In a career spanning well over 40 years, I have seen many changes in the way the marketing services are offered to the market. In the early sixties, advertising agencies provided a comprehensive service and kept all the production services in house. The fact that the only source of revenue came from media commission was probably the reason.
By the eighties, production charges accrued an agency surcharge, often more than media commission. This made it financially viable to employ outside suppliers instead of having to provide the resource internally. This free market approach enabled the agencies to dip into a far wider talent pool. The result, a more creative and effective end product.
Agencies quickly became aware that there were risks involved in the brokerage approach but employed their best people to secure the best talent, to nurture it and to keep it under control. After all, the client was only concerned about the end outcome of the money being spent on their behalf. The person responsible was their supplier, the agency who acted as 'principle' on their behalf. Using the wrong talent and getting the wrong result meant that the agency lost a client and a degree of credibility.
What has this to do with Event Management you might ask?
Well there are parallels. There was a time when event companies were able to make a good living by providing a comprehensive service based on the commission they received from venues and service providers. The freeing up of the market, cheap travel and hotel accommodation and the ease with which anyone can scour the market, using the internet, has changed the role of the event organiser beyond recognition.
Today, it is less about booking a venue, and ensuring everyone arrives at the right place at the right time, and all about creating an experience that will generate a positive return on investment.
It is no longer acceptable to fly the client to an exotic location and ensure they have a good time. Event Management is all about meeting the short, medium and long term objectives of the marketing plan. This requires a completely different set of skills, a reliable team of internal and external project managers, a database of specialist, reliable service providers and an excellent knowledge of the benefits afforded by different destinations and venues.
The event industry is a service industry. As such it is very much a people business. It is also a business where people are likely to move around and where consistency of quality delivery can change very quickly. Keeping abreast of such developments is a full time occupation in itself.
The creative delivery end is populated by very creative and sometimes, temperamental individuals. Allowing the creative juices to flow, whilst keeping the lid on potentially explosive personality clashes, and delivering an apparently trouble free experience for the client, takes a special kind of skill that is worth the event management company fee in itself.
The internet is a valuable tool to enable anyone to book a cheap flight, located a bargain hotel, select a restaurant for a gala dinner and organise a tour. The internet cannot guarantee that the experience will be trouble free, that glitches will be minimised, that the unexpected problems will be taken care of and that the promised experience will be a happy one.
The DIY approach to event management might appear to make the budget go further but the early intervention of an event professional will eliminate potential concerns before they become major problems.