Introduction to Event Management

Events management has become an imperative and essential field to understand due to the increasing occurrence of events that need professional planning. Substantially, events planning has logical procedures that need to be followed in order to have effective event. this explains the purpose of paper. Before taking any step in organizing any event, it is important for an individual or a group of organizers (event organizers) to fully acquaint themselves will all the event management phases. This will help them in ensuring proper planning with no/ minimal mistakes. However, it is also important to note that there is no one universally unified way in which an evet is to follow (Andersen et al. 2015, p.261).

• The phases of an event

In reference to most research studies conducted, it can substantially be concluded that there are three main steps to follow during an event organization. These events phases include;

• Pre-event phase
• Event phase
• Post event phase

Nonetheless, there are other many phases cited by different event manager but it was noted that the main three phases were further broken down into sub-phases. For the all-night music event, we will be deploying a four phased organization as visually indicated below (Capriello et al. 2018, p.4).

This is step that engages all the activities directed towards organizing the event. There are considerable many sub phases involved during the event preparation and must be closely followed with careful take.

Event planning

The very first step toward events organization is the initial planning of the event which involves formulation of the event aims, goals and objectives (Brunetti and Demetz 2016, p.136). It is the goals and objectives of an event that guides all the activities and processes involved. These include but not limited to the following;

Venue selection; after setting the goals and objectives of an event, the next step is to cite the location of the event. The location of the event is predominantly determined by many factors which include the expected number of guests/ people to attend the event, the accessibility in terms of transportation, the safety and security concerns, and the cost of hiring the place among others (Andersen et al. 2015, p.261).

Council approval; after reaching a decision of where to conduct the event, it is imperative to seek the approval of the local authorities. This requires the organizing team to convince the local authorities on the assesed event impacts and how the impacts will be handled for the negative effects (Blackman et al. 2017, p.250).

Logical Steps in Event Organization

Consultation with stakeholders and sponsors; after approval from the council, the team has to conduct an extensive stakeholder consultation to determine how the event will affect different stakeholders, both internal and external (Huang et al. 2015, p.274). The internal stakeholders will have specific roles and responsibilities assigned to them according to their interests and objectives of being involved in the team.

On the other hand, the external stakeholders, particular the community is the most substantial to consider as the occurrence of the event is primary anchored on them. They may decide to accept or reject. Additionally, they usually form the biggest number in the event attendance.

Law and regulation; even if the local authorities consent with the event occurrence, it is important to ensure that the event is in line with the established rules and regulations. This calls for the observation of ethical issues (Querol et al. 2016, p.8)

This step is a continuation and contains more details required for the preparation of the event. This step involves the evaluation of the following;

Health and safety; during the event organization, the team will ensure the health and safety of all the stakeholders including the organizing team, guests an all the well-wisher will be considered. This may be done through the engagement of an insurance company. The development and formulation of all responses must be identified including emergency response strategies (Preuss and Schnitzer 2015, p.72)

Risk assessment; during the organization, it is important that the organizing committee asses all the possible shortcoming of the event. This also relates to the to the safety precautions.

Resource allocation. it is during the development phase that the selected team of organizers decide on the ways in which the available resources will be allocated based on the available resources (Boza et al. 2015, p.109)

Engages all activities carried out during the event execution. This involves the ushering services, delivery of all the requirements to the guests. In addition, this phase encompasses monitoring of the event by safety and security team to help in reducing the occurrence of unethical behaviours and acts (Bouchon et al. 2017, p. 17)

After the event has ended, the team will hold stakeholder meetings at different levels to critically analyse, evaluate and examine how the event was conducted. This will be aiming at identifying the loopholes of the event organization. Resource usage including liabilities and extra resources are assessed at this level (Andersen et al. 2015, p.261).

• The importance of events safety management plan

Phase 1: Planning

Based on all research reports, the success of any event project is solely dependent on the effectiveness of the planning team more especially the safety and risk management team.in reference to such an insight, the all-night music event organizers will base on typically three sole reasons for having the safety management plan (Pearcy et al. 2014, p. 349)

The safety management plan helps in drawing an advanced strategy and proposal of how safety related issues will be handled basing on the critical analysis and forecast of the future. With the help of safety management plan, the all-night event will benefit in the following ways

• Reduction in the costs that would be associated with incidents accidents
• Building more confidence in the stakeholders, sponsors and expected guests
• Also, increases awareness regarding the legal reequipments in relation to the event organization and thus reducing the possible barriers
• Helps in improving the reputation and image of the events brand which promotes it for other upcoming events
• It also increases association and interest of other event sponsors for the organization

• The importance event safety team meetings and the types of plans that come from such meetings

Team meetings are one of the tools for achieving a success in a project like events management. The all-night music event will benefit from engaging in frequent safety team meetings in the following ways;

Through meetings, the improvement of awareness concerning the goals and objectives of the all-night event can be enforced

It will also help in developing more strategies for conflict resolution within the event organizers. These normally arise as a result of conflicting interests and poor communication. It is an implication that effective communication will also be attained (Mahadevan 2018, p. 161)

It is yet another opportunity for the all-night music organizers to provide performance feedback based on the past recommendations and thus further new ideas can be developed.

