Episode 23: Keeping your cool on event day
Being nervous on event day is understandable. Your mind is filled with all kinds of scenarios of what could go wrong.
In this episode I share:
The three ways to minimize issues
The five areas where problems tend to arise
How to keep your cool on event day
For a full transcript, see below.
Listener Action Item:
Think through the five areas where problems tend to arise. Rate your comfort level for each area from 1 to 5. 1 means it’s an area you’re not fully confident and 5 means you think everything will go smoothly.
Focus on the 1s and 2s. Are there systems you can put into place now that will bump those up to a 4 or 5 comfort level? Do you have a Plan B for the 1s and 2s? If not, start creating those right now.
Links & resources
Ep. 21_Two ways to stay on track on event day
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Episode 23 Transcript
Welcome back to that sounds like a plan! The podcast where we talk about all things related to nonprofit events. I'm your host Alicia Baraga. For some, event day can be extremely stressful. There's always the potential for something to go wrong at any event.
Today I'm going to talk about how you can minimize your stress on event day through preparation, communication, and prevention. I'm gonna talk about the five main areas where I see the most potential for things to get messy and how to prevent some of those situations. I'll also walk you through how to keep your cool on event day.
I'll let you in on a little secret. I've been producing events for over 12 years and I still get nervous on event day. I wish I could tell you it goes away at some point, but so far it has not. Hopefully you find some comfort in that. Feeling nervous and anxious is normal.
With that said event day is my absolute favorite! You finally get to see all that hard work come together, seeing guests enjoying themselves and hopefully growing that community of supporters for a great nonprofit is so satisfying and joyful. I usually have a smile on my face from set up until tear down.
So while there's no way to keep from being nervous, there are ways to minimize or deal with the stress.
One of those ways is through preparation. In episode 21 of this podcast, Two ways to stay organized on event day, I talk you through two important planning documents that are imperative to an organized event. The show flow and the packing list. Sometimes it might feel like overkill to prepare such detailed documents, especially if you're planning a fairly small event, but there are two reasons you'll want to start creating these documents, no matter the size of your event.
Number one, unless you plan to keep your event small, the idea is that your event is gonna grow over time. You might be able to keep track of all the little details when you only have one small event, but if you add more events or this event grows, which hopefully it does, it's going to become harder to keep track of those details without a process. You want to get in the habit of creating these documents while your event is small, so that when it does grow, it's no big deal.
And number two, the process of creating the documents is almost as important as the documents themselves. In creating the Show Flow and the Packing List, it forces you to think through the flow of the day of your event and all of the physical items coming to the venue or wherever your event is held. So if you haven't listened to episode 21, I highly recommend that you go back and listen.
The second way to keep your cool on event day is through communication. Everyone who has a role in the event, whether it's a team member or a guest should know exactly what they're supposed to do on event day. Guests should receive an email two to three days prior to the event and possibly again on event day with information about what time registration or check-in opens, the name and address of the venue, where to park, suggested attire, a high level schedule of events and any other information they might need. The last thing you need is people coming up to you or emailing you or calling you on the day of the event saying, oh, what do I do? Where do I go? Communication is key.
Team members and volunteers should know what time they need to show, what their role is, suggested attire, where to park, where to check in, who's their point of contact, how long their shift is and who to turn to with questions.
Your show flow should give your vendors all the information they need. Just make sure that you have cell phone numbers for your main point of contact for each vendor so that if someone doesn't show up on event day, you know who to contact.
The third way to keep your cool on event day is through prevention. You've heard the saying, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. It's just a fancy way of saying that it's better to plan ahead in anticipation of, or in an attempt to avoid, problems then to have to deal with them after the fact.
In my experience, there are five main areas in any event that cause the most stress where an ounce of prevention is warranted. They are food and beverage, registration or check in, entertainment, AV (or audio, visual) and weather.
