Steps Involved in Producing an Event

Steps Involved in Producing an Event

Step 1: Do event analysis.
Step 2: Prepare an event plan.
Step 3: Exhaustively test market your event plan
Discuss your event plan with other people to know there opinions and suggestions.
Step 4: Get organizers, sponsors, partners and clients for your event.
Step 5: Prepare an event calendar.
An event calendar is an ordered list of activities which are needed to be executed in order to produce and market the event. These activities are of three types: pre-event, at-event and post-event activities.

Steps involved in preparing an event calendar

Step 1: Create a list of pre-event, at-event and post event activities.
Step 2: Set deadlines for each event activity.
Step 3: Assign event activities to individual team members.

Note: For large scale events, you will have to prepare a separate event calendar for each field of event production.

Various fields of event production:

Event Team Management
Stress Management and Events
Risk Management
Information Management
Procurement Management
Logistic Management
Event Security Management
Infrastructure Management
Technical Management
Program Management
Food and Beverages Management
Attendees Management
Quality Management
Marketing Management
Finance Management
Human Resource Management
General Management

Event Team Management

 You need a team to organize an event. You can’t do everything by yourself. So I don’t need to tell you further, how important a team is for your event. Event mismanagement is mostly about team mismanagement.
Do the following things for effective team management:
 

Know your team

Just knowing the names, faces and job profile of your team members is not enough. You must have good knowledge of there personality, life style, likings, disliking, family background, status, educational qualification, knowledge level, customs, religion and especially there needs and wants. By needs and wants I mean there physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs, cognitive needs and self actualization needs.
Every person has different needs and different priority to fulfill them. While for some getting recognition is more important than job security. For others job security is more important. Determine the needs of your team members and fulfill them in order to get optimum results from them.

Physiological needs

The need to have food, water, warmth, shelter and other things necessary for survival.
Your team members will not feel anything, if these needs are met but can cause them discomfort, sickness and pain if these needs are not full filled. So as an event manager it is your job to make sure that all the physiological needs of your team are met from time to time. Just imagine how a team member who hasn’t eaten anything all day will perform his duty in the evening and you will get my point.

Safety needs

It includes need to be safe from physical and psychological harm. It also includes job security and financial security.
As an event manger you have to ensure safety of your team especially women. A person can’t give his best in an unsafe environment.
To protect your team from psychological harm, make sure there are no internal conflicts (like ego clashes, altercations, conflict of interest etc) among team members. If there are conflicts, then resolve them judiciously.
Providing job security to your team is also very important. At no point any team member should feel that his job is under threat either by your actions or by someone else actions.
Take care of your team beyond the work place. If any team member is facing a financial problem, then help him as much as you can.

Social needs

It is the need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance. Need to love and be loved by friends, intimate partner, family and social groups like your team.
To fulfill this need, there must be cordial relationship between you and the team and among the team members. A team member will not perform his best if he has considerable family problems. Try whatever you can to reduce his family problems. If you can’t do much at least accept his problems and empathize with him. Try to reduce his stress by giving him a day off or engaging him in the sport he likes the most. Ask you team members to be as supportive to him as possible. All this will help.
People who have strong social needs should not be placed in a job where they have minimum interaction with people. They are the best for marketing or PR type jobs.

Esteem needs

It is the need to get respect, recognition, fame and status.
Some people have stronger esteem needs than the other. You will have to identify those team members who have strong esteem needs and then find ways to fulfill those needs. For e.g. if a person is working very hard to get recognition among the team members and you are not giving him the recognition he deserves (by openly praising him or giving him promotion) then sooner or later his motivation level will go down and he will not give optimum results or worst will not perform and quit.

Cognitive needs

It is the need to understand, learn, discover and explore.
People who have strong cognitive needs should not be placed in a job which is monotonous and which doesn’t offer any possibility of intellectual growth. Frankly speaking, people with strong cognitive needs are not suitable for event management jobs.

Self Actualization need

It is the need to be the best. It is the need to become everything, one is capable of becoming.
Very few people have such type of need. If you have some one in you team with this need, then you have both advantage and disadvantage. The advantage is that you can always expect optimum results from him. The disadvantage is that he will tirelessly seek for the position of leadership and if he didn’t get it, then he will leave you soon and may even become your competitor.

