The first fifteen minutes with an event planner (an honest version)

People ask what it is like to work with me, so here is the honest version of the first fifteen minutes.

I ask about the event you are dreaming of, and then I ask about the one you are afraid of. The second answer tells me everything. It is usually about the room block, or a speaker, or the year something went wrong and nobody fixed it.

The event you're afraid of

That second question does most of the work. People describe their dream event in generalities, but they describe their feared event in specifics. The keynote who canceled. The hotel that oversold. The year the AV failed in front of 300 people.

I listen for the specifics, because the specifics tell me where the scar tissue is. And I plan around scar tissue. Whatever went wrong before is the thing we will make sure cannot go wrong again.

Who your attendees are

Then I ask who your attendees are when they are not attendees. Are they executives who need quiet? Teams that need to bond? People flying in tired who need the first hour to feel easy? The event serves them, not the agenda.

This question changes the shape of everything. An event for executives who need quiet looks nothing like an event for a team that needs to bond, even if the agenda items are identical. The attendee is the brief. Everything else follows.

Three things most likely to go wrong

By minute fifteen, I can usually tell you the three things most likely to go wrong and what I would do about each one. Because I have seen them go wrong before, and I would rather you hear the plan now than the apology later.

If that conversation sounds like relief, we should talk. If it sounds like overkill, I am probably not your planner, and I will tell you that kindly in the same fifteen minutes.