Why Hiring an Event Planner is Important

Does hiring an event planner ensure the success of the event?

Event planners are the professionals who plan and execute large-scale events such as concerts, conventions, festivals, formal parties, ceremonies, conferences or conventions. This process of event creation and development through careful planning and coordination is referred as event planning or event management. Thus essay will deal with the question “does hiring an event planner to ensure the success of the event?” In my opinion, it is necessary to hire an event planner to make the event successful and memorable. These professionals apply their skills and logistics to manage all the aspects related to recreational, leisure, entertainment and recreational events according to the area of expertise. They efficiently deal with venue selection, vendor coordination, event marketing, budgeting, accommodation, transportation, floor management, creative design, and many others. Their experience and vast knowledge help in obtaining roaring success.

Some people feel that there is no need of hiring an event planner to make it successful (Wahab et al. 2014). Now the question arises that are they capable of delivering what they want to achieve from the event? No, it is not possible unless he or she possess all the managerial and coordinating skills that an event planner has. On the other hand, Event planners have creative flair and are very organized on their work with an eye for detail. “Professional event planners” are highly experienced in their respective areas (Hall et al. 2012). They have built strong and trusted relationships with the suppliers, vendors, and stakeholders required for a successful event. According to Silvers and Goldblatt (2012), those organizations and groups are successful who collaborate with others; map out all their stakeholders; monitor and measure their attitude and engagement; and maintain a good relationship with them. For example, planning a live music concert requires dealing with the promoters who books the bands and negotiates the performance contracts. It encompasses different responsibilities such as booking the venue, promoting the band or a gig through social media, radio or newspapers, sorting out the equipment backstage. They are well aware of the areas where cost can be reduced and wisely plan the budget. This saves the client’s money (Lee 2014). The same may not be the case when an ordinary person wants to manage such events themselves. They do not have similar collaborating skills. They may end up in a financial loss with over expenses due to the small network of trusted suppliers and vendors (Yeoman et al. 2012). Therefore, without hiring the event planner, it is difficult to serve the purpose of the event successfully. Event management requires experience and knowledge in addition to willingness (Silvers and Goldblatt 2012).

Experience and Knowledge

Without practicing event planning at a professional level, individual may fail in his or her effort. On the contrary, hiring event planners ensures success as because over time, they gain vast experience and knowledge regarding concerts and conferences (Getz 2012). They are updated with the latest trends, smart-budgeting strategies, hot colors, newest venues, lighting equipment, changing public choices about stage décor and designs. They strive to address all these elements (Lee 2014). They have the right attitude which ensures success. Right from the day of the event’s conception to putting it into practice, the planner performs all the activities related to the event in a logical and sequential manner. Professional event planners are smart in analyzing risk and secrets to mitigate them in a cool manner (Palmer 2013). People who are not experts in this field may have the same amount of knowledge but not equal experience. They will fail to find the right supplier for the event (Matthews 2015). They cannot deliver the tasks with the same perfection as the event planners. They face drastic situation being unprepared for risk management. Knowledge and information through books and the web however, does not give experience. Such people are not aware of the ethical, legal and financial issues that may arise during event planning and ways to tackle (Winkelmann et al. 2016). Consequently, the event will be unsuccessful as they fail to prevent the situation from going wrong. It is the experience that will help in attaining perfection. The success of an event also depends on planning and time management.

Non-professional event planners have an attitude of “it is not too hard to be a planner” and it is this casualness that brings failure (Preston 2012). They lack skills to complete, confirm and check all the tasks before the event is delivered and end up being unsuccessful. Time management becomes more difficult when a person is engaged in a full-time job along with personal commitments. Consequently, it multiplies the stress levels as they cannot dedicate themselves entirely towards the event planning (Getz 2012). On the other hand, a professional event manger is dedicated towards his or her work, as it is their job after all. They ensure on time delivery of event and within budget (Alexander et al. 2012). The event planners help their clients stay stress-free by taking all the responsibility on their shoulders. They skillfully lead the technical crew, by distributing them the event’s timeline. The planners allocate the respective tasks of the crewmembers, relay the necessary information and ensure that everyone strictly follows the given instructions. All that the client has to do is “sit back and enjoy the event” (Yeoman et al. 2012). Therefore, it is necessary to hire the event planner rather than managing ourselves. Marketing of event is successful only if event planners are hired.

