Everyone thinks organising events is easy. After all, we’ve all organised a birthday get-together, a holiday, a hen doo, or maybe even a wedding. Before you start, you think it’s easy – everyone does it – it must be! We, as humans, usually default to what everyone else does and put the emphasis on the logistics because that’s all that matters, right?
That is, until you get halfway through and realise: we’re dealing with people here. Not everyone wants the same kind of thing from their holiday, or has the same budget for a trip. Or your future mother-in-law wants to come to the hen doo, meaning you have to tone down your plans to suit everyone. Suddenly, “just booking it” doesn’t feel so simple.
You only have to look at the Waterstones chaos from their BookFest event at a store in Piccadilly. Attendees describing it as disorganised and unsafe, with some joking they had “survived” the event while one deemed it “hell on earth.” Videos showed huge queues, bottlenecks on staircases, and crowds spilling out onto the street. Logistics were clearly planned, but the human factor – crowd flow, capacity, comfort – wasn’t fully accounted for.
Let’s bust the myth that organising events is easy
Did you think about the purpose of the event?
- Why are you gathering?
- How do you want everyone to feel?
- Who is this event for – and just as importantly who is it not for?
- Who is hosting? What’s their role?
- What role do the guests or attendees need to play?
- How can we create an event that helps everyone to feel included?
- What’s the budget?
All of this before you even get to date, time, and location. These things you think are fixed may change multiple times before the event. Unless you’re prepared, it can throw you off track.
Let’s take a look at the issues you don’t see coming – until you’re right in the middle of them
1. Human unpredictability
Dealing with people is beautifully human and unpredictable, every single person comes with their own set of preferences, wants and needs, and we particularly like to change our minds about decisions we’ve already made. (Hi and welcome to event organisers who deal with celebrities).
2. Decision fatigue
Even a “small” event generates hundreds of micro-decisions: catering portions, AV kit, signage wording, name badge font size. Without a clear approval process, these decisions either pile up or get made in haste – and both can cause problems on the day. Checklists created through lived experience and having a clear sign off process for the client with plenty of time ahead of the event.
3. Budget creep
The room hire is in budget, but you didn’t account for the need to get onsite at 7am for a flower delivery, the security fees, extra furniture, tablecloths (why aren’t those included at every venue as standard?) or the fact that coffee for 300 people three times a day can cost more than the keynote speaker!
4. Venue surprises
That beautiful venue? Turns out it doesn’t allow outside catering. Or it has a strict noise curfew. Or the loading bay is up three flights of stairs, only accessible at 6am and has strict no parking outside the venue. Double booking on your hotel rooms, renovations next door or that squeaky conference room door–these are all things we would have checked at the initial show round.
5. Health, safety, compliance and sustainability
Crowd control, emergency exits, insurance, accessibility and measuring carbon emissions – these aren’t just box-ticking exercises. They require detailed planning and can mean rethinking layouts, changing capacity, getting more information from suppliers. On rare occasions you may need to move the event entirely if it’s not safe or fit for purpose.
6. Communication breakdowns
If your team, suppliers, and venue aren’t all on the same page, the whole thing can unravel. A missing email chain can mean the caterer shows up with food for 150 instead of 250. Or the AV techs don’t know the speaker requested a head mic, not a radio mic. We produce an event production schedule with every single detail for everything that needs to happen and be checked so the event director is in control. Usually this is shared dynamically updated document so everyone working on the team – av, registration, speaker manager, online producer, can see adjusted timings instantly.
7. The “invisible” workload on the day
While attendees are sipping coffee and chatting, you’re dealing with last-minute table plan changes, queuing issues, or a Wi-Fi crash. You’re also checking timings against the production schedule, liaising with the host, and texting the coach driver to say the group’s running late. These are all the activities we leave space for by planning everything else within an inch of its life. If everything is planned, signed off and considered beforehand, then on the day – all we’re doing is crisis management. Or sometimes not – sometimes it all just goes smoothly. 😉
The reality
Until you actually organise an event from start to finish, you don’t see the layers of complexity. Every event is unique. Even when you apply the same principles of careful planning, attention to detail, getting sign-off early, securing the budget, briefing suppliers and your team repeatedly. The Digital Leaders Community Report brought a lot of these issues to light for community managers. You can read more about the pain points of organising an event. And just when you think you’ve thought of everything, something new crops up. That’s not a sign of poor planning – it’s the nature of events. The skill lies in reducing risk – anticipating as much as possible, then adapting with speed, calmness, and decisiveness! Still think organising events is easy? Let’s be clear event organising is complex, every event is unique. It takes skill and practice to keep your stress levels down.
