So as I mentioned in my last post, a few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be able to attend the event that we at Momentum Forum Events had all been working very long days on, the Medaesthetics International Woman's Day Luncheon.
From what I'd seen, this event was going to be huge with over 300 attendees including the Honourable Julie Bishop, Dana Vulin and Australian bachelor Blake Garvey. We had spent weeks of long office hours to make this day more spectacular than ever before and that dream was about to become a reality. After spending so much time making sure that even the finest details were taken care of, one would expect that the day would be smooth sailing and that we could kick our feet up and watch the day unfold before our eyes. Well how wrong was I..
We were all told to meet at around 8:30-9am to start setting up as the event was set to start at 11:30am. Well 10am came and went and we were still unable to enter the venue as another event had run late. Finally we were let into the venue well after 10:30am only too be greeted with the chaos of about 40 staff trying to set up this event for over 300 new guests. Although well out of our job description for the day, we were told that the chair cover company was definitely unable to cover 300 chairs in less than an hour so we all had to hike up our skirts and give a hand while simultaneously making sure tables were set to perfection and taking last minute phone calls from guests and newspaper companies that were interested in attending.
The guests were finally allowed into the venue only half an hour later than planned. The rest of the day consisted of running around to make sure guests were seated and happy in their chosen seats, making sure that all hosts had everything that they required and finally being able to squeeze in a 10 minute break to eat some of the delicious food.
I definitely learned that there is no such thing as being too prepared. No matter how many times you have gone over the details and no matter how many back up plans you have, you can't always control every situation, especially those that are beyond your control. Being able to think on your toes and take initiative during a crisis is a very useful skill to have as you don't even need to be working in a crisis management role to experience a crisis that may be detrimental to an event or organisation.
In the end, the event however was more spectacular than I could ever have imagined . The entire day was covered by all major media outlets with television stations flying in from other states to attend on the day. What made it even more spectacular was that the entire day was hosted to raise money for the Momentum for Australia charity as well as to raise awareness for the "Kiss Violence Against Women Goodbye" campaign.
I would like to leave you all with a short video showing the highlights of the incredible day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPt2qhOaxeU&feature=youtu.be&noredirect=1
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