Stress Management and Events

 Stress is the part and parcel of event management. Every event professional is under constant stress throughout the execution of an event.
While moderate amount of stress is necessary in order to give optimum results, a prolonged stress that exist for weeks, months and some times years can create three types of problems in an individual:

1) Physiological problems like heart diseases, high blood pressure, migraine, diabetes, asthma, obesity, infertility etc.
2) Psychological problems like anxiety, depression, lack of concentration etc.
3) Behavioral problems like sleeplessness, overeating, under eating, absenteeism etc.

As an event manager it is your job to take care of both physiological and psychological health of yourself and your team members. For this find out the signs of stress, causes for stress and then formulate, prepare and implement strategies for coping stress.

Signs of Stress

Common physical symptoms: headaches, diarrhea, constipation, nausea, dizziness, weight gain or loss, insomnia, frequent cold etc
Common emotional symptoms: moodiness, restlessness, depression, general unhappiness, feeling of loneliness and isolation, impatience, Irritability etc.
Common behavioral symptoms: over eating, under eating, sleeping too much or too little, overdoing activities, nail biting, pacing, neglecting responsibilities, isolating oneself from others, drinking too much alcohol, smoking too many cigarettes, taking drugs to relax etc.
Common Cognitive Symptoms: memory loss, lack of concentration, poor judgment, negativity, fearful anticipation etc.

Note: These symptoms of stress vary from person to person, as each person has different personality, perception, stress tolerance level and support network of family and friends.
Further reading: Understanding stress, signs, symptoms, causes and effects)

Causes for Stress

There can be ‘N’ number of causes for stress like:
1) Major change in life situation: marriage, divorce, unexpected pregnancy, child birth, new job, getting fired, retirement, accident, death of a dear one, facing jail term etc

2) Work related stress: job dissatisfaction, role conflict, role ambiguity, office politics, interpersonal conflicts, insufficient pay, work overload, racial/sexual discrimination or harrasement etc.

3) Environment related stress: poor physical condition of the workplace, pollution, noise, too much cold or too much heat, unsafe neighbourhood etc.

4) Other Stressors: personal problems (like perfectionism, low self esteem, pessimism, unrealistic goals etc), family problems, financial problems, lack of support from family and friends etc.
 
 

Strategies for Coping Stress

As an event manager you can do following things to reduce stress:

1) Set realistic goals for yourself and for your team.

2) Avoid all those people and situations which cause stress

3) If a person is experiencing job dissatisfaction, then determine his needs (social needs, esteem needs etc) and satisfy them through various financial and non-financial incentives available for need satisfaction. Design job for a person in such a way, that it is able to utilize his skills and abilities and at the same time satisfy his needs.

4) Role conflict (like taking care of guests and handling technicians both at the same time) and role ambiguity (what one is expected to do) both cause severe stress to a team member. So as an event manager it is your responsibility to design a job for a person in such a way that he faces minimal role conflict and has no role ambiguity.

5) Discourage politics and favoritism at the work place.

6) Resolve interpersonal conflicts quickly and judiciously.

7) Prepare a policy handbook that prevents and address all type of harassments (emotional, physical and sexual) and discriminations. The handbook should clearly state, that the consequences of not abiding by the policy handbook will be severe. Distribute the copies of the hand book to all the team members and ask them to go through it completely.
 
8) Make sure that all the physiological needs (need to have food, water, warmth, shelter and other things necessary for smooth working) of your team are met from time to time during the event.

9) Protect your team from psychological harm by making sure there are no internal conflicts (like ego clashes, altercations, conflict of interest etc) among team members. If there are conflicts, then resolve them judiciously. Providing job security to your team is also very important. At no point any team member should feel that his job is under threat either by your actions or by someone else actions. Take care of your team beyond the work place. If any team member is facing a financial problem, then help him as much as you can.

10) A team member will not perform his best if he has considerable family problems. Try whatever you can to reduce his family problems. If you can’t do much at least accept his problems and empathize with him. Try to reduce his stress by giving him a day off or engaging him in the sport he likes the most. Ask you team members to be as supportive to him as possible. All this will help.

11) Majority of stress in an event is due to poor time management. It is hard to remain calm and focused when things are not going the way they should and you are running behind schedule. Plan ahead and plan each and every activity in great details. That’s the only solution.

12) Include rest and relaxation time in your daily schedule for yourself and for your team members.

13) Encourage yourself and others to adopt a healthy lifestyle like regular exercise, nutritious diet, yoga, meditation, tai chi, massage, sports etc.

