Tracy's Tidbits

All Rank, No Leadership

I was recently assigned to man the registration desk for a multi-day event, serving the exhibitors. There were organizations from a variety of potential future places where someone graduating from either high school or college might want to work. Recruiters, sales people, school counselors, regional managers, VPs, tradesmen, you name it, were all together for a couple of days so people could see what opportunities are available to someone just starting their life after graduation.

Most booth spaces included two exhibitor passes with the price of their rental agreement and more could be purchased as desired. It was pretty standard for a trade show. A regular 10′ x 10′ booth generally allowed for two representatives to work the crowd, plus it also allowed them to take turns running to the bathroom, getting some food, and talking to visitors as they entered the booth.

Among colleges, businesses, and trades, all branches of the military were represented. Most branches had assigned their booth workers for the three days and pre-registered everyone. It made check-in seamless. Scan bar code, print badge, go to exhibit hall. Done.

There was one branch, however, that was a bit less organized. They had four exhibitor passes linked with their booth. On day one, three “big-wigs” registered and went in to get things ready. A little while later, two baby-faced, uniformed men came in. They were just told to get dressed, drive on over, and staff the booth for today. Because three passes were already accounted for, all I could do was register one, but the other would need to pay for an additional booth pass. I thought the two of them might cry. I felt so bad for them. These poor guys were literally told put on their dress uniform and get in the car. They had no idea what they’d be doing, for how long, or why, let alone who they should contact in this situation.

Luckily, before things got too out of hand, one of the “big-wigs” happened to walk by. We were able to flag him down and get things figured out. After a brief conversation with the young men, one was registered and the other went home.

Day two of the conference, another young uniformed gentleman walked in. He also had no idea what he was here to do or for how long, but was told to get dressed and come over. At this point all four booth passes had been spoken for, so unless he wanted to purchase one, he’d need to contact someone, or head home. A few minutes later, out came Mr. Big-Wig and off they went. It was a little suspect that this new guy might be using the badge of yesterday’s recruit, but I wasn’t going to chase anyone down.

Guess what happened on day three? Same thing. Another fresh young man in uniform came to the desk expecting to pick up a badge only to be told by me that all four of the booth passes had been assigned and he’d need to purchase another one or talk to somebody. Again, out came Mr. Big-Wig and off they went. I assume this young man used the same badge as the previous two guys. Whatever. As long as there is only one person using the badge each day and only one guy having lunch each day, what do I care if his name is Brad or James or Robert?

But, c’mon Mr. Big-Wig. For someone who worked in an industry where preparedness is essential, why be so unorganized and non-communicative with these poor youngsters. Not only did he make these guys get dressed, drive over, and get told they couldn’t be registered, I had to be the one to tell them that information. He made these men feel embarrassed as they assumed everything was in order, and me feel like a horrible human to tell our men in uniform that they couldn’t have access because someone above them screwed up. If I could have paid for every single one, I would have.

We’re a military family for generations. I respect the sacrifice these men and women make on so many levels that most people can’t even comprehend. I’m not calling out which branch, but Mr. Big-Wig, where’s the leadership?

Have you ever experienced a situation like this? What did you do?
Share it here or send me an email.

Travel much? Check out Tracy’s Traveler’s Tidbits page for helpful, hilarious tips for unseasoned travelers!

Up, Up and Away

…in my beautiful balloon! Have you had to plan a hot air balloon event? They are so rare in my area. I have maybe seen a single balloon near my house twice in 50+ years. Occasionally I would see one as my family traversed the Midwest in our woody station wagon towing our Starcraft camper. My husband has shown me pictures of a fascinating balloon event in New Mexico that happens every year that was just mesmerizing. I can’t remember what got me thinking about this but as I did, I wondered what went into planning a hot air balloon event, so I looked it up.

