Whether you are re-branding, re-locating or launching a new product a well-executed event can bring life to your endeavor. If your strategic direction includes becoming a knowledge source in your industry contemplate an educational conference or full day seminar to bring the spotlight onto your company.  If your objective includes employee appreciation consider taking your staff off site for a day whether it be for meetings, team building or a combination. Step away from your traditional awards luncheon and spice it up with some creative ways to appreciate your top performers. Contemplate non-traditional meeting venues such as tourist destinations in your city. Offer more than just a lunch, perhaps an opportunity to tour a museum, gardens, or winery.

With reduced budgets, how can organizations accomplish these events?

Regarding new initiatives or becoming a knowledge source; consider new partnerships or strategic alliances with companies looking to accomplish similar goals. Working together to produce an event can allow for greater exposure to potential customers as well as larger production budgets. When looking at interesting off-site locations more often than not entrance fees are waived for the group so there will be no additional costs and your employees will feel very appreciated!

Choosing a space that is not equipped for events can be exciting and opportunistic; however, it often comes with hidden challenges. Choosing an empty warehouse for an event means no rules – the sky is the limit! And you were probably able to get it for a steal.  But not so fast – you got it at a steal for a reason.All that money you saved is most likely on its way back out to pay for all the missing elements in your new venue space.

What is your potential venue lacking? Most likely restrooms. A restroom trailer, attendants and a water source will need to be secured. If your space does happen to have restrooms, it’s most likely lacking in the restroom amenities such as toilet paper, paper towels, soap, and in some cases mirrors. And don’t forget to have the water turned on.

A space not typically used for events will likely require a thorough cleaning. This means hiring a cleaning company to come in pre event and to clean up post event in order to leave the venue as you found it – or better.

What kind of shape is the venue in? Does it need a down and dirty paint job? Are there holes in the ceiling that might not be noticed except during a rainstorm?

Does it have HVAC? Don’t forget that HVAC requires fuel and generators.  Does the space have adequate power for catering needs as well as audio visual requirements? If the answer is no, add a couple more generators to that budget list.

Most empty warehouses are not equipped with top of the line locks.  Hire overnight security to keep watch on a multi-day set up. The security will cost a lot less than the replacement fees for all the audio visual equipment.

What is the occupancy code for the building? Is it even coded? If it isn’t coded to have a large number of guests, submitting an event floor plan to the fire marshal is a must. In Charlotte its a requirement to have at least (2) egresses for up to 199 guests and 3 egresses for 200-499 guests and so on. Make sure to check with your local Fire Marshal for your local requirements. And keep in mind, roll up doors don’t always count.  One of the non-traditional venues we used in the past wasn’t coded for enough guests because it didn’t have a voice activated fire alarm system. As you can imagine, this was a pricey installation.

Empty, non-event spaces probably do not have the traditional items such as chairs, tables, stages, podiums and lighting. It likely won’t have a kitchen either.  Depending on your event menu, erecting a catering kitchen can be pricey. Warmers, ovens, grills, cooling units and prep space add up fast.

While unique venues are exciting, beware of the challenges that await you.  Don’t let the unknowns scare you from choosing these types of spaces, but rather be prepared and catch the problems on the front end. And for those problems that surprise you, consider building a contingency into your budget to allow you to address them.

To ensure complete quality, it’s important not to set goals in only one area of life. Goals should be distributed evenly between career, physical, family/social, and spiritual aspects of life. At TCG we strive to be well rounded individuals by setting goals as a team in these various categories such as, volunteering each month, having a monthly book club to enrich our brains, setting specified sales goals, consistently living up to our mantra – Event Differently, and our most recent endeavor, training for a half marathon in April.

At this recent meeting, we were intrigued to discover that when creating goals, studies have shown that translating each goal into specific and thoughtful images, utilizing our five senses, allows for successful goal accomplishment and follow through. Coincidentally, this is the same exercise we do when brainstorming event concepts.