Risk Management Plan for Events

 An event is full of uncertainties like power failure, equipment failure, medical emergency, brawl, stampede, fire, sponsorship withdrawal, last minute turned down by an artist etc. How will you deal with all these contingencies without a well thought out risk management plan.
Risk management is done at each and every stage of event production. For e.g. when risk management is done in the information management field, then it deals with loss of data due to data theft or hard disk crash. When risk management is done in the security management field, then it deals with brawl, stampede, medical emergency, accidental fire etc.
Similarly there are risks associated with: human resource, finance, marketing, quality management, attendees, food and beverages management, programs, technical management, infrastructure, logistic, procurement and team management.

Developing Risk Management Plan for Events

Since risk management is a very important part of event management therefore it should be carried out in a planned and professional manner. Following steps are involved in risk management:

Step 1: Identify those elements or activities which could carry a risk.
A list of such elements is already specified above like information management, security, procurement etc.

Step 2: Identify the risks associated with each element or activity.
For e.g. cargo theft is associated with logistic management. Similarly, data loss is associated with information management.

Step 3: Determine the possibility of occurrence of the risk and the severity of the consequences if the risk does happen. For e.g.

Elements	Risk	Possibility	Severity
Information Management	Loss of data	Low	Very high
	Data theft	High	High
	Data Corruption	Very high	Very high
Security Management	Brawl	Low	Low

Step 4: Risk Prioritization
Risks with high severity of the consequences should be handled first.

Step 5: Formulate, prepare and implement strategies to manage risks.
Some common strategies used for risk management are:

*Risk Avoidance
Avoid those elements and activities which could carry a risk.
*Risk Retention
Accept some or all the consequences associated with a particular risk.
*Risk Transfer
Transfer the risk to a third party. For e.g. transferring the event security responsibility to a security agency.
*Risk Reduction
Reduce the risk associated with a particular element or activity by developing an effective contingency action plan.

Step 6: Monitor the risks periodically
so that the strategies used to manage the risks can be updated or reviewed.

Information Management in Events

 Information Management includes acquiring information from various sources and then organizing, retrieving and maintaining that information.
For small size events, you can do information management all by yourself. However for big and very big events you will need an information manager. This information manager may have several assistants depending upon the size of the event.
An information manager is responsible for maintaining database of service providers (like decorators, technicians, DJ, anchor, florist, artists, ushers etc), guests, sponsors, partners, organizers, delegates, speakers, media people, clients and target audience.
The information which is usually manhttp://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2071321557704472564#editor/target=post;postID=6305143800603298452aged is the contact details and all the business operations and monetary transactions carried out pre-event, at-event and post event. For e.g. when you hired a particular DJ, how much he asked for his service, how much advance you paid, what were the terms and condition on which there was mutual agreement and things like this.
An information manager is responsible for documenting all such activities. In case of meetings and conferences, he is the one who records the proceedings. He also formulates, prepares and implements the risk management plan i.e. risks related to information management like loss of data due to data theft or hard disk crash.
There are many event management software programmes available on the market which can help with information management.

Procurement Management for Events

It is the entire process of buying goods and services to support business operations.
It includes determining needs and then locating, selecting, negotiating, contracting, training, managing and paying the suppliers.

Logisitic Management in Events

Logistic management is all about moving goods and merchandise from one destination to the other in the most efficient and cost effective manner. For small or local events you can do logistic management all by yourself. But for large events, especially national level or international level events you will have to take the services of a logistic manager (also known as clearing and forwarding agent).

A national or international level event may require:
1) Guidance on pre and post shipment services
2) Liasoning with various govt. departments and organizations.
3) Preparation of documentation required for import or export of cargo.
4) Multimodal transportation by road, air or sea.
5) Warehousing and distribution of cargo
6) Cargo Insurance and tracking
7) Cargo consolidation
8) Custom clearance, shipping clearance and various other clearances.
9) Various types of procurement management and resource management services.
10) Formulation, preparation and implementation of a risk management plan i.e. risks related to logistic management like cargo theft.


A logistic manager is expert in all the aforesaid areas. He has extensive knowledge of the rules, regulations, policies, procedures and documentation necessary to import, export or move goods and merchandise. He has extensive knowledge of the transportation cost, custom clearance, banking practices etc. Therefore he is indispensable for national or international level events.

