The registration process

November 8, 2007 By tojulius

This post applies to all those events which involve a registration process. By that I mean also those events with tickets as that could be conceived as registration.

First of all registration is crucial. It helps in several aspects:

  • it gives you an idea on how much people will participate to your event

  • it gives you a clear picture of the profile of your participant

  • it shows you likes and dislikes of the participant

  • it could help you with dietary requirements thus avoiding last minute buffet changes

  • if automated it could help the participants to start interacting before the event

Anticipation

In order to achieve all these beautiful things I usually apply my rule of registration. It has to be anticipated as much as possible.

All the data that comes with registration are of utmost importance for the event. Moreover, suppliers will ask you definite numbers with an embarrassing anticipation. My idea is that you can pre-sell virtually every kind of event out there. You just need a bit of will and a deep reading of the rules that follow.

Registration Form

The registration form then becomes crucial to guarantee such precious collection. Remember to be specific when you design the registration process and to ask clear questions. Most of the times asking the age is irrelevant, while asking food preference for a conference is a big part of the buffet setting.

Last Minute Registration

Every respectable event has last minute registration. The laggards are part of our life, not conceivable for us control freaks, but they exists and they need to be understood.

Even if you have a 100 people closed and unaccessible conference, the important friend of a friend will show up. Let’s say you’ve printed out all the badges a week ago, that sounds to me like an issue.

Being a man I know how I desperately want to have a badge as all my mates have and I will get really disappointed if I don’t get one.

It is a very good idea to bring a laptop with you and a printer at the registration desk and maybe design a last minute badge dedicated to laggards.

Educate Participants

As a matter of fact you’ll get a scary number of laggards if you do not educate the participants to register as early as possible. The best technique is definitely monetary. Create an early registration and a late registration fee. Increase the gap between the two by a 30% to 50% and you’ll cut dramatically the amount of laggards. Or at least you’ll have the time spent making last minute badges well repaid.

Another advantage is that you’ll have substantial numbers to give to your suppliers.

Lines and Waiting Period

Lines are a pain in the neck and guess what that applies also to your event.

In order to decrease the waiting period substantially, it is well recommended to rehearse the registration process few times.

Once you’ve rehearsed, identify your weaknesses and take action to solve the issues. If you feel that no matter how much you studied the process there will inevitably be long lines, consider some staff going through the lines asking preliminary questions to speed up the process.

Filed Under: Julius Solaris, event management, start event business, tips
 

How to be a succesful event manager

October 1, 2007 By tojulius

To some of my regulars, this post should have appeared long before. In fact I have been thinking about it for a while.

The thing about events is that it may appear that everyone is capable of planning and executing an event. To a certain extent that is the truth. You may in fact notice that several tools of this blog are very easy to use, do not require any particular knowledge or skills.

I have stressed in the past the argument that the events industry is not inaccessible, on the other hand it is quite easy to get in and to quickly obtain responsibility.

Nonetheless, I am convinced that there is a marked line that divides those working in events randomly or amateurs from successful event managers or planners.

I am not talking about motivation and drive, which of course are basic, but there are few characteristics that inevitably single out a professional. I refer to these attributes as the 3 C’s (ok not original but easy to remember) :

- Control

Both internal and external. To me is the most crucial. You are paid to keep things under control for those not able to do so. This is the event manager profession. Under the category I’d put also the ability to make things look great. This is control. It takes few years to develop the skill to look calm when things around are crushing down. And that happens 80% of the times. I do not think this comes with the personality, but instead it is learned in time.

Last night I went to a conference organized by not very experienced but very motivated people. I previously contacted the event manager giving him all the best luck for the event. I also proposed to meet each other as I am a big fan of networking. Once I got there I was greeted by this stressed person complaining of a location issue. I tried to ensure him of the positive vibe I felt but, no way, the stage issues were dominating the night.

My point is that this person had no control of the situation, but most of all he was lacking of self control not recognizing me as a guest and compromising our networking rendez-vous. At the end of the day this can ruin the whole event because, you know what, nobody will remember that wasn’t enough light on the stage. I will personally remember the way I was greeted, although I am sympathetic to the cause, that sticks to my mind as a sticky note glued with potty.

- Charisma

This is the basis for control, but again I am not talking about personality traits. The successful event manager has innate charisma, but I’d like to focus on the ability to know what is right and to convince 3000 people of it. Again such confidence and ability to communicate comes with experience and scientific trial and error.