Let's start with food and beverage. The standard calculation for bar staff is one bartender for every 75 to a hundred guests.Now this is just a guideline. So whether or not, this is a Goldilock situation where it's too few, too many, or just right, is gonna depend on your audience. If your budget doesn't allow for extra bartenders, but you wanna ensure that your guests are taken care of, and you think that that calculation of one bartender for 75 to a hundred isn't gonna be enough, you may want to allow guests to purchase bottles of wine or pitchers or buckets of beer in advance and have them at their table when they arrive. Now, this is only gonna work for a 21+ event, at least here in the United States. If there are kids at the event, it might not save you any time because then your bar or wait staff are gonna have to check IDs of everyone at the table. And so that's gonna take away from their bartending. So it might not save you any time. But the point here is to take into consideration your audience and think through the best way to accommodate them reasonably. There are always lines at a bar. There's not much you can do about that. You just don't want them so long that your guests are extremely unhappy or that it pushes back some of the scheduling of your event.
You'll want to work out a process with your caterer or vendor for food as well. If they're seasoned event pros, they'll have some pretty solid procedures or suggestions for you. For sit down meals. I highly recommend having assigned tables. Now I know there are a lot of event hosts that are very reluctant to assign guests to a particular table. because they wanna let the guests choose their own seats. If you're serving food buffet style, the seating arrangement isn't as big of a deal, but for a plated meal, letting guests sit wherever they want puts a lot of stress on you and the catering staff to figure out who has what meal and where they're sitting.
It gets especially complicated when there are a number of guests with special dietary needs or restrictions. For a plated meal, where guests have a choice of entree, you'll need a system for letting the wait staff know which entree that guest has selected. You could put a colored dot on the guest name tag. You could hand your guest a place card to put by their water glass when they check in or simply hand them a colored strip of card stock to put over their plate.
Whatever process you come up with, just make sure it's easy for your registration or your check-in volunteers to do.You don't want it to bog down the check-in process.
Which brings me to the next area, which is registration and check-in, this is another place that can cause a lot of stress. Once again, a clear process or procedure goes a long way. You also need to have enough volunteers to handle the number of guests that have registered as well as any walk-ins if you allow that.
For certain types of events, allowing walk-up registrations, make sense. However, for gala-style events or any event where you have to have a head count to your caterer, I highly recommend having a cutoff date for registration. It's gonna make your life a whole lot easier on event day.
Most event day volunteer roles are fairly straightforward and anyone can step into those roles. But for event registration, you need a certain type of person. You need someone that is super friendly, that can keep calm if or when the lines start backing up, which hopefully they don't. You also need to make sure that your registration volunteers are trained well and can answer any questions guests might have.
The more faith that you have in your volunteers, the more you are gonna be able to keep your cool on event day. You should also have a volunteer lead that can answer any questions volunteers might have so that you can tend to other things. Like your program.
Entertainment is another area where things can potentially go awry. Until your MC, your speakers, or entertainment, whether that's a band or a DJ, a comedian, until they show up at the venue, it can be a little nerve wracking. These people should all know what time they need to arrive. Since you've already sent them the show flow as outlined in episode 21. And hopefully they have planned ahead for traffic weather or any possibilities that could make them late. But you never know. As I said, you should always have cell phone numbers for your key event players. Your MC speakers and entertainment are no exception.
You need to be able to get ahold of them if they're late. You should always have a plan B for any key roles on stage or for your event program. You just never know what can happen. I highly recommend having a script so that anyone can step in if necessary.
On next week's podcast episode I'm gonna talk about the many reasons why you need an event script, and this is just one of them. So stay tuned for that.
After all these years producing events, AV or audio visual is still the main cause of anxiety for me. For fundraising events, AV tends to have a more prominent role, especially when it comes to the program and the ask portion of the event. And therefore there's a lot more riding on AV going well.
It doesn't matter how experienced your AV crew is, make sure you do at least one rehearsal. I recommend several run throughs so that everyone is comfortable with the flow of the program. And, as I mentioned, in next week's episode, I'll talk about why you need a script. And AV is another reason.
