It’s Time For The Event Industry To Plan Its Future
By Christy Lamagna, CMP, CMM, CTSM
Event planners are an ironic breed. In the event industry we are so busy preparing events for our clients and colleagues that we don’t make time to plan our own vacations. It’s the old adage about the cobbler’s children having no shoes.
It is unfortunate that we don’t have the time to plan our next vacation but it is not a catastrophe. However, and this is where the problem lies, we also aren’t making time to plan for the industry’s future and that is a disaster in the making.
How many times has someone asked you if they could come with you on an event because ‘you get to travel to such exciting destinations’ or have you had someone tell you they are thinking of becoming a planner because they planned their child’s birthday party and it went so well they think they have a natural talent for the profession? What have you done in that moment?
Each time we stand there and smile, and allow that innocent ignorance to reign supreme, we are not only doing ourselves a disservice, we are slowly chipping away at the foundation of our industry.
Company executives cancel meetings and/or dissolve their events departments to save money. Were they fully aware of how integral events are to their bottom line and continued success they would be ADDING events and staff to their budgets. It is incumbent on those of us in the field to educate the people around us. The misinformed executives, colleagues who cannot articulate the value we bring, clients who don’t understand what we do and the people who think we plan parties for a living.
This is a pivotal issue whose undertaking requires a tremendous amount of concentrated effort and energy. My personal quest is to lead the charge. Watch this space for a plethora of articles on how our industry by our own hands and for an action plan on what we can do to reverse the tides.
Want to know more? Want to lend your voice? Have an opinion to share? Email me: Christy.Lamagna@Strategic.Events.
And, yes. ‘.events‘ is a new suffix to email addresses. No one knows because as an industry we are not as well informed as we need to be.
Tags: It’s Time For The Event Industry To Plan Its Future, Event Industry, Event Planner, Event Strategist, Strategic Planners, Strategic Events, Corporate Meetings, Corporate Events, Industry Change Maker, Event Industry Change Maker, Meeting Industry Change Maker