The annual balloon show in New Mexico is a great case study because it’s nine days long, has hundreds of hot air balloon entries, many activities, and thousands of attendees. The event team has to be fantastic as there are so many moving parts. The number of logistics and the length of the event planning checklist has to be a sight to behold. They don’t just light up the balloons and let them go, this event contains an entire agenda of supplemental events that surround the balloon-centered activities. There is a lineup of performers on a main stage, a skydiving team jumping out of a perfectly good airplane, nightly fireworks displays, and twice daily drone shows; not to mention the chainsaw carving demonstrations, followed by an auction of the art that was made. Then there are all of the logistics of hosting thousands of people for nine days: food, bathrooms, seating, parking, safety, medical, traffic control, shuttle buses, and so much more.

New Mexico is probably the only place in the US this event could be held for the amount of open space needed to accommodate the number of balloons, activities, and people, not to mention all of the chase vehicles, attendee cars, porta potties, vendors, stages, food trucks, seating areas, and more. You can schedule a balloon ride or just watch the balloons take off every day. You can attend one day or all nine days. But you’d better be an early bird, because everything starts at 5:45am.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, the foundations of planning an event are almost the same: date, time, location, registration, goals and objectives, marketing, and on and on. However, with a hot air balloon show, there are some very specific details to deal with. We’re now taking to the skies. There’s pilot and crew certifications, FCC (Federal Communications Commission) Radio Regulations, Air Traffic Control, Regulated Air Spaces, and everything that comes with flying, landing, and filling a hot air balloon. The list just tripled.

I am sure the amount of liability insurance that this event requires is tremendous. And, without a doubt, those participating and those attending have all accepted personal responsibility for their own liability and waived rights related to the event when they signed up or purchased a ticket. The number of places on the website that warns people about the ropes means to me that it’s an issue. I can only imagine the number of sprained ankles at the medical tent for an event like this. The warnings say not to go over or under or near any ropes as the balloons can shift direction at any time. Uh, hello… it’s a balloon. And, if those ropes aren’t neon colored, well, shame on the balloon pilots or event hosts. And with all of the helium required, you can guarantee there is no smoking allowed anywhere within a 10-mile radius of the area.

There’s a very unique ticket structure for the event. There are morning activities and afternoon/evening activities. Each one of these is a “session.” Your ticket purchase is only good for one session. So, if you’re attending for one day, you will need two tickets; one for the morning and one for the afternoon. Four of the days only have morning events, so if you’re attending all nine days, you’ll need 14 separate tickets. Plus parking, plus either a hotel room or a camp site, plus meals. And that’s if you’re attending. I’m not sure what the cost is for the pilots and crew or how many additional days they are on-site. This is a commitment.

The event has a language all of its own too. After the morning drone show, “Dawn Patrol” takes off. This is a group of hot air balloons who launch in the dark and fly long enough for the sun to start to rise and there’s enough light to land. They hover up and down, sometimes choreographed to music. This allows the other balloonists to survey the wind speeds and directions at different altitudes before a full “Mass Ascension” which is just like what it sounds. A “Morning Glow” is where balloons that are still tethered to the ground light up and inflate so participants can walk around and take a look at the various designs. There is a separate event called the “Special Shape Rodeo.” This is for those balloons that look like animals, cartoon characters, or other objects. There are photos of these on the New Mexico Balloon Festival website. It’s worth a few minutes of mindless scrolling to check them out.

If you have the chance to work on a hot air balloon event, I’d recommend contacting the planners of this particular one. I imagine they have a great task list you could adapt as well as provide invaluable insights to help you get started. Certainly they could inform you of things they have learned along the way and pitfalls to watch out for. I’m not a big fan of heights, but I think seeing this event in person or being on the planning team would be amazing.

Have you worked with a team planning a hot air balloon event? Share one thing
we need to watch for here or send me an email.

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All references and information came from the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta website. 2026.

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Unchartered Territory

I was looking back through some of my husband and my photos from this past year of traveling hither and yon. He takes some amazing photos, by the way. We tend to go back to a place we like more than once. We have discovered over the years that by doing this, we’re able to confidently say we’ve seen all there is to see and then some. We still, however, have yet to get back to Portland, Maine, and that trip is probably 12 years overdue. But I digress.

