Staying Calm, Cool & Collected on Event Day
Always Expect the Unexpected
Early on in my career, I was hosting a fundraising walk for a thousand people in the middle of a baseball diamond. The evening before the walk, all the tents were set up and ready for the big day.
The next morning I show up at the site and every single one of my tents had been completely flattened and leveled through a windstorm that came though overnight. To make matters even worse, one of my volunteers brought their tent and it had been picked right up off the ground and dropped onto the roof of a nearby business!
It was that moment I had to be very critical with my response. I could immediately jump to panic mode, get upset and run around with stress and worry. Or I could stop, take a deep breath, assess the situation and realize there’s nothing I can do to change what has already happened.
Time for Plan B
This is exactly why having a Plan B in place for all of your fundraising events is so important.
There is no such thing as a perfect event. Ever. Something is always going to go wrong. So in the event planning world, we have something called a Risk Assessment Plan (aka Plan B). Gather your staff together, look at the big picture and say what could go wrong? What are the worst case scenarios? What if somebody gets hurt at my event?
I’ve had that happen. I’ve had people fall on the cement during a walk and need an ambulance. I’ve had somebody light a paper lantern on fire, and send it up in the air, just to watch it get caught in a nearby tree, burst into flames and catch the tree on fire. Things happen.
If things don’t go as expected, what are the worst things that can happen for the participant experience and what can we do to address those?
What if the keynote speaker doesn’t show up? What if none of our audio visual works? What if there’s a breakout in food issues and we can’t serve our meal?
Not looking at those scenarios and creating a Plan B ahead of time can be detrimental in those circumstances. Having secondary plans in place will ensure you’re mentally prepared and you can anticipate many scenarios that could go wrong.
Remember too, not everything that goes wrong is that big of a deal. Some things you can just adjust on the fly. However, creating a Risk Assessment Plan (or Plan B) for some of the things that could happen will help you not only have an amazing event, but it will provide your participants with an amazing experience - one in which they want to come back to next year, cheering you on.
The participants may realize what you were up against, and maybe not. But if they do, they will see that your committee, your staff and your leadership team handled it all by remaining calm. They will be cheering you on for the next year saying, “Wow, you went through something that was really difficult and handled it like it pro. I can’t wait to see what next year brings!”
With a Risk Assessment Plan in place your team will be ready for any challenge!
Take a moment to sit down, look at all of your upcoming events, and create a risk assessment. Doing this will make you a much happier, calmer person when you show up on event day and things don’t go quite as you expected.