Creative Flair and Organizational Skills

The householders or part-time workers do not have excellent marketing skills required in an event.  The success of the event depends on the category of the occasion and extent of its marketing (Preston 2012). For example, corporate events, product promotional events, sports or any other awareness related occasion do need marketing (Silvers and Goldblatt 2012). Also, these events have a different guest list. Hence, to ensure all the desired and famous guests turn up for the purpose, publicity is must (Wahab et al. 2014). It includes updating the social media, advertising through newspapers or radio, poster designing, and logo designing. Graphic designers are recruited for the task of assembling images and typography (Palmer 2013). An event planner is always prepared with relevant tools, knowledge, and large network to obtain a roaring success (Preston 2012). By hiring the event planner, clients meet the opportunity to do effective networking and remembered by the guests for a long term. It is the event planner who does all the heavy lifting, so that, the clients get the opportunity to establish a favorable impression in the eyes of their guest. Hence, they make the event successful (Hall et al. 2012).

Conclusively, hiring the event planner ensures the success of the event. The essay has presented several benefits that people receive by hiring professional event planners. It is evident from the discussion that the success of the event depends on the professional event managers. People who do not want to hire event planners, must consider the above-discussed factors, the pros, and cons, and possess similar attributes to manage to pull it off. However, it is not possible, as one must dedicate completely to achieve similar experience, knowledge, creative flair, organizational and leadership skills as that of the professional event planners. Therefore they cannot make the event successful. If I were to manage event I cannot perform task planning, time management, resource management and finance management so logically as professionals. It is no rocket science, and one can cultivate these skills only by complete devotion to their work and investing time. Professional planners, unlike the ordinary public, have vast experience gained over time, which they use to mitigate the potential, risks and can cope with the legal and financial issues tactfully. An event planner is always prepared with relevant tools, knowledge and large network to obtain a roaring success. In short, by hiring the event planners people can sit and enjoy the event knowing its success is inevitable.

References

Alexander, A.C., Kim, D.Y. and Groves, J., 2012, January. Individual and organizational characteristics are influencing event planners’ perceptions of information content and channel choice. In Journal of Convention & Event Tourism (Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 16-38). Taylor & Francis Group.

Chiu, Y.Y., 2014. A Study of Satisfaction Towards Event Marketing Audience Participation and Urban Identity-Examplified by the 2013 World Sports Dance Conference.

Getz, D., 2012. Event studies: Discourses and future directions. Event Management, 16(2), pp.171-187.

Hall, T.P., Harlow, U.K., Wolf, P. and Wolf, J., 2012. Event planning made easy: 7 simple steps to making your business or private event a huge success: from the industrys top event planners.

Lee, S.E., 2014. Successful event management: a practical handbook.Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, 6(3), pp.273-274.

Matthews, D., 2015. Special event production: The resources. Routledge.

Palmer, R., 2013. Successful Event Management: A Practical Handbook.Library Management.

Preston, C., 2012. Event marketing: how to successfully promote events, festivals, conventions, and expositions. Wiley.

Silvers, J.R. and Goldblatt, J., 2012. Professional event coordination (Vol. 62). John Wiley & Sons.

Wahab, S., Shahibi, M.S., Ali, J., Bakar, S.A. and Amrin, A.N.A., 2014. The Influence of Leaders Orientation on Event Management Success: Event Crews Perception. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 109, pp.497-501.

Winkelmann, S., Dickenson, P., Souchon, A.L., Lee, N. and Michaelidou, N., 2016. Event marketing and event sponsorship: can too much of a ‘good’thing harm the brand?.

Yeoman, I., Robertson, M., Ali-Knight, J., Drummond, S. and McMahon-Beattie, U. eds., 2012. Festival and events management. Routledge.