What do screwdriver, white sticker, dust cloth and hiking shoes have in common with the event organisation?

You must think it is a joke and may be unsure if reading this text makes any sense. Try to bear with me, and let's return to the beginning and how this story started.

Nine years ago, I started taking care of the roadshows in addition to my other tasks in the marketing team. I was not exceptionally skilled in this, but organising and planning were always of interest to me, and I was pushing the limits of what I could do. It was a learning curve that taught me much about what it means to be flexible, think outside the box, and quickly implement, change, and adapt, but also how things can easily break.

Year one was challenging, and I often had to convince myself that things would get easier with only a few more events. Creating the roadshow concept from scratch, learning a new language, becoming a commissioning engineer, using software and programs I had no idea existed, taking on all marketing tasks connected to the event organisation, budgeting events and tracking costs, briefing the countries and aligning on needs and restrictions, becoming temporary export/import specialist, content creator, ambassador and promotor of the roadshow, booth builder, waste and storage manager, legal and contract specialist. In a nutshell, doing everything you never thought you would be doing. The only thing that was not on my list was being a driver. Was it worth it? In short, yes. Would I go through all of that again? Yes.

With year two and around 20+ events later, the project started to fall into its own routine. I needed a new challenge. I am not talking about the complete concept change but rather about spin-offs. We began to use parts of the setup to support smaller events around Europe. And the driver task was suddenly on the to-do list for me. Could I have done all of this alone? The answer is also evident here, no. Luckily, I have a group of skilled individuals following this project who advise and do operational work with me. However, as a project manager, you hold the entire responsibility, and I also prefer to be active on an operational level. If you understand all the risks, threats and tasks, you can organise a good event with limited space for errors and predict things before they happen.

Year after year, the concept grew, slightly changing its shape. We learned to optimise but struggled with each more significant change until it fell into place. And this, this is what brings all the fun.

I will now fast forward a few years to more recent history. This particular project, "Light(s) on tour", has been touring around Europe, with few jumps to the APAC and MEIA regions for nine years. We have more than 120 events in over 80 cities with 8000 visitors. For some of you, this is not much, but for us, it shows eight years of dedication and growth of a project that started as a one-year marketing activity but was recognised by the regions and became our trade mark. In 2021, it was time to hand over the project to a new project manager from my team. A sad moment for me, but I trust my team fully in taking over and enjoy looking at it developing further. But, as much as I try to stay out of it and only be involved in strategic decisions and budgeting, I enjoy occasionally getting my hands dirty.

Now, the answer to the question from the title is about to come. If you are still reading, consider this section a collection of best practices for event organisation. All the above things help you save the day when things do not work out as planned when it matters the most: the day of the actual event. The stress level at this point is high, and tension is palpable among the complete event team. How do I cope with that?

You will find me among the packaging boxes and pallets together with my team, grabbing the tools lying around and helping the booth builders advance more quickly. Do not underestimate the importance of a single screwdriver in event planning—it opens boxes, fixes things, connects the structures, and points the direction when asked about the following tasks or locations of the materials. I am pretty sure there are a dozen more things where the screwdriver can help you, but it is somewhat difficult to remember them at this point.

Behind the scene

A set of white stickers became my standard equipment. Why, you might ask? Try to answer this question for yourself. And let's see if you got it right. White stickers are a universal help to correct things. You wrote the name wrong --> white sticker, new name, problem solved. Somehow, the luminaire broke. Don't panic; things will break, that is for sure. You must quickly see if you can survive without them in the setup. In this case, yes. We now have more holes in the ceiling than needed --> white sticker; the hole is gone. The wooden panel is chipped on the edge --> white sticker looks better. You need to mark things for storage, and you will not be able to write stuff on all the boxes --> white stickers; now everyone knows what it is and how to treat it.

We are almost there; the event will start in less than an hour. It is beautification time, and dust cloth is your partner in crime. Your visitors cannot enter, and the first thing they see in your setup is dust. So, you take the cloth and diligently clean every part of the setup. If removing some stains is difficult, some water or cleaning agents will not harm your dust cloth, so feel free to test its limits. At this point, you ask yourself, could others not do this? Of course, they could, but as the project lead, you are probably the only person with that attention to detail. Because you know the setup inside out and care about the final look and feel.

The last point is the hiking shoes. They are a symbol for working clothes in this case. Whatever you do, bring a spare set of clothes and shoes. Setting up a venue can get dirty, and as an event project manager, you want to see this build-up phase through to the end. From experience, most people will come an hour before the event and try to help, but they see that it is tricky, you know, with the event attire and so on, and find something less dirty to do. And you will continue with your tasks until the last moment when customers start entering. That is your cue to finish. You can breathe. There is nothing more that can be done. The event has begun.

© Zumtobel Group

Eventually, you change your clothes and join the rest of the crew. Your new role is starting: being a great host. The only memory of the preparation phase of the event will be the team picture, in which you are the only one in hiking shoes. Enjoy the moment and smile; the next event is just around the corner.

© Zumtobel Group

I owe you one more thing for sticking with me until this point in the text. Have I had a meltdown in the last eight years? Full transparency—yes, just over a year ago, when I cried in the middle of the countryside at one o'clock in the morning, not being sure if our setup would magically fit into the transporters and appear in one piece in another location 600 km away the same day until 15:00. Who made things better? My team. In the end, it is all about teamwork. You can't do the event on your own. And behind us are, as important as the core team, our regions and local teams!

It's time to finish this article because, as you can probably guess, the next event is just around the corner. I need to pack some things and move to another country. Maybe we'll be close to you soon.

p.s. thanks to the brands and Zumtobel Group that believe in this project and enable us to do what we love the most - talk about all things light!