A charismatic person is able to transmit a sense of immediate security to the client as well as the attendees. In the continuous crisis situation that is whatever event you might be involved in, only few people are able to manage things with confidence. To me that is because they’ve been frustrated many times before. These successful people are now capable of managing their frustration and others’ with confidence because they know what is required at a certain time.

Only charismatic people are capable to give bad news or to say no to clients and still make them feel at ease. Absurdly low budgets are becoming a reality in events, as much as expectations from clients are growing. Sometimes charismatic event managers are capable of filling the holes resulting from tight budgets.

- Connection

Events quickly skim the potential audience singling out interested participants, which will ultimately attend. These people will come to your event with one purpose, the ability to understand that purpose is not a common skill

An event is an expression of collective unconscious. Several hundreds of souls get together all united by one interest, sharing the same ancestral experience of the man. The ability of the successful event manager is to connect with participants and understand the underlying dynamic moving this people. Most of the times this unconscious need is shared by everyone, and you will find yourself looked at in the same way or asked the same question.

I have seen few managers that new exactly what was my request before I even addressed them. This is no statistics but emotional connection.

These 3 C’s are not an argument in favor of experience against education. That would be masochistic given my young age. In fact I am convinced that an attentive culture of marketing, psychology and business could suggest my conclusions, nonetheless I stress experiments and trial and error as the best way to thoroughly understand how to become successful.

Filed Under: Julius Solaris, psychology of events, start event business, tips
 

University degrees and online courses in Event Management

September 14, 2007 By tojulius

As said before, I am working on starting my event planning business. As I am still in the get-all-the-info-you-can phase, I bumped into a lot of people suggesting that being an event planner means being continuously updated with trends and practices.

Such need is in fact understandable as events require skills from fairly different areas. In my previous post I was considering to focus on what I can do best and outsource all the rest to someone more expert than I am.

Ok, it is a good point and I still believe in that, but on the other hand, clients expect a wide competence in event managers and being unaware of what budgeting is might be a downfall.

So at some stage I am sure I will consider engaging in a university degree. As a matter of fact, I did my BA and MBA and I feel pretty sick just looking at a uni book and my overall motivation toward the course might be at the lowest.

Thank God we have that thing called the Internet and I thought about Online courses. Online courses in fact might be a great solution for the ridiculously busy life of an event planner. You can find quality education when and where you want.

Should I fell in love with a subject, I could commit on a more serious online degree. But I reckon the online feature is what motivates more toward education. I am sure that everyone engaged in events shares with me the thought that there is never enough time, no matter how organised you are. Nonetheless, in events you’d want to be ahead of the game and competitive.

Online education seems to offers a clear solution to such chronic lack of time while still delivering on quality requirements.

I’d be very interested to hear some experience and maybe review of good options everywhere in the world as this blog is read from Malaysia to Canada, so just write me or comment if you feel you can contribute.

Filed Under: Julius Solaris, event management, start event business, tips
 

How to start your own event management company

September 7, 2007 By tojulius

Recently I decided to start my own event management company. I’ve worked in events for more than ten years and I thought, hey why not starting my own business! Well after that, things became a bit difficult because I did not know how to start an event management company.

So I decided to have a look around. Bought few books, saw few websites of famous planning agencies and tried to put few ideas down. After that I thought that my blog could have been of great use to help me in organizing my thoughts and maybe share some tips.

Therefore here are the thirst thoughts I had about running an event management company:

> I need to find my specialty. I’ve organized disco nights and congresses with up to 300 delegates. These are my specialties. Nonetheless, I am really interested in wedding planning as I see big potential in the sector. Plus the region where I live in Italy would really fit for this kind of business.

 

I read somewhere during my MBA that small business need to focus on few specific core competencies and in this case my core competency would be conferences.

> I need people around me able to do what I am not. I am a marketing person and an advanced control freak. In an hypothetic event management business I’d need to cover:

  • Creativity skills. For Event Design

  • Accounting skills. For Budgeting

  • Control skills. For logistics

  • Risk Management skills. For security purposes.

  • Computer Skills. For ad materials (eg. Brochures, Flyers) and online production (websites)

  • Marketing Skills. For pricing, promotion and event delivery

  • Selling Skills. To find new clients.

 

I am positive I could manage few aspects of the above, but what happen to the rest of them. I decided that while I’ll have some time I’d look for quick education with short focused courses. If the areas are particularly delicate, such as accounting, I’ll outsource the function or hire a part time, or better I’ll look at local universities for some student willing to help out.

Well these are my starting thoughts. Any other suggestion?

 

Filed Under: Julius Solaris, event management, marketing, start event business, tips