Take a minute to visualize yourself achieving your goal. Now picture yourself in the moment. What sounds do you hear? What are you holding or touching? Are there any specific or unusual tastes in your mouth? What are the sights and smells around you?

Doing this exercise, perhaps repeatedly, allows you to get a feeling for how amazing completing your goal will feel and hopefully will be a constant motivating force.

Though, I’m not sure how pretty this visualization exercise will be when applied to our half marathon…

Happy goal setting!

We begin the process by scanning resumes for a couple of key elements.  Are you a current student or looking to enter the job force to gain experience as a graduate?  Do you have any event experience or skills that can relate to the production of events?

Our key to successfully hiring interns is to interview candidates whose resumes interest us right away. We have discovered this works better than holding resumes and interviewing them all at once, which can be overwhelming.

Upon beginning each interview there is one very important question we specifically always ask.  What do you think about event planning?  The answer, “I think event planning is glamorous!” is the kiss of death for even a favored candidate.  We simply dread this response because our job is far from glamorous and this unrealistic perception sets everyone up to be disappointed.  We want to ensure the interns we choose are ready to become apart of our team.  One of our favorite questions to ask is what is your favorite color? This gives us a look into their personality, style and if they will fit into our office culture.  We are looking for hard work, determination, and creativity. You will go through new and unique experiences, possibly even taking a pig on a walk.

When we walk out of an interview there we are in one of three places for a decision on a candidate: never, maybe and love.  If you fall in the never category its not a good fit for our team or your career goals, if its maybe we are unsure and would like to keep our options open, if its love we cannot wait for you to join our team!  We shoot for love and find those who fall in this category usually have the best experience.

Being an intern at TCG will help you decide if this career path is for you.  It will become very apparent if this is what you want to do or if it’s just not your cup of tea.  An internship can open doors to a career with the company you fulfill your internship with or connections you make along the way!

Before every event, we gather as a team and visually walk through the event from start to finish through the prospective of the guests. This allows us to discover if we have all the necessary components to make our machine efficient. For instance, through this process, if we feel guests might be delayed at a registration area, we can work through exactly how it will be set up and how it will flow as guests arrive. This practice eliminates numerous problems as well as unnecessary stress onsite the day of the event. It is a vital step to any successful event and we highly recommend trying it out!

Thinking through every step before an event is crucial to the final product. Our machine wouldn’t run as efficiently and effectively if a single entity was missing or lacking our attention. Thus, organization and planning every step prior to an event is vital to its success. Regardless of how insignificant a piece of an event may seem, together, they create a well-oiled machine, ensuring an enjoyable experience for all.

But planning doesn’t just benefit a business or an event. Have you ever tried bringing planning into your personal life? Imagine how much more productive you could be if you just take 10 minutes the night before to plan for your day.

What are you goals? Eating healthier? More free time on the weekends? Getting to the gym? Here are a few examples how10 minutes of planning can increase your personal productivity:

Healthy Eating

Use your 10 minutes to pack your lunch. With a pre-packed, healthy lunch, you take the thought, work, and temptation out of the equation. Not to mention bringing your lunch can be much cheaper in the long run! Have lunch meetings? Plan to bring some energizing snacks to get you through those morning and afternoon lulls.

Weekend Free Time

Use your 10 minutes research online services to help you get your errands complete. Harris Teeter’s Express Lane allows you to shop online and pick up your packaged groceries from the store like a drive-thru window.  Walgreens allows you to auto-refill your prescriptions and will ship them to your home for free.  Most banks will allow you to deposit your checks into the ATM.

The Gym

We all know we’re supposed to get there, but how do those annoying gym fanatics do it? In your 10 minute planning throw together your gym bag, download some energizing music, or search for a fun group class online. An additional benefit to help motivate you – working out can increase your energy levels, which can also help your productivity personally and in the workplace!

Thinking ahead and planning for the unexpected is our business. However, taking that skill and applying it personally can garner some major benefits.