There is a benefit to returning to a location you’ve been to before. Familiarity with the various transportation systems, returning to a restaurant where you had a to-die-for meal, and experiencing a city or country in different seasons of the year. Take Amsterdam, Netherland, for example. We first visited in the spring, just in time to catch the tulips in bloom before the season ended. It was quite the spectacle and a bit overwhelming with so many different colors and types of tulips. We then returned in the fall to see the amazing color changes in the foliage and ran into autumn markets on side streets.

But, there is also something adventurous in the first visit. There is mystery hiding around every corner. Alleyways open onto beautiful gardens with quaint restaurants tucked within. Scaffolding and construction can force you to take a route you hadn’t planned only to reveal a shortcut between your hotel and the town square. The discovery that the local mall has more floors below ground than it does above which was completely unexpected.

These findings can dramatically alter your day if you’re not careful. We’ve been lured down a winding sidewalk completely oblivious to the time until our stomachs told us we’d been out for hours. We have stumbled upon a hidden museum that intrigued us enough to make us stop and check it out. And we were lured by organ music into a large, old church which led to a surprise concert. All were good experiences and I wouldn’t trade them for others, but if you had any plans, they were shot to bits in a single day. Sometimes, isn’t that the point of traveling to a new place? To have new experiences, see new things, or discover the history of the town or country you’re visiting?

Without children to entertain when we travel anymore, we don’t always structure every day of the trip. We leave room for the unexpected. My type-A, first-born personality has learned to go-with-the-flow over the years. I know it’s not the right season for everyone to pack up and go. It wasn’t for us for the first half of our lives either. But, when the time comes and you are able to visit somewhere you never thought you’d go, be sure to leave time to traverse unchartered territories without a plan.

Do you have a rabbit-trail travel story? Share it here or email me!

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Death, Taxes & Change

I grew up being told there were only two constants in life: death and taxes. I wholeheartedly disagree. There is a third constant… change. Change WILL happen no matter what. Just when you think you’ve mastered the process for something, someone changes the process. Just when you think you have discovered the most efficient drive to work, road construction starts. Just when you’ve lost five pounds, the holidays arrive.

Those can all be inconvenient, however, the changes I’m talking about arrive during event planning or execution. For example: despite your best efforts, you discover breakout rooms aren’t set with the right number of chairs, catering has substituted a menu item without your approval, and the price of coffee has recently gone up. Not only that, since you signed the contract, the cost of labor per hour has increased and the enigmatic anticipated percentage price increase in the boilerplate allows the convention center to pass the additional costs onto you.

Additionally, the keynote speaker you have been advertising for months has a family emergency and can no longer make it to your event leaving you to scramble for a replacement. Bad weather sets in and half of your attendees’ flights are delayed meaning they’ll miss the opening general session. After extensive review of all of the BEOs (banquet event orders), not a single one of you noticed that the approved ballroom floorplan was set using all four sections when you talked over and over about setting only three and using the fourth for a separate networking event until you arrived on scene and are standing in the back of the room totally confused as you wonder where the room for the networking event disappeared to.

To add to the change list, when you originally signed your three-year contract with said convention center, there was a direct tram from the airport to the convention center/hotel where your attendees could deplane, drop their luggage, hop the tram and be at the event within mere moments. Two years later when your event is actually happening, the tram shuts down because of operational costs and your people are left to fend for themselves. Now YOU are the one scrambling to communicate the options available for your attendees to get themselves from point A to point B after wooing them to purchase event tickets because of the convenience of transportation.

Continuing this theme of change, the volunteer recruited to oversee a section of the event (lets say registration) has come down with the flu and is so sick she can’t travel let alone supervise the team of 25 other volunteers under her purview. Her fever is so high she can’t articulate the prework that’s already been done, nor if there is anyone who might be able to take her place for you. Oh, and by the way, the event starts tomorrow. I can tell you with confidence that each of these scenarios actually happened to me at some point over the years.

