Tuesday, February 03, 2004
I Told Me So
Sure enough, plenty of things went wrong with the event but even so, it was successful as far as I could tell, and we had a good turnout.
What happened? Let me count the ways. At the last minute, the club shifted the meeting room. As we walked over to setup at 4:30 p.m. torrents of icy rain fell and chilled us to the bone. (There are no cabs in New York when so much as one raindrop falls.) The checkout table was misplaced as was the coat rack. The video camera did not have a long enough cable to plug into the mux box. There were other glitches as well that we had not anticipated.
All in all, a typical event. So we went about fixing each problem while a client watched over us and made suggestions. We had everything in order about 15 minutes before the seminar was to start, but we couldn't do anything about the rain. It was gushing outside. I began to tote numbers mentally of those who were making their way to the train to go home rather than to the seminar.
Sure enough, we lost a lot of people, but serendipity took over. Walk-ins began to show. The number of unregistered walk-ins nearly equaled those who failed to come. We ended up with 80 people in the room.
The clients are wonderful speakers, and they did not disappoint. I waited until the Q&A and left to go home. (I was suppose to go earlier, but delayed.)
As any event planner can tell you, there is always something that can go awry. I told myself that time and again while getting ready for this seminar. I wasn't disappointed.
What happened? Let me count the ways. At the last minute, the club shifted the meeting room. As we walked over to setup at 4:30 p.m. torrents of icy rain fell and chilled us to the bone. (There are no cabs in New York when so much as one raindrop falls.) The checkout table was misplaced as was the coat rack. The video camera did not have a long enough cable to plug into the mux box. There were other glitches as well that we had not anticipated.
All in all, a typical event. So we went about fixing each problem while a client watched over us and made suggestions. We had everything in order about 15 minutes before the seminar was to start, but we couldn't do anything about the rain. It was gushing outside. I began to tote numbers mentally of those who were making their way to the train to go home rather than to the seminar.
Sure enough, we lost a lot of people, but serendipity took over. Walk-ins began to show. The number of unregistered walk-ins nearly equaled those who failed to come. We ended up with 80 people in the room.
The clients are wonderful speakers, and they did not disappoint. I waited until the Q&A and left to go home. (I was suppose to go earlier, but delayed.)
As any event planner can tell you, there is always something that can go awry. I told myself that time and again while getting ready for this seminar. I wasn't disappointed.
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