Security Management in Events

 Security Management includes formulating, preparing and implementing security plans and strategies for events i.e. how to protect delegates, guests, service, providers, organizes, sponsors, partners, clients, target, audience, media people goods and merchandise and yourself from unforeseen circumstances like:

1. Fire

In case of fire at the event venue, use fire extinguisher to extinguish the fire. In the mean time take everyone out of the venue safely. Develop a separate emergency exit plan for this. If fire is uncontrollable then call the fire brigade.
Follow fire code and safety regulations to prevent the fire as specified below:

1. Don't place any combustible or inflammable material in the venue esp. near green rooms, guest rooms or seating area.

2. All materials including prop must be properly treated with fire retardant solution.

3. Make sure that the entrance and exit ways are not blocked by any material or by any means.

4. Make sure that the event venue must have separate entrance and exit ways, fire alarm system and fire extinguishers.

5. Use only those electrical equipments which are branded and which use three core wires.

6. At least one doctor with first aid box along with the ambulance must be there at the venue to handle medical emergency.

7. Your staff must be well trained about giving first aid like CPR and must be able to handle fire extinguishers and crowd in case of fire.

2. Power Failure

If you are organizing event at a place where power failure is common, then you should have adequate power backup.
In case of a power failure, switch on the emergency lights and then turned on the generators. If you have UPS (uninterrupted power supply) system, then it is the best. If you cant arrange such types of power backups, then at least you should have torch or candles.
Create a separate emergency plan to handle crowd and guests in case of a power failure.

3. Equipment Failure

Use equipments of only reputed brands so that the possibility of their failure is least.
Hire only those light and sound technicians who know how to fix up their equipments in case of any problem and who carry backup equipments also.
Create a separate emergency plan to manage programs and performers in case of a power failure.

4. Medical Emergency

A paramedical team along with ambulance must be present at the event venue. If this is out of budget, then at least a doctor with first aid box must be present.
Your whole event team must be well trained in giving first aid like check for breathing, CPR, controlling bleeding, effecting a prompt rescue.
If possible try to know the medical history of your guests in advance and then prepare your medical emergency plan accordingly. For e.g. if a guest is allergic to grass and weed pollens, then you should make sure that he doesn't sit near grass.

5. Brawl/Stampede

6. Bad Weather

7. Last Minute Turn Down

8. Sponsorship Withdrawal

 

Event Evaluation

 

Steps Involved in Writing the Evaluation of an Event

Event evaluation is necessary to make you and your team more efficient and effective, the next time you organize an event. It is all about finding your mistakes and learning from them.
Event evaluation should be done immediately after the event is over or the next day. Conduct a meeting with your team members to evaluate your event.

Step 1: Determine the extent to which event and advertising objectives have been achieved.
If you are not able to achieve your event and advertising objectives through your event, then no matter how much people enjoyed the event or how much popularity your event got, it is a complete failure on a commercial level.

Step 2: Get feedback from your clients and target audience.
One good way of getting feedback is through feedback form. To make sure that your clients give you feedback, make the feedback form part of your Exit pass form. The exit pass form is required to get exit pass for security clearance, to remove exhibits from the facility.
To get feedback from target audience/ guests, make feedback form part of your gift voucher. A guest can redeem the gift voucher only when he/she fills the feedback form and give it back to an attendant. These tactics are required to get feedback, as people are generally reluctant to give any feedback in writing.
You can ask following questions in your feedback form:

Q1) Did you enjoy the event? If no, then please state the reason.

Q2) what do you like most in the event?

Q3) what do you like least in the event?

Q4) what are the problems you faced during the event?

Q5) what could have been done to make this event better?

Q6) How do you rate the various services provided by us (please check one of the option):

Hospitality:	Excellent, good, average, poor
Catering:	Excellent, good, average, poor
Transportation:	Excellent, good, average, poor
Management staff behavior:	Excellent, good, average, poor
Management staff services:	Excellent, good, average, poor

Q7) would you like to participate in our next event?

Note: Your questionnaire should not have more than 10 questions. You don't want to irritate your guests. Ask only relevant questions and keep the questionnaire short to 5-6 questions. Of course the type of questions you will ask may change from event to event.
And don't forget to mention the following line in you feedback form: "Thank you for taking the time to complete this feedback form" .

Event Planning Software

 1) Event Soft
This software facilitates event planning and scheduling.


2) Event Pro
It provides tool to manage your events like booking facility, reminders, database support, security rights, professionally designed reports etc.

3) Thriva
It provides online event registration, payment processing and other facilities to event management companies.

4) Regonline
It is also an online event registration software through which you can create online registration forms, develop event websites to promote your event, accept online payments, send confirmations and reminders, run reports, print badges etc.

5) Symphony
Through this software you can do online attendee registration, speaker management, payment processing, custom reporting, access and share latest information etc.