Confessions of an Event Planner: Case Studies From the Real World of Events--How to Handle the Unexpected and How to Be a Master of Discretion

by Judy Allen

  Flying—Two Levels of Service

  Q: Is it appropriate to have some members (participants) of the group flown in economy and others (company heads and senior executives) in first class on the same plane?

  A: There can be strategic reasons for having participants flown in both classes of service. For example, in an incentive program, first-class airfare is an added event element they all could qualify for and one that would be used to meet the company’s objectives. You have to be careful that it does not create a negative start to the trip, as it did with one company who upon arrival had the top winners picked up in limousines while the rest were told that they were to transfer to the resort in waiting motor coaches. All of the qualifiers were winners but that is not how they felt upon arrival. Another way of doing this, putting the same message across but more subtly, is to have the first-class qualifiers fly down a day ahead of the group with the company executives and have them relaxed and waiting to greet the arriving guests at the private check-in the next day. You create the desire to be one of the top winners having one-on-one time with senior executives, while positively recognizing all of the winners.

  For the same reasons, it is better if company heads and senior executives do not fly in a different class from their employees, and if they want to fly first class or business class fly at a different time, on a different airline or on a different day. Many companies, for legal and insurance reasons, do have travel restrictions in place so that only “x” number of company employees or executives can fly on the same aircraft. This way, if ever there is an accident, the future of the whole company will not be in jeopardy because of losing key employees at the same time. It is important to know this in advance of suggesting a destination for out-of-town events, as you need to look at flight availability and see what the financial impact will be, e.g., some participants may have to overnight on the outbound and return or arrive in the destination early or stay a day later in order to comply with company policy regarding the maximum number of staff per flight.

  Assignment

  Using Jamaica as a destination, look at flight possibilities from your city for a group of 100 participants that must arrive in the destination in time for them to clear immigration, get their luggage, transfer (take into account rush hour, etc., with time of arrival and travel time from Montego Bay to Ocho Rios), check in and take part in the welcome reception and dinner (aim to have them arrive by midday), and with a company directive of only 20 employees per flight (out of the 100 participants, 10 are senior executives who want to fly first class but not on the same flights as their employees and only 5 senior executives can be on the same plane at the same time). Then do the same on the return. These additional costs, which are event must-haves, need to be factored into the initial budget at the time the proposal is prepared so that there are no cost surprises at the end. And, you will find that air availability can rule out some destinations when you need to work within company travel restrictions. This applies whether or not the group is departing from one gateway city or from across the country.

  Family Events

  Q: What needs to be taken into consideration when doing events that involve children?

  A: Whether you’re holding a stand-alone event or a series of events that take place over the course of several days or a week, such as in the case of an incentive program, when you do a program that involves children, an added level of safety, security and other event considerations come into play. In this chapter the resort selected was chosen specifically because it catered to families. There are hotel properties and cruise ships that excel in this area and have wonderful custom children’s programs that can be created and run with expert help that will make sure that your event’s youngest guests are kept happy, healthy, safe and secure, while providing their family members, who may need to be attending meetings or adult-only functions such as an awards dinner, etc. with peace of mind while they are involved in their event activities. Disney and Sandals resorts have kid-friendly properties and advertise “familymoons” for couples with children or couples inviting children to attend their destination wedding and be a part of their honeymoon. Royal Caribbean cruise line has a wonderful children’s program for passengers traveling with children, as do many other hotels, resorts and cruise-line companies. When you are doing an event that involves children of all ages, it is important to select a destination and venue that has experience in the care, handling and special needs required to give the event planning company the extra care and specialized support needed when small children are involved.

  Family incentive programs can be very rewarding to the individual and to their company. An incentive program to Disney that allowed employees to bring their children on an all-expense incentive trip produced outstanding results, but so did an incentive program to Scotland for one company whose employees were predominantly of Scottish descent. Many of these employees had not had the financial opportunity to visit Scotland and their relatives still living there. The desire to qualify was strong in order to be able to bring their families to Scotland and have them take part in a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and enjoy time at leisure exploring family roots and meeting with relatives. A one-day event for families was held at a theme park by a pharmaceutical company holding a meeting to introduce their new product to doctors. While the doctors met and had breakfast followed by a meeting, their families enjoyed breakfast and a private show at one of the venue’s attractions. The doctors and their families were brought together for a private theme lunch and then they were free to explore the park on their own with unlimited ride and game passes. This event attracted record numbers, as did their follow-up theatre show event—tied to an enticing, in-demand children’s play—that the company had secured prime opening night seating for. The same can be done for a widely anticipated children’s movie premiere. For the parents, each event was designed as a wonderful balance of work and play, and to their children their parents were heroes who had created an incredible lifelong, lasting, magical memory.