Lastly, we're gonna talk about the weather. Ah, the weather. One of the biggest stress factors that is totally out of your control. It's especially stressful. If you're hosting an outdoor event. It is a gamble that every event host takes when planning an outdoor event, but we all go into planning, expecting perfect weather.
In fact, most often we're so busy planning the details that we don't even think about the possibility of weather being bad until it gets closer. The key to minimizing weather related stress is to have an inclement weather plan. A comprehensive inclement weather plan will account for all scenarios. It will have triggers for what happens under certain conditions or circumstances.
So for instance, here in Minnesota, where we get a lot of snow in the winter, schools have certain scenarios for when school is delayed or canceled such as when there is a certain amount of snowfall within an hour, or when the temps drop below a certain point. You should have a plan with these kinds of triggers in place for your event.
Now, obviously if you're in a Southern climate or, if your event is not in the winter, you don't have to factor snow into it, but you might need to worry about rain or tornadoes or extreme heat. Your plan should also outline who's responsible for making any weather related calls.
Sometimes your venue is gonna determine if and when an event is either delayed or canceled, sometimes it's up to you. You also need to determine what will happen if the event needs to be canceled. You should have your event cancellation policy, such as whether or not you'll issue refunds, on your event website long before the day of the event.
In fact, you should have that policy on your website before registration even goes live so that there's no gray area.
So what do you do when you've prepared, communicated, and attempted to prevent any and all potential snafus? What if, despite all your preparation, something still goes wrong? How do you keep your cool? The answer is A, B, C, D.
A stands for assess.
You wanna assess the situation. How urgent or critical is it? What is a worst case scenario? Can you wait a little bit and see if the situation resolves itself, such as your band or your DJ showing up when they're late? Or do you need to put your plan B into place or even come up with a new solution?
One thing you need to take into consideration is, will this situation that's happening seriously affect the outcome of your event? Some things may not go according to plan, but that doesn't mean they're going to have a major impact on the event overall. Only you and the planning team might know that something did or didn't happen.
B stands for breathe.
This should actually come before Assess, but A, B, C, D is easier to remember. So take a deep breath. As the event leader, you need to remain visibly calm. It doesn't serve anyone if you're freaking out. So just take a deep breath. If you have to step away to a quiet space, even if that's a bathroom stall, just to give yourself a little time to think.
C stands for counsel. As in seek wise counsel,
If it's not an emergency situation and you're not sure what to do, talk to someone or a couple of people that you trust to get their input. Gather ideas for options. The key here is getting opinions from the right people, people with relevant experience, expertise, or perspective. Having a couple of ideas or viewpoints from trusted advisors might help you determine how to move forward. Just don't get bogged down, seeking opinions as a form of procrastination.
And then lastly D is Decide.
Once you've weighed all your options, it's time to make a decision. No matter how many opinions you've received, it ultimately falls to you to make a decision. Leaders are often forced to make decisions quickly and the more comfortable you become with being able to make decisions quickly, the more you're gonna shine as an event leader.
There are so many things that are out of your control with an event it's nearly impossible to predict when or how something might not go according to plan. The key is preparation, communication and prevention, when possible. Thinking through all potential bottlenecks or areas where you could have glitches will go a long way.
The main areas where I see those issues is food and beverage, registration, entertainment, AV, and weather. Having a plan B for common scenarios is gonna help you rest a little easier.
Just remember some nerves or anxiety on event day is a good thing. A little anxiety means you are revving up and it's your body's way of helping you do your best. It keeps you motivated and excited. It's also what makes event day my favorite. I hope event day is your favorite too.
For today's listener action item. I want you to think through those five areas, we're the most glitches can happen. I want you to rate your comfort level for each area from one to five. One means that it's an area where you're not feeling very confident and five means you think it's gonna go pretty smoothly. After you've gone through all five areas and rated them one to five, focus on the ones and twos.
Are there systems that you can put into place now that's gonna bump those up to a four or five comfort level for you? Do you have a plan B for those ones and twos? If not, start creating those now.
Now that, sounds like a plan. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'll see you next week.