You are the event manager for large company in the entertainment business. You have been asked by the managing director to write a briefing paper for a group of interns who have been recruited to help arrange a large festival. You were asked to explain the importance of planning and administering an event of this topic from the media or their own business practice but have no formal knowledge about it.
Your briefing paper needs to concentrate on the topic above, explaining the rationale for managing the event.
Your briefing paper must deal with.
Why an action plan is necessary for any event.
Techniques that can be used to monitor progress
The importance of monitoring and evaluating each stage of the planning cycle
The role of event manager when building and leading a team
The importance of incorporate lead time into the schedule.
INTRODUCTION
Events are growing with the passage of time which are using for many purposes like promotion of business, culture, sports, tourism, political and charity. Events are very important part of society because event shows their culture and tradition. So event manager should be very careful regarding what he is presenting.
As event manager I have to organize musical event for large company in entertainment business. Managing director asked me to help a group of interns in organizing the musical festival and explain them complexities and difficulties in planning, implementing and arranging of different stages of musical event. Show event manager’s different qualities and characteristic to interns which will help them in future life as event manager like leadership, planner, problem solver and team work etc.
Define event manager
Event manager is person who plan and execute event. Event manger is creative, good leader and team builder.
The successful completion of an event depends upon the knowledge and skills possessed by the event manager in handling the event. The ability of the event manager to perform the entire task in a most appropriate manner would lead to the success of the event. However, the task of a event manager is not an easy one. It comprises of lots of complexities and difficulties, which need to be handle with great care.
Why an action plan is necessary for any event?
Action plan is very important and necessary for any event success. Without action plan nobody knows where he is going, how to achieve the goal, what to do, when to do and how to do it. For event manager action plan is first and most important step to begin. I am event manager of large company in entertainment business. I have given the task to arrange large music festival and for that first I am making action plan which is given below.
Music festival
Budge
Booking of venue
Booking of music bands
Interior designing
Health and safety
Catering
Security
Ticket price
Promotion
Music festival
Music festival will be family festival. There will be no age restriction because music is for everyone and everyone has right to enjoy. Also if anyone wants to come and we put age restriction he will feel ignorant, his thinking about us will be change in wrong way, he will never listen our company music again so we have to very care regarding all this things. We have to spared love and peace through music because music is for everyone.
Budget
First we should know about how much budget we have to make all arrangements. We should set the budget for everything separately like venue booking, catering and booking of band, security and promotion. So we all know how much we have to arrange all these things within budget.
Booking of venue
As we plan an indoor music festival because of cold weather in December in Birmingham so we decides to book symphony hall Birmingham. It has its own parking . symphony hall exists in city centre of Birmingham. Hall is walking distance to railway station, coach station, taxis rank and about half hour drive from airport . so it is perfect venue for music festival.
Booking of music bands
After booking of venue we know date which is 29 December so we have to book music bands which are available on 29 December and also within our price range.
Interior designing
As now we know there is capacity of 2200 people are going to gather for music festival so we have make sitting arrangement and also decorate its interior with some extra colourful lights on stage as well as on audience to make it more batter for enjoyment.
Health and safety
Health and safety is very important we have carefully check heating system as well as fresh air to maintain the level of oxygen. We have to arrange ambulance and first aider in any case emergency he should be always there during the music festival. We also have to check fire alarm smoke detectors are in proper working condition.
Catering
We have to order for catering for 2200 people like sandwich, burger, drinks and snacks etc. make a separate corner for this whomever feels hungry take food at any time in interval as well as during the music festival.
Disable audience
In our venue there are about fifty seats for disable persons. We are going to make special arrangement for them so they also enjoy music festival with other people because they also have right to live and enjoy.
Security
Security is very important for event. Security play vital role in success of the musical event and without security we can’t handle the crowd and run the event smoothly.
For security we need about two three security guards for checking the tickets. More security guards are around the stage for the music band safety and some security guards around the end of sitting area for keep eyes on crowd.
Close circuit cameras are also used for security purpose which are very helpful for security.