Successful event planners do not have the luxury of being afraid of change. In fact, the best planners I know accept the change challenge head on as if they’ll earn a badge on the lanyard of life when they use their problem-solving skills to master just one more. The wildly great, and somewhat intimidating planners, stand in the atrium, hands on their hips, chest high, eyes scanning as if daring fate to throw them a curve ball so they can add another notch to their overcomer’s toolbelt.

Death is certain. We will all experience it. I have never met anyone who has lived “forever” although I have had great Aunts who lived to be over 100 years old. Those were ladies with grit. Taxes are certain. It doesn’t matter what state you are from (I live in Illinois, so believe me when I tell you taxes are a certainly), or what country you are from, there is some version of taxes being taken from your paycheck. And guaranteed, if you have planned even one event, you have experienced the inevitable change request for something you swear you and your team could have avoided after the number of hours and details you spent planning, anticipating, risk-assessing, and thinking through.

Do you have a story about a change you experienced that you’d like to share? Add it to the comments below or send me an email! I’d love to hear it.

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Modern Take on a Memorable Event

I recently attended a wedding which I haven’t done in a while. We’re at the age where all of our friends are married, remarried, divorced, or sadly widowed. Our kids are also married; some remarried, some divorced. We are waiting on the grandkids for the next wave of weddings and our granddaughter just turned one year old. It’ll be a few years. Since I don’t “do” weddings (see my blog “Why Not Weddings”) I stay out of what’s trendy in weddings and wedding receptions.

This wedding, however, was a whole package. Not in the financial or all-inclusive sense. It was one of the most well organized and enjoyable evenings I’ve had with a large number of strangers in a long time. Picture if you will… the evening started with the mingling of friends and family members, including the bride and groom, in what I would call the parlor of a grand, historic inn in the mountains of North Carolina. Thick wooden beams, dark colored furnishings, rustic decor, and dim lighting all added to the ambience of this charming 1900s house-turned-inn. The party spilled out onto a long covered porch with spectacular views, and into the world-famous Ragged Gardens where there was a beautifully appointed tent with all of the trimmings.

We had fantastic early fall weather, which was divine, because we all stood outside on the garden’s main lawn to watch the couple say their vows and commit their lives to each other on the slate steps leading from the house to the garden as the sun went down. Casual and elegant at the same time. It was all mostly what I expected until dinner, post nuptials.

When the entire party went back into the inn for dinner and eventually to go dancing, we didn’t sit at assigned round tables with white linens, centerpieces that blocked our view, and six other people we didn’t know. We didn’t need to dig deep for conversation or strain to hear each other over an 80’s cover band or a weekend-warrior DJ. In fact, there were very few tables at all.

When we re-entered the building, appetizers had been replaced by dinner fare. There were food stations with shrimp and grits, chicken piccata and asparagus, and filet mignon with horseradish sauce. The waitstaff passed additional, heavier appetizers which, if you had more than a couple, filled you up quickly. Everyone was free to continue their earlier conversations, start new ones, switch things up, or slip out early. It was truly a breath of fresh air to move about the different rooms, chat with someone I haven’t seen in a while or with someone who looked like they needed a friend, and when I was ready, simply move on. Brilliant.

At a certain point in the evening, those guests who remained, were all called into the garden tent for speeches and first dances, and invited to stay and dance for the rest of the evening. When we re-entered the building, the food, once again, had been flipped to dessert and coffee, waitstaff serving slices of wedding cake, tiny donuts, and other sweet treats. Kudos to the staff at The Inn at Ragged Gardens in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. From a guest perspective, things flowed effortlessly.

I have to say, truly, this is the way to go. If you’re in a season of attending wedding after wedding, weekend after weekend and this is the trend, why didn’t anyone tell me about this? And if it’s not the norm and you do help plan weddings, may I strongly suggest you take a look into this format.

Have you encountered a unique wedding/reception like this? Tell us about it here or
send me an email! And if you would like additional details from this event,
I’m very happy to share.

Make sure you comment, like, and share this blog with everyone you know who has been or is getting married!

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