8 Corporate Event Disasters to Avoid

You see, when you’re in the business of organizing a massive crowd of people and making sure that they get what they came for, you need to be ready to face all sorts of problems. Here are the 8 corporate event disasters that you need to avoid.

Corporate Event Disasters to Avoid

1. Not enough parking on the premises

When organizing corporate events, one of the biggest decisions you need to make is to choose a location. It should be convenient enough for participants and guests to get to, whether they’re driving or not. If you’re holding the event at a location that can easily be reached by public transportation, make sure to let guests know. This way, you won’t have to deal with people complaining that they were late because they couldn’t find parking spaces within the premises.

2. Participants not showing up

The last thing you want is for your speakers to present to an empty room so make sure that you have a good number of participants show up. In this area, it’s important that you coordinate with marketing and registration so you can monitor the number of expected participants. Free-to-attend events are especially risky since participants can simply choose to stay home if they don’t feel like going anymore.

3. Unprofessional speakers

What do you do when a speaker suddenly goes off-topic or say something out loud that is considered to be offensive? Or worse, what if your speaker doesn’t show up at all? The only way around this is to apologize and divert the audience’s attention to something else. Ignoring the situation and pretending like it didn’t happen is not going to work out for you.

4. There’s not enough food

If you have catering on the premises, make sure that you have enough food for the participants and guests. Coordinate with your caterer about the number of servings and have them set up multiple stations. If you’re serving meals, consider using a meal stub system so that every participant is guaranteed to have his or her fair share.

5. Food poisoning

Any event planner’s worst nightmare is to suddenly have to deal with food poisoning. Seek medical attention for the victims immediately. The situation can lead to fatal consequences if you don’t act fast and can result in negative press if not handled properly.

6. Technical difficulties

AV not working when you need it to work? Considerable lag time with the laptop? Technical difficulties not only make your event look badly organized, but they can also ruin the experience for the participants. To avoid technical difficulties, make sure to rehearse the program flow. Test equipment for glitches and make sure to keep plenty of adapters, connectors, and extension cords on set.

7. Venue issues

While venue issues like flooding or double booking don’t usually happen, it can be quite stressful to move the entire event to a new location and let your guests and participants know at the last minute. One way to make sure that everyone’s in the loop for venue changes is to use a ticket management system. This way, you’ll be able to quickly send out an email of the changes to all registered attendees at a click of a mouse.

8. Not enough hands on deck

To run a successful event, you need a pool of willing volunteers. But what happens when half of them decide that they don’t want to show up on the big day? This is why you need even before you find yourself manning the whole event by your lonesome, you need to ensure that you won’t be flying solo or else it can result in the event disasters. Ask event partners and vendors for staff support just in case you don’t have enough hands on deck.

While there are a lot of potential pitfalls for corporate events, you can avert disaster by having a solid plan. Sure, they can be unpredictable but as long as you plan ahead and prep for different challenges, you’ll be better equipped to do damage control.

Read also:

• Taking Control In A Company Crisis – What You Should Know
• The Top Things You Should Watch Out for When Planning an Event