Confessions of an Event Planner: Case Studies From the Real World of Events--How to Handle the Unexpected and How to Be a Master of Discretion Read Online Free PDF Page A

be open for drinks, mixing and mingling during the afternoon, but after a quick conference with company heads I was able to convince them that it would be better for all to slow down the pace as we still had the evening ahead. Tomorrow they have a full day of meetings to attend and it would not be in anyone’s best interest to find their participants not fit to take part, having shown up wasted or hungover. Time to rein in the fun for the moment. The guests had no idea that an open hospitality suite had been planned so they didn’t miss it. It was time for them to relax, settle in, swim, work out or take a nap so that they could be refreshed for the evening ahead. It also gave my staff time to grab something to eat and a chance to regroup, and for those of us who had come down several days ahead of the group, to meet with the hotel and other suppliers and prep the group arrival, and to be filled in on what took place on the flight down and on the transfer to the hotel.
    It’s no joke that it’s important going into any program to be able to identify whom we’ll need to pay special attention. Someone will end up wearing the title of Head Instigator and Chief Mischief Maker. There’s always at least one on every program, no matter what profession or industry the guests are from. Lawyers, stockbrokers, auto manufacturers and car dealership owners, pharmaceutical, retail, real estate, manufacturing, entertainment—they all have “the one” you know you are going to have your hands full managing. And sometimes it’s the company president, CEO, company executives or their staff. Who’ll it be this time? I don’t know yet, but it’s only a matter of time.
    Then there’s Mr. or Ms. Amorous to contend with, who thinks sleeping with the event planning staff is part of the package. Thank heavens I learned early who to watch out for . . . and for the buddy system we have in place. None of us is ever left alone with any kind of creep—placed in a compromising situation or fending off an unwanted advance. Any such situation is easily circumvented once you know who to watch out for. The case where a well-known athlete had a young female hotel staff member step inside his room and then closed the door behind her should serve as a warning as to why you should never step into someone’s bedroom suite alone or without the door left wide open, but some people learn the hard way. In that case, the hotel employee said she had been raped. Her hotel had a policy of making sure that the hotel door was left open when stepping into a guest’s room for that very reason. It protects both the hotel staff member and the hotel guest from accusations and applies equally to other guests visiting other guests’ rooms, Your personal and professional reputation can be irreparably ruined in a matter of minutes by one lapse of judgment, and in this business it can become easily clouded by being starstruck, having too much to drink or simply a desire to please, or being too trusting and totally forgetting the situation you could find yourself in. Knowing who to be on guard around is imperative in this job in order to be proactive in finessing and sidestepping tricky ethical and even legal situations.
    And we can’t forget Mr. or Ms. Entitlement, who believes their every whim should be catered to. Not that they’re any kind of VIP or anything, but they sure think they are. Those “you don’t know who you’re talking to” types. The kind who demand to be upgraded on the sly to the hotel’s presidential suite. Umm, don’t think so. The room assignments are not done by chance but rather are the express choice of the company head hosting their event. The truth is that if Mr. or Ms. Entitlement do not think they are being accommodated in a room that reflects their social or company stature, neither we nor the hotel staff are the ones who allocated that room to them but of course you can’t say or even allude to that fact. One of the instructions