Is There a Planner in the House?

“Is there a doctor in the house?” is the phrase that has been called out by many TV soap opera characters and in airplane drama scenes over the years. A poor soul has a medical emergency and the untrained bystander needs help. What is the next logical thing to do? Call out into the wild for a doctor of course.

There are a few industries that operate in a high-stress environment on a regular basis; nurses, doctors, policemen, firemen, and event planners to name a few. Yes, I personally include Event Professionals in the same category as first responders when talking about the level of stress they learn to routinely operate within. It becomes second nature for these professions. Honestly, our blood pressure barely, if ever, even goes up.

Event planners definitely have to perform some version of triage on a regular basis. Incoming wounded issues need immediate attention or they will spiral out of control. Someone needs to approve the additional expenditure for food & beverage and find a location quick, because the board president just announced during his keynote address that he’s hosting a reception that is NOT on the schedule…

Event Professionals often seem to be in the line of fire from mothers-of-the-bride wanting to make sure their daughter’s special day is everything she’s always wanted, in a very overzealous, very expressive way.

Once in a while, an event planner has to deal with safety. The issue is not always incident-related. As we went through the Covid-19, ever-changing facility sanitation protocols, the health and safety of those attending our events were the number one priority.

And, anyone who has ever even looked in the direction of an event knows that the phrase “putting fires out” is one commonly used by those who oversee and make decisions for events. There’s a reason for that term. Just as with triaging issues, if the level of fire is not properly assessed, and the fires attended to in the right priority order, things can burn down in a hurry! There is almost always more than one fire happening behind the scenes at one time and it’s the event professional’s job to determine which one is the hottest and attend to it first. Just because the fire seems hot to the person bringing it to the planners’ attention doesn’t mean it actually IS the hottest fire.

These are just a few examples of what “event planning on the frontlines” means and why it feels like a planner operates like a first-responder.

Do you have an event triage story? Please email me with it, I’d love to hear about it!

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