Bad situations will crop up in your event no matter how well prepared you are. You however can prevent the bad to becoming worse and control the damage by keeping calm and composure. Even the best of plans go awry and last minute hitches are something events just can’t escape. When you’re into event organizations, the best you can do is be prepared for such odd situations and have the plan B ready should things start to fall apart. After all, clients will trust you to see them through the sticky situations and gain value out of their event.
Here are some of ways in which event organizations can respond in the bad situation –
1. Handle the last minute venue change with a calm head
The venue you have booked for the event may face issues and this can force you to look other option for the show to go on. In such situations, you don’t need to lose the calm and rather work with composure and start looking for an alternative. Since the venue you had booked is no longer available, you can always go ahead and look for other places and then you can send email to your registered attendees informing them about this sudden change.
2. Keep the attendees informed about transport disruption
You have all planned out but it’s the last minute hitch with the transport that comes in the way and put things awry. With the transport system not available, it will naturally interrupt your event plans with all your vendors, suppliers, guests and other bookings not being able to make it to the venue. In such cases, your focus should be on waiting for the problem to ease out, keep the attendees in loop about everything and if possible, keep the things a bit delayed in the hope of normalization.
3. Monitor your ticket sale to avoid the no-show from guests
The one thing that terries event planners the most is definitely a no-show which means there is a real chance that no one turn up for your event. Despite spending on everything, you might see nobody and lack of marketing could be the reason behind that. That’s why most events try to have tickets or plan big freebies to avoid such awkward situations. And when you have tickets, make sure you track their sales in real time to get hang of where things are moving on the ground.
4. Move to a bigger venue if more people show up
What if more people turned up to your event, way more than you might have anticipated? Well, that could be unsettle all your planning even if this shows that the event has become more popular than you have thought. With more people there, you will definitely have challenges on the arrangement front and this can make you worried. Well, if you have idea of a bigger turnaround through ticket sales and registration you can always plan to move to a bigger venue to handle the situation in a better manner.
5. Have a refund policy in place if a VIP speaker drops out
A big-ticket VIP speaker pulling out of the event is something that happens regularly. You just have to be prepared for that with a ready alternative else the guests might not take this cordially and some event might request a refund. And if the speaker happens to the key attraction of the event, you are then in for bigger disappointments from guests. In such cases, you should inform the guests about the same and if possible, should also come with a refund policy to soothe them a bit.
6. Do rehearsals to avoid technical snags and faults
Technical snags are so common to events and they keep popping up with alarming regularity. Whether it’s the lighting that goes off and on intermittently or the AV/laptop that won’t work, such things are beyond the control and can make the event look badly planned and organized. To avoid such issues, make sure you have done the last minute rehearsal and have done venue walk-throughs to get hang of the tech preparation. When you have spare parts by your side you can always face such issues with confidence.
7. Keep extra staff ready if some volunteers don’t show up
You have all planned out hoping to see things go out smoothly and then half of your volunteers don’t turn up. Well, if you’re a top event agency such issues are not hard to face and you can always have some staff ready to manage problems where volunteers don’t turn up. But yes, you need to know the exact number of people who will grace the occasion else the lack of manpower can seriously hamper your preparations and might ruin the experience for guests as well.
