Top Three Lessons

Top Three Lessons from Event Management Course

Throughout this semester, I have learned about all areas of planning and organizing events. A few things stuck out in my mind as being the most helpful.

1. My first main learning is in the area of risk management. It is important to think through all possible risks of hosting an event and not just the obvious ones. You have to identify the risk, analyze the risk, plan for the crisis, and respond to the crisis. Well, hopefully you only have to do the first three. It was helpful to look at the case studies and brainstorm about all of the possible risks with my classmates to see their perspectives about what can happen. It is always useful to have more than one person looking at the possible risks of an event, and I learned a lot from the way they approached it. 

2. The second top learning I had was from our field trip to Social Tables. One slide they presented was on journey mapping which encourages you to look at all aspects of the event. There are 8 stages: announcing, attracting, anticipating, arriving/entering, experiencing, engaging, exiting, and extending. These stages represent all of the attendees' experiences to do with the event. When I am planning events in the future, I will make sure that I am considering all of these aspects and not just the experience during the main part of the event. 

It was enlightening to see Social Tables employees so passionate about what they do.

3. My third main takeaway has to do with our semester long informational interview project. I learned that if you ask in a professional manner, people are willing to help you! In the past, I have always shied away from requesting informational interviews because I felt like I would be taking up too much of the other person's time and they would not want to do it. I will be more likely to reach out to people in the future because I had this successful and positive experience.

PCMA Webinar

PCMA Webinar

On November 11 2015, I attended a PCMA webinar entitled "Predictions for the Events Industry in 20 years." The webinar was free - you just had to register. The webinar was given by Dan Berger, the CEO of Social Tables. It had a video component in that we could see Dan speaking from his office in DC as well as slides that Dan was changing to go along with his presentation.

The set up of the online webinar

Even though virtual meetings don't lend themselves to as much engagement as in person, there are ways to engage your audience and make them feel included. There was a box set up for chat between all of the participants and a separate box to submit questions only to Dan. He encouraged the attendees to write comments in the chat box to him and one another. There were also polls and around 80% of the attendees were participating in them.

Various polls throughout the webinar engaged the participants
and made them feel like participants rather than audience members.

A big advantage of having a meeting such as this online instead of in person is that people were able to listen in from all over. At the beginning, attendees wrote where they're from in the chat box, and there were people from DC, Boston, Virginia, Australia, Pennsylvania, and Vancouver, just to name a few.

Any time you are using technology, there is a possibility for technical glitches. Dan's video froze briefly toward the beginning of the webinar, but he typed in the chat box that he has an awesome tech, and sure enough within a minute the system was working again. Dan communicated to all of us that they were working on the problem, and they were able to fix it very quickly.

At the end of the webinar, Dan had a question and answer session as well as gave his contact information. Anyone who wanted to find out more about what he spoke about would have the opportunity to do so. After the webinar ended, the program immediately took you to a short survey about the webinar to get prompt feedback on the system and the presenter. The survey was easy to fill out. Participants are more likely to fill it out immediately because they are still thinking about the program rather than if it was emailed to them the next day when they would have to open a new web page and think about their experience again.

XX ANOC General Assembly

XX ANOC General Assembly
November 1, 2015

The Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) held its annual General Assembly at the Hilton in Washington DC from October 28-29 which attracted around 2000 delegates and guests. I volunteered for nine days in total before, during, and after the event. Each day was different, but before the event I spent time stuffing bags for the delegates and guests, setting up meeting rooms, making credentials, and getting a lot of paperwork ready. During the assembly itself, I was helping delegates find their seats and checking credentials. I was also able to listen to some of the presentations. After the assembly was over, I helped break down the main meeting room and sort out all 204 countries’ flags and name cards into their correct boxes and bags.

The Hilton transformed with signage like this all over the building. Everyone in the hotel knew
the event was happening. There were also signs and volunteers all over the place directing
delegates where to go as it can be a confusing hotel.

The General Assembly was very well run. ANOC and the USOC (United States Olympic Committee) worked together to pull off a successful conference. The volunteers were all assigned to different tasks, and there was always someone checking up on the volunteers to make sure they were still ok doing what they were doing and still had things to do. The USOC did not want to waste any volunteers’ time.

It was quite a process to make sure every delegate (close to 1100) had the correct
paperwork in the correct language as well as many giveaways in his
or her briefcase ready to give out, but we managed to get it done.

One challenge for an event such as this is that many delegates bring guests with them who then have nothing to do during the day long meetings. To ensure the guests also felt welcome, the USOC organized cultural visits to the monuments and local shopping malls that the guests (and delegates) could sign up for. The outings proved very popular and went a long way to make sure everyone coming to to conference felt welcomed and like they could really experience the US capital.

Delegates from 204 countries met to discuss the Olympic Movement

Overall, the event was a success and left ANOC with a positive impression of the USOC which will be helpful in future (and current!) U.S. bids to host the Olympic Games.

Open Mic Night at Politics & Prose Bookstore

Open Mic Night at Politics & Prose Bookstore

October 23, 2015

Performers shared their work with the audience and other artists

On Friday October 23rd, I attended an open mic night at Politics & Prose Bookstore in Washington D.C. It is a weekly event and was attended by roughly 25-30 people. The open mic night is held in the coffee shop portion of the bookstore, and there were performers of poetry, spoken word, and songs. The event started at 8pm, which is presumably a time when not as many people would usually buy coffee, so the event brings in customers to the shop. It is a relatively straightforward event to run. There was one man there taking the names of people who wanted to perform and calling them up when it was their turn. It was unclear whether he was a store employee or a regular volunteer. Other than that, the event attendees brought the entertainment. Everyone was able to do one song or poem, and then we went back to the start of the list for people who wanted to perform again. This ensured that everyone who wanted to was able to perform, and the well oiled system ran very smoothly. There was also a featured performer who performed three songs in a row in the middle of the event. 

Nothing says autumn in D.C. like listening to an open mic night
in an independent bookstore while drinking apple cider

The atmosphere was very relaxed and informal. All of the stakeholders, including performers, attendees, Politics & Prose, and the employees of the coffee shop, appeared to enjoy the event. I did not perform but enjoyed watching the performers perform something they were passionate about.