Significance of the event management analysis

An event is an experience that is carefully crafted in consequence of a broad spectrum of goods and services provided by the people in a specific space at a particular time. (Silvers, 2004) This experience is shared by a group of people who gather with the motive to celebrate, communicate, commemorate and reunite at a specified time and place. People aim to attend or expose these events for gaining educational or cultural enrichment or intellectual entertainment, or satisfying and gratifying their social, business or political responsibility. (Silvers, 2007)

Conventions or conferences, congresses, meetings, seminars of various sizes and durations for launching products, including improvement of various types of events require planning and administration to ensure their success based on industry. (Roger, 2007)

The meeting industry association 1996 defines conference “as an event involving 10 or more people for a minimum period of four hours a day or more, frequently held frequently outside the company’s own premises” (Shone and Heinemann, 1998)

Critical Success Factors identified by Damster et al (2006) are:

Organizational Structure

Support of Stakeholders

Experienced, proactive and committed organizer

Balanced event program

Theme of an event

2.1 Event Planning

Planning is a significant part of event management. The aim of event planning is development of the road map with focus on the problems which are prone to create hindrance in effective event management. The fundamental base of every event is the idea or the motive behind the event. There are number of things to be considered while planning the event that comprise: selecting target market, sources of revenue, tickets selling, pricing, funds and sponsorships, promotion and control. (O’Toole, 2011)

Picture of the festival pull factors

Internalization

Physical organization administration and efficiency

Externalization 

Event design personality design, programme and image

Social interaction with performers, locals, staff, friends and family

Culture tradition and meaning of performance, place, people and event

Symbolic meanings, authenticity, tradition, nostalgia, inclusiveness, charity

Personal benefits fun, socialization and self-development

Picture of the festival push factors

Diagram 2.1: Event Planning Model: Morgan, M (2008)

2.1.1 Feasibility Study

The purpose of feasibility study is to identify the availability of different models for the event organization and give a reason whether to conduct an event or not on the basis of cost/benefit ratio analysis. (O’Toole and Mikolaitis, 2002)

Silvers (2004) suggested that assessment of event element is conducted on the basis of three ‘TENTS’ identified as under:

Intent

Extent

Content

The intent behind the event, its extent ascertaining scope and socio-economic benefit, and the content (substance) of the event play a vital role in making the event a success.

Feasibility study ought to be based upon number of items such as purpose of the event, logistics, selection of site, time and date, costing, revenue, event content, risk analysis, and similar event assessment. (O’Toole, 2011) 

2.1.2 The Event Proposal

In response to the call for tenders is a common way for a corporate event to get a job. In some cases the only way for a new event, a business in the box. Government and companies partly owned by the state is obligated by law to bring all supplies and contractual services. Most private companies do in terms of good business practices to ensure they receive competing offers. If the event industry is no different. If the company collects the tender documents in the same manner as any other supplier. Depending on the quality of their work may be the list of preferred suppliers regularly asked to make an offer. This can be a daunting task because the event does not wish to be removed from the list of preferred suppliers, but not necessarily want to work. Once the proposal has been submitted to the monitoring of emails and phone calls are very important, so do not hesitate to contact us and act as a necessary event (Matthews, 2007).

2.2 Event Marketing

Event marketing is the tool of communication between the event organizers and the target audience. Therefore, advanced communication program is required to convey the event’s purpose and objectives. Event marketing must be creative so that it is duly focused, centralized and leveraged to generate utmost level of return on investment both for the event organizers and the attendees. (Hall, 1992) Besides, Roger and Davidson (2006) highlight the need for development of action plan’s timeline that must be distinctly scheduled as per the ingredients of the event.

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Event marketing involves customer care, selling, creating experiences, research, marketing mix and segmentation. Damster et al (2006) established 3 Es and 6 Ps of event marketing. Three Es of event marketing are: entertainment, excitement and enterprise while the 6 P’s are: product, price, place, public relation, press releases, and positioning.

Roger (2006) developed the following objectives for planning the marketing plan for the event:

Quantitative (monetary terms, occupancy rate, number of conferences hosted)

Time specific

Profit/margin specific

2.2.1 Tools of Promotion

The tools of promotion as defined by Kotler et al are:

Advertising

Public Relations

Direct marketing

Word of mouth

Hospitality

that include:

Give-aways: leaflets, posters, brochures

Radio: commercial, community, national

Internet : web sites, radio

Television: cable, free to air, satellite

Press: newspapers, magazines, periodicals

Non media alternatives: outdoor advertising, street banners, aerial, innovative

According to Davidson and Roger (2006) mostly, Direct Marketing and Public Relations are used as promotional tools in event management. They established five roles with PR:

Press Relations

Product publicity

Corporate Publicity

Lobbying

Counseling

Furthermore, they emphasize on the positive use of editorial coverage in leading news papers according to the target market selected. This editorial coverage would create the buzz of positive word of mouth about the event.

2.2.2 Target Market

Target market signifies a group of our customers. We select our major customers and earmark them. All our plans and strategies are designed in terms of our target market. (Kotler and Keller)

2.2.3 Destination Choice/Location

Mostly the corporate conferences are held in hotels. Some also take place in conference centers especially built for this purpose and some in management training centers. (Roger, 2007)

Allen (2008) laid prime stress on the destination choice for the event. In accordance with the nature of the event and number of audience the site is selected, displayed and decorated in line with the theme. All the audio/visual and light arrangements are made according to the need of the arena in which event has to occur.