• The provisions for the guests to cover their needs

as the event commences, there will be need to provide all the needs for the guests. The organizing team of the event (Andersen et al. 2015, p.261) will embark in ensuring the following are put in place

• temporary structures will be erected including where the performers and guests will sit/ stand. In additional, a temporary fence will be erected to ensure the safety of the event participants
• provision of toilets and easing places for the event guests
• provision of snacks by the all-night event ushers
• Stakeholder dialogue- particular the local community

As noted earlier, the stakeholders are the core determinants of the occurrence and success of an event. This will require the all-night event manager to conduct a meeting with the community members regarding the aims, goals and objectives of the event. This meeting should be highlighting the advantages of holding the event in the identified locality as a way of seeking consent of the community members. Additionally, the anticipated effects/ impact of holding the event will be highlighted and possible remedies cited. For example, how those who will affected by the event will be compensated (Day et al. 2017) 

• Choice of the location and theme of the event

The choice of the location is dependent on a series of factors which include but not limited to the following

• The cost of the location (however, the organizer owns the site and thus will not be costly)
• The accessibility from main locations such as markets, main roads, railway routes, and conference centres
• The safety and security records of the pace, the place should free from security threat

International example

In recent days there has been continuous and persistent growth of events management including at that international level. An example of an international upcoming event is https://www.eci2018.org/ 

Phase 2: Development

Conclusion

In summary, it is typically important for events managers to fully acquaint themselves with necessary of events management in order to effective execution of the respective events held. This includes all the logical steps as well as safety precautions. With the necessary tools and skills, one is able to effectively and efficiently execute all the necessary steps in events management. It is also important to note that stakeholders are the core determinants of a project success and must be effectively coordinated. This encompasses effective communication and good conflict management among the involved stakeholders.

References

Andersen, S.S., Hanstad, D.V. and Plejdrup-Skillestad, K., 2015. The Role of Test Events in Major Sporting Events. Event Management, 19(2), pp.261-273.

Blackman, D., Benson, A.M. and Dickson, T.J., 2017. Enabling event volunteer legacies: A knowledge management perspective. Event Management, 21(3), pp.233-250.

Bouchon, F., Hussain, K. and Konar, R., 2017. EVENT MANAGEMENT EDUCATION AND EVENT INDUSTRY: A CASE OF MALAYSIA. MOJEM: Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Management, 3(1), pp.1-17.

Boza, A., Alemany, M.M.E., Cuenca, L. and Ortiz, A., 2015. Event Management for Sensing Enterprises with Decision Support Systems. Annals of Data Science, 2(1), pp.103-109.

Brunetti, F. and Demetz, S., 2016. Behavioural event management: a proposal of application of the behavioural perspective to the planning and organization of cultural events. Il Capitale Cultural: Studies on the Value of Cultural Heritage, (13), pp.341-362.

Capriello, A., Altinay, L. and Monti, A., 2018. Exploring resource procurement for community-based event organization in social enterprises: evidence from Piedmont, Italy. Current Issues in Tourism, pp.1-4.

Day, C., Van Niekerk, M. and Okumus, F., 2017. The Importance of Strategic Communication During Change Management at Palm College of Hospitality and Event Management.

Huang, H., Chew, W.C.E. and Koh, K.T., 2015. Perceived Importance and Extent of Implementation of Volunteer Management Practices: Comparison between National Sports Associations and Event Management Companies. In Emerging Trends and Innovation in Sports Marketing and Management in Asia (pp. 258-274). IGI Global.

Mahadevan, R., 2018. Profiling Volunteers at a Regional Folk Festival in Australia: Who Are They and Do They Value the Festival Differently From Visitors?. Event Management, 22(2), pp.153-161.

Pearcy, D.P., Heinrich, J.A., Gaskins, J.J. and Phillips, C.A., McAfee LLC, 2014. Integrating security policy and event management. U.S. Patent 8,839,349.

Preuss, H. and Schnitzer, M., 2015. Organization costs for a FIFA World Cup and their significance during a bid. Event Management, 19(1), pp.57-72.

Querol, E., Romero, J.A., Serrano, J. and Sanchis, R., 2016, June. Evaluation of closed loop control applications using different event management strategies under IEC 61499. In Event-based Control, Communication, and Signal Processing (EBCCSP), 2016 Second International Conference on (pp. 1-8). IEEE.