  Assignment

  When designing an event with children involved, some areas of consideration that need to be addressed include:

  • Creating pleasing children’s food menus

  • Food allergies such as peanuts or anything containing peanut oil, and steps taken to make sure that each child with food allergies is carefully monitored

  • How children’s drop-off and pickup by parents will be monitored and enforced, from a safety and security standpoint, with respect to check-in and check-out and ensuring that each child leaves only with an authorized person and no one else

  • Signing of legal waivers for children’s activities both on and off property

  • Safety and security regarding bathroom duty

  • Infant and young child care requirements, e.g., changing of diapers, bottle feeding, naps, etc.

  • Security i.d., e.g., name tags, cannot be put on sweaters or other outer layers as an outer layer can be taken off, and you do not want strangers to be able to call a child by name if a children’s activity is taking part in an outdoors environment, such as a theme park

  • Emergency care for injuries

  • How to handle separation anxiety and children crying for their parents

  • How to run an adults’ and a children’s event successfully at the same time

  • How to run a combined adult and children’s event

  Address each of these above areas and how they could be handled effectively so that parents’ minds—as well as company executives’—will be at ease moving ahead with a family event, and design a children’s theme event in Jamaica that would be child friendly and include details of all of the above, e.g., location, menu, decor, entertainment, child-related safety, security and well-being inclusions.

  Master Accounts

  Q: What is a master account, what goes on a master account and how and when should it be reviewed?

  A: A master account is an account that is set up at the
hotel for the group. Only authorized items are posted to the account. These items are spelled out in the contract with the hotel and can include

  • All guestroom overnight charges (room, taxes and service charges and any other mandatory hotel charges that would apply) for both participants’ rooms and event planning staff rooms

  • Arrival and departure bellmen charges

  • Group room delivery charges for room gifts, invitations, etc. and all applicable taxes and service charges

  • All group meal room rental, food and beverage charges

  • All authorized meal charges (but detailed as to what, e.g., not alcoholic drinks, etc. for lunch or dinners on own but meals to $x, soft drinks, coffee, tea, etc.) for the guests at the hotel’s restaurant for any meals that are at leisure, as opposed to group functions where the company is picking up costs, e.g., breakfast for the group in one of the resort’s restaurants as opposed to having a private group breakfast.

  • All room charges, including incidentals (could be gift shop items, minibar charges, etc.) for specific company executives and key event planning staff (each to be named and listed in the hotel contract); incidental charges for all other guestrooms to be billed to the individual and paid for upon check-out (credit card imprint is taken at private check-in)

  • All charges signed for by specific company executives and key event planning staff (each to be named and listed in the hotel contract) for expenses such as business office charges, etc.

  You can check master account postings on-site each night—assign one event planning staff to this duty—to catch any mistakes or resolve any questionable items or unauthorized charges as they occur, instead of leaving the charges to when you are back in the office and have received final reconciliation billing from the hotel. On the night prior to departure, when hotel bills are prepared to present to guests for their incidental room charges, have the assigned event planner review those bills as well to catch any areas that may need to be moved to the master account in order to make check-out for the participants easy, fast and stress free.

  Assignment

  Discuss and prepare a list of items from this chapter that could potentially be posted to the master account.

  Q: How far should an event planner be required to go if she is asked by the client to be a party to deception or cover-up—such as in the case in this chapter of knowing that CompanyPres is having an affair with his executive assistant and being asked to do all possible not to let his wife and children find out that TheMistress had accompanied him to the resort several times and that the affair was ongoing while the event was taking place.

  A: Company, personal and professional policy needs to be established as to what will be done, where lines are to be drawn and what is business and what is none of your or your company’s business (and something you should not be a party to). In this example, the event planning staff initially had no concerns—but there should have been—when they knew that TheMistress was not scheduled to come on the trip. They had anticipated, without TheMistress being present, that any mention of a blonde accompanying the CompanyPres on previous site inspections could be brushed away as being an event planning staff member who fit the same description, but there still could have been slips of the tongue had any staff member recalled TheMistress’s name, and an advance warning not to mention past visits could have been issued whether TheMistress was attending the meeting or not.

