the initial activity.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Business of Event Planningby Judy Allen Copyright © 2002 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 047083188X
• ISBN 13: 9780470831885
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352