Viper Marketing & Communications Group

Event Management = Interrupted Sleep

Author: Neil Wilkins

Neil learnt his marketing with the likes of Orange, NatWest, BP Castrol and Ordnance Survey and now helps individuals and businesses to communicate more effectively. He trains and mentors marketers on professional Chartered Institute of Marketing qualifications through to post-graduate level.

CLIC24 is my annual devotion to an attention to detail that I can normally avoid in my every day life.

From the combined power requirements of fridges, site lighting, shower blocks and kettles to the meeting and greeting times for musicians playing on the stage in the main marquee they say the devil is in the detail. So I guess the reason that despite endless checklists and contact numbers for experts to help me out of every eventuality there's always that little nagging feeling that something has been forgotten or over looked.

With literally thousands of people having attended CLIC24 over the years and each and every one who takes a weekend out of their life to be part of the event it's vital that everybody has the best possible experience. This is what keeps driving an event organiser. That feeling that something might go wrong, so you plan contingencies in case it does, that the weather might not be good, so you create a wet weather plan, and of course that someone might have a bad accident and sue.

If anyone tells you that event management is glamourous then they are teasing you. It quite simply is not. The very best time in event management is when you shut the gate on the event site and everybody survived, you minimised complaints, you still have just enough energy for the litter pick to keep the farmer happy, oh and nobody sued.

So why do we do it? What's our motivation? Well smiling faces and compliments help and maybe it is something of an ego thing, to prove to ourselves we can actually hold it all together despite inclement weather, conspiracy theories and of course the fact that someone might sue.

But most of all it's that for us charity event organisers that we have found a way of bonding people and inspiring them to take time out of their busy lives to pause for a moment and think of others less fortunate and in the case of CLIC24 children with cancer and leukaemia. At the end of the day that's why we do it.

But I guess what keeps us awake at night is the thought that despite all that someone still might sue.

- Posted on Tuesday 27 Apr 2010 at 23:26 by Neil Wilkins

Tags: clic24 (15), event management (2), mountain biking (16)