  An event planner’s primary function is to design an event that brings his clients a return on their investment by meeting company internal and external objectives, both present and down the road, and to successfully execute the event and not be concerned about what is going on in the resort bedrooms on site inspections and during the event. Unfortunately, though, that is not always possible, and the repercussions could be huge. For example, if CompanyPres’s wife and children had seen what Dee Dee had seen—had she not intercepted them on their muffin run for CompanyPres to TheMistress’s room—their marriage, their family and the event would have been impacted by the fallout.

  On her own, Dee Dee made the decision to create a make-work project for CompanyPres Mrs. that would be seen as helping out with her husband’s event, and, by doing so, removed possible discovery. She was not asked to do so by the event planning company. Had the children not been present at the time and on the group, she may or may not have made the same decision, and only she would have known what she had chosen to do. It is important to know and to honor and respect your personal and professional standards and to know what your company’s are—and if you are being asked to do something that is not up to your standards, this may not be the company that you should be working for.

  The same applies with setting company standards. There are some event planning companies that would not work in the future with a client such as this if it meant that they needed to be a party to covering up the client’s indiscretions. Starr Productions did not find out what was going on until the contract had been signed and the site inspection had taken place. They thought that they had addressed the issue, and how they would play no part in what was being asked of them, when they talked to CompanyPres and had his assurance that TheMistress was not coming down on the actual program. Each event planning company sets its own boundaries. One event planning company even went so far as to hire their client’s mistress as an outside freelance trip director so that she could accompany the client on his business trips under the guise of working for the event planning company in order to keep his multimillion-dollar-a-year event company business.

  Assignment

  Discuss how the different encounters between CompanyPres Mrs. and TheMistress could have been handled differently, and other measures that could have been employed, e.g., having the hotel in a “sold out” capacity and TheMistress having to stay at another nearby hotel, etc.

  The Role of Company Executive Partners

  Q: What is the role of company executive partners at events and how do event planners work with them or around them?

  A: At any event, when it comes to assigning duties, it is always best to have professional event planning staff in charge. Some companies try to save dollars by using their employees or include employees that may not have been able to take part in an event otherwise to do certain jobs. but they are best doing work that pertains to their company and under their company’s direction, e.g., preparing and packaging meeting material, etc. The client needs to have a polished team of professionals running the event in order to achieve the results that they want. Company employees and company executives and their partners can be and will be pulled away from any assigned duties. It happens as a matter of course, and all of a sudden what needs to be done has no one to do it or manage it, and you cannot afford to have that happen.

  Company employees, company executives and their partners can do better for their company and help them meet company objectives by being free to mingle, mix and network, and bring any areas of concern to the attention of event planning staff to handle. One executive’s wife, known for her warmth and lively personality, brought a million-dollar account to her husband’s business by spending quality time with another company owner’s wife who was on their event. Had she been assigned to specific duties she would not have had the luxury of time to go shopping and to the spa with their new client’s wife and make her feel comfortable on her first incentive trip. She performed perfectly the role that was right for her and did it professionally, and was an asset to her husband’s business, allowing the event planning staff to do their jobs perfectly as well. Another company executive’s husband, a master of golf, was able to step in and be a desired golf partner to his wife’s clients who were on the trip.

  Assignment

  Going back through this chapter, look at areas where corporate executive partners could play various roles that would be a fit for them.

  Company Meetings

  Q: Is it appropriate to have event planning staff and their suppliers stationed in the room during
their client’s meeting or should the meeting be closed to only company employees?

  A: Having staff in a meeting room is essential so that they can oversee what is going on,judge the timing, adjust any event logistical matters that may be affected if a meeting is running fast or slow (such as the timing of lunch) and handle any technical glitches or emergencies that may occur—from audiovisual to room temperature to personal illness. Depending on what else is going on in the room, it may be necessary to have suppliers or fire marshals (if special effects are being used onstage) in the room as well. It’s important that walkie-talkies, cell phones. etc. carried by event planning staff are turned off or set to vibrate when the meeting is in progress and that a staff member is assigned to slip quietly into a room to get an individual if required.