Want someone to handle your event?
If yes, then the next question should be: who do you hire – an event manager or an event planner?
Clear communication is the key while dealing with any service provider and to convey the things clearly – you should know, what is it that you want in first place? Event management is often confused with event planning and that is where most people go wrong! Let’s discover what it is the difference between the two.
Planning and managing are not the same job roles!
First things first, if there are two different verbs then the activity described by each of them has to be different in some or the other way. Management and planning are two different functions for which a person requires different skills.
- Event Management
Event management is a very complex job and can be compared to a puzzle that needs different parts to be put together to make a whole picture. Event management involves the management of those pieces and is similar to putting each piece at the right place to form the complete picture. So, for an event with scattered pieces a manager is needed put the pieces together. This job role is played by a person who possesses managerial skills and the ability to guide various other job profiles required to make an event successful.
An event manager looks for a perfect location, keeps contact with outside vendors, is ready with plan B, manages the entire staff, takes care that the execution of the plan is done correctly and is able to manage situations and crises on the spot.
- Event Planning
Now that you know what management is, it’s time to know more about planning. Planning is an important step towards making any event successful. This is very different from monitoring and managing so understandably event management comes after event planning. Once an event is decided upon, first thing that has to be done is to have a blueprint of how things are supposed to go and come to an end. So, planning is what an event management team executes or manages through the entire event. Some basic tasks of an event planner include selecting the theme of the event, carving out a smart budget, negotiating various contracts, choosing the best colour scheme, curating invitations for the guests and many more
Realizing that both are important for a successful event
If you want to conduct a successful event then, both the job profiles are equally important. Let’s say, you did not involve a planner and simply hired an event management team to manage your event without providing them with the execution worthy plans. What is the entire event management team supposed to manage when they don’t have a plan? And what if you hired a planner but do not have enough time or resources for the execution of their plans? How a planner alone would make the event successful without the required support? Both the job roles are equally important and can’t sustain without the help of each other. So, you should hire an entire team to handle your event to make it a success.
Not knowing the difference between two seemingly similar-job can leave you indecisive and can make you take wrong decisions.
Watch this space to get more insight into planning and managing of events.