Ticket price
After calculating all the expenses we have to decide ticket price as we know the how many tickets we have to sell. Set ticket price which makes us profit as well as in audience range.
Promotion
After doing all hard work we have to promote the event which is most important for its success. We have to do advertisement in news paper, television, internet, school, colleges, universities and public places.
Techniques that used to monitor progress
Monitoring is defined as to keep track of implementation process.
There are different techniques which can be used to monitor progress like reporting, meeting, communication, feedback, graphic presentation and project schedule chart.
Reporting
Reporting is very useful technique to monitor progress like booking for venue if two or three persons are going venue checking in different location. After checking the venue all of them make report about their venue details and price for and the venue availability send report back to manager so reports will helpful for manager to make decision.
Meeting
The next technique for monitoring progress is regular meeting during preparation of music event. In these meeting everything is going to discuss for progress like in which part we are going right pace on right track and on other hand in which part we are lagging behind. In one way or other we have check everything and rebadged if needed.
Graphic presentation
The next technique for monitoring progress is graphic presentation. In graphic presentation two things are compared like time and work progress. This show a line is drawn from start which goes on with the passage of time and work, which shows how we are progressing in event.
Communication
Communication is next technique which is very helpful for monitoring progress. Communication can be done in lots of ways like mobile phone, internet, meeting, feedback etc.
If we are using mobile phone for monitoring progress we are going to ring that person and asked how much work he has done and how much left and also how long it going end so in this way we know work progress in minutes.
Project schedule chart
Project schedule chart is given below. Chart involves different stages of event management.
http://www. kudosmatrix. co. uk/Images/chart. gif
The importance of monitoring and evaluating each stage of the planning cycle
For event manager monitoring and evaluating each stage is very important. Event manager should always keep monitoring and evaluating the planning cycle that’s how event manager comes to know where we are leading and where we are lagging behind. Where we are spending the money and how much money we are spending. Is money within the budget for that or we are spending more than our budget.
For booking of venue is it booked within our set budget or it takes more money for booking of venue if so that will going to affect other areas of planning cycle. Same thing for booking of musical bands so we have to keep monitoring for making sure it remain within the range of set budget.
We have to monitor and evaluate security system is it working, is it in proper order if not we have fix this up within time and keep checking.
The role of event manager when building and leading a team
Event manager should be good leader and should know how to make a good team and how to work with team and lead them to success.
Characteristic of good manager as leader are given below.
Manger focuses on
Goals and objective
Telling how and when to do
Shorter range planning
Organized and structure in working
Manager is autocratic in decision making
Restraining
Maintaining
Conforming
Imitating
Administrating
Directing and controlling
Procedures
Consistency
Risk avoidance
Bottom line is that good manager is doing the right things.
Event manager as a leader should be good in communication so there is no gap between him and employees. If manager is not good in communication so there is lots of confusion between employees that will surely affect his work progress and quality as well.
Event manager should also be good in prioritizing the work. Event manager should make to do list so that important work should be done in time and so that less important work should not take more time, in this way both time and cost can be saved.
The importance of incorporating lead time into the schedule.
The lead time is very important in schedule as well as in planning. Lead time means that time limit for doing things. If we are going to plan musical event in 28 December so that’s mean we have about eight weeks in our hands. For booking of venue the lead time is one week so we have to arrange venue within one week to proceed ahead. Then we have seven weeks left after booking of venue. In these seven weeks we have to book music bands, catering and security also we have to promote the music festival event and also make preparation for it.
We have to book music bands in second week and also make other preparation in this week. So now we have left six weeks. We have to do all preparation and setting in next two weeks time. We have to very careful with time because we are going to promote the event for about minimum three weeks for the success of the music festival.
Conclusions
Music festivals and other events are very important in to now day’s busy stressful life. Music festivals should be arrange in regular intervals which will very helpful to slightly divert mind from work and will fresh up the mind. Music festivals also bring people close to each other because in todays busy nobody has time for other so it provides opportunity to meet other people.
I recommended music festival to the people for enjoyment and to know about the custom and traditions of the socity.