There is no concrete answer but here are some things to think about:

Risks:
Clients can pass on your services, but take the creative and execute it themselves or with a competitor.
At the initial stage, the opportunity to really capture the client’s objectives and hot buttons hasn’t happened. 
Any request for creative that goes beyond a general concept design is a big investment in a firm’s time with no guaranteed return.  

Benefits:
Many clients are linear thinkers and need visuals. They are more responsive when they can see examples of what is being described.
The more creative details completed on the front end means its time hit the ground running once the contract is signed.
There are fewer surprises for everyone during the planning process.

Questions to ponder:
How much time are you willing to divert from your paying clients to spend on a potential client?
Are you willing to hand over an entire concept to someone that may never call you back?
Is it arrogant to think that your idea or concept is so great that it needs to be protected?
Does passing out ideas for free jeopardize the integrity of the creative business? Or is it simply the nature of the business?

What do you think?

A lunch trip to a dim sum restaurant inspired the concepts behind our own event – food served in unconventional ways. We envisioned push cart food stations, hanging bars, marshmallow trees for s’mores, and serving from sandwich boards instead of trays. Our party had three levels which looked great but created a lot of logistical challenges.  We found the greatest logistical challenges in the hanging bars and the push cart stations.

With the carts, we had to consider:  How would they travel between the different levels?  How easily will they move on carpet? How do we ensure they get replenished?  As a team we had to consider how the space we were creating would affect the moving stations. To make this concept feasible, we added ramps and created paths from the catering kitchen to guest areas on each level. To address replenishment concerns, the caterers used an ice-cream style cart that could house food items, reducing the need for frequent replenishing. 

The hanging bars had their own challenges… How could we make them functional, yet visually appealing?  An hour of wandering the aisles at Lowes’ Home Improvement  lead us to diamond cut metal sheets that we attached over top of white wired closet shelving for support and suspend with chain from truss arches.  The bars needed to be sturdy enough to hold drinks and ice, and be heavy enough to create stability.  The hanging bars created a wow factor for guests – none of whom could tell they were made from construction and closet materials!

Governor Bev Perdue addresses The North Carolina Governor's Confrence for Women

So what does “conference producers” really mean?  In short, it means we handle all of the logistics for the conference.  Specifically, it means we are responsible for:

Now let’s put that into practical application with these real life instances.  We get to jump, run, curse, sweat, when…

…the opening session speaker is late, requiring changes to script, video, teleprompter, and speaker order.

…attending secret service meetings.

…handed changes for the teleprompter as the speaker walks on stage.

…finding 50 sponsor representatives in a crowd of 1,500, getting them backstage, lined up in alpha order, and then fit the entire group on stage.

… a speaker suddenly requests a specific brand cold remedy.

…a last minute meet & greet session is scheduled that requires separate printed name tags in a precise font.

Three weeks before the event, with only one-third of the RSVPs in, we were forced to place the shoe order to ensure their timely arrival. Blindly purchasing 400 pairs of shoes could prove disastrous. Informing a guest his/her shoe size is unavailable would be embarrassing for us, and unacceptable to our client.

Playing “Shoe Size Roulette” was unappealing, so we opted to ask Google. The all-knowing search engine provided the following chart with the average American woman’s shoe size.

Courtesy of Footwear Market Insights

Now for the mathematical equation (and people think event planning is strictly a creative field):

Since the RSVPs were still coming in, we had to first calculate the anticipated number of event attendees.  The invitation acceptance rate was averaging 25 a day therefore assuming 500 attendees.  Ordering 100 extra pairs offered a nice buffer and increased the total shoe order to 600.

After reviewing the current male-female attendee ratio, the shoes were split evenly between the sexes.

Next, the known shoe sizes were subtracted.  These remaining shoes were then split according to the above chart.  To determine the number of size 10 shoes, we calculated 200 shoes x 9.3% = 18.6.  Ordering .6 of a shoe is difficult, so we rounded up.

Men’s sizes were trickier. Google failed on locating a similar chart on men’s average shoe size so we applied the same formula, using the averages of the current RSVPs.

Was there a better way?