The technical and production requirements include staging, audio & video equipment, exhibition installations, communication networks, logistics and stage management. Production and technical prerequisites to deliver the event design must reflect the choice of the venue as well as the budget consideration. (Robinson, Wale and Dickson, 2010) 

2.2.4 Timing and Organization

For date selection keep in view the following occasions/incidents before selecting the date: Major holidays, religious festivals, school breaks, long weekends, functions of sports/games, celebration of special days, etc.

Development of Critical Path is another step towards effective event management. For development the critical path it is suggested to start backwards from the date of the event and mark all the cut-off dates of the key contracts keeping in view which things have to be done first and when (Allen, 2008). Roger (2007) established that the Lead time for corporate events is about a week time or few months which is not a case in associations.

2.3 Funding and Sponsorship

The generation of income streams through funding and sponsorships including the cost and expense handling through proper financial management are significant. Funding and sponsorship is an essential part of event management, as major amount of the income stream is generated from these sources. Corporate sponsorship is the key source of revenue while its withdrawal can cause financial difficulties. If the issues related to finance and financial planning are neglected, the effectiveness of the event is prone to be impaired. (Robinson, Wale and Dickson, 2010)

While formulating a contract with sponsor certain things needed to be made clear including the placement of logos, trademark, or slogans etc on the promotional material of the event. (G. A. J. Bowdin, 2006)

2.4 Event Control and Risk analysis

Event Control Charts are used to plot the timed events at individual level; valuable data can act as a monitoring tool. Commonly used event charts are classified as calendar, interval, or Goldman event charts (Lee, Hess and Dubin, 2000)

O’Toole and Mikolaitis (2002) defined risk as the measure of the probability and consequence of not achieving the defined event project goal. By nature one-time events involve high risk element.

IDENTIIFY- EVALUATE- MANAGE= risk response procedure and documents. 

Silvers and Heinemann (2007) stated that here are different tools used for risk analysis while organizing an event, which includes the following:

Gap analysis

Work breakdown structure review

Cause/effect analysis

They further suggested that contingency planning holds significant importance in event planning. If you have identified any sort of risk, a contingent plan is needed as a remedy to deal with that risk.

Different methods for risk identification as discussed by O’Toole and Mikolaitis (2002) are as below:

Meetings with stakeholders

Employing risk management experts

Raising the issue at staff and volunteer meetings through local councils and police

Asking for the emergency service suppliers

2.5 Negotiation and Contracts

Chaturvedi (2009) posed an argument regarding negotiations and contracts. He said that the negotiations lead to the formation of good contracts. With the help of these negotiations event managers can develop contracts according to the need of the event in favor of organizing company. Mainly the event negotiations are concerned with the resources used to create the event.

Surprisingly contracts in event management are not given prime importance as compared to other deals. Mostly event organizers not go for reviewing the contracts as they perceive that single contract would fit for all the events. This approach of “one fit for all” can cause difficulties in effective event management. The contracts must be reviewed and negotiated as per the nature and demand of the event. (G. A. J. Bowdin, 2006)

Mainly event contracts are divided into type diiferent types: i) the general conracts; which are genrally discussed orally, sometimes written or in some circumtances implies by general conduct, and ii) the other classification is on the basis of either bilateral or unilateral contracts; concerning with sale of the good or offering not any specific body but to anybody respectively. (Raj. R, Walters. Paul, Rashid. T, 2008)

2.6 Human Resource

The HR formation for event management includes both paid staff and volunteers. Volunteers are generally motivated by different things like networking and experience enrichment. No matter what overall command or control system is in place, personal qualities of the event leadership can inspire staff like no ‘action sheet’ or ‘responsibility list’ (Baum, Deery, Hanlon, 2009)

The size of the workforce explodes at the time of the event to include the event management team, a lot of paid personnel, hundreds of volunteers and multiple contractors, such as food vendors and cleansing teams. Everyone working on the site comes into the gamut of the workforce. In different events there is no time for training and motivation mainly because everyone is so busy in his work that even performance appraisal is difficult at the time of the event. (Wargen, 2006). Below is a list of quotes from event managers on these topics;

Leadership.

Volunteers.

Teams.

Qualities of a good event manager.

Qualities of someone you would hire.

Profile of event managers who contributed to this list.

2.7 Evaluation

Allen (2008) highlights the importance of post event analysis. In his view post-event analysis is really a contributing component and serves a guideline for the future events. Writing an effective post-conference history is likely to be very costly and cumbersome in terms of money, energy and time.

Post-event report should include:

Event strategic objectives

Account of how the event was strategically designed and planned to meet the objectives.

The company and event return on investment.

Robinson and Dickson (2010) suggested that the evaluation should be rendered on the basis of how well the event met the implied aims. All stakeholders and vendors should be involved in the evaluation process. Formal reports will be required for the stakeholders consisting of funding agents, sponsors and government agencies. A typical report will include the following titles:

Event concept

Event contact information

Successes, pitfalls and outcomes

Stakeholders

Budget/funds

Media analysis

The report should also take into account the event observation and comments including participants’ observation and any kind of survey, questionnaire of qualitative or quantitative data related with the data.

While establishing an operational management model Anderson (2010) affirmed evaluation as the final stage of the event management. It is observed that evaluation is done within the analysis stage, the detailed planning stages, during the implementation and again at the review.

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Diagram 2.2: Event Operations Management Model: Tum, Norton and Wright (2005)