Feb. 29, 2008 at 2:30pm

Sweat the small stuff

Posted by Shari Campbell in Planning and Strategy
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Last week I attended the annual awards dinner for a professional association.

It should’ve been a banner night. But a series of little mistakes added up to disaster for the event organizers. The event was oversold. Organizers ran out of tables for guests. And they even ran out of extra chairs, leaving some of us leaning against a wall, without food or beverages for the lengthy award ceremony.

This is an event planner’s worst nightmare. But it need not happen to you. A few suggestions that could’ve made a big difference for this event:

1. Don’t plan on “no shows.” The event I attended sold out. One of the committee members assured the other event planners, “Don’t worry … there will be no shows.” Well, there weren’t. Never assume a sold out (or oversold) event will benefit from no shows. If only the organizers had arranged for extra chairs and tables … well, I wouldn’t be writing this blog.

2. Don’t relax when the social hour begins. This event had a check in and social hour before guests were seated for dinner. It soon became clear that all the guests had arrived and there wouldn’t be enough seats. Yet no one seemed to be monitoring check in. Avoid the temptation to relax when the wine and hors de oeuvres are served. Use this time to check attendance, and continually monitor what’s happening at the event with all the little details.

3. Be safe, not embarrassed. I recently put on an outdoor, tented event where RSVPs continued to pour in days after the RSVP cut-off date. While we were unable to get a bigger tent, we continued to increase the number of chairs, changed the layout under the tent, and converted some rectangular food tables to guest tables. While it wasn’t a perfect scenario, every guest had a chair. And every guest had a meal.

4. It’s the small stuff that matters. Remember the adage, “Don’t sweat the small stuff?” I think the best events are when the organizers do sweat the small stuff. Every detail is planned, every part of the guest’s experience is planned. One additional detail that was missed last week: organizers awarded certificates, but didn’t give winners a file, envelope or anything to protect the delicate parchment paper. When we left the dinner, we had to tuck our certificates inside our jackets because, like most guests, we didn’t bring briefcases or bags to the evening event.

As I wrote in a previous blog, if I win the Lotto I’ll quickly give up event planning – it’s one of the most difficult parts of this business to manage.

But last week’s event problems reminded me there’s always more to learn about hosting a special event.

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