1. meetings & eventsmeetings & events
great
minds
There’s nothing like that euphoria a planner feels
after a successful event. Those months spent in
meetings, the phone calls, the emails, the road-
blocks and their resolutions. It all came together.
The execution team was on point! It seemed like
every server and technician was in all of those
planning meetings and anticipated every need
like clockwork.
What if I told you that there was a way to inspire
that same level of executional excellence from your
supplier-partners every single time? And what if I
told that you’re probably already using this tech-
nique to reach your event attendee audiences?
The strategy is storytelling: Each event and
meeting has a story. The protagonist (the attendee)
is on an epic journey (the event) that they will
experience through food, lights, sounds and ideas.
There are heroes (the meeting holders) and villains
(challenges the attendees are facing). Attendees
will laugh, they will think, they will be inspired and
they will dream. And the operational teams are the
writers who will shape the stories.
Too often, I see event information relayed as
a laundry list—my meeting is theatre style, 300
people, catered lunch with a panel. There’s no soul
in that.
I have immense respect for my supplier-part-
ners—knowing that they spend more days on site
in a month than I do all year. Their cumulative
experience matters. It is always worth my time
to tell the story of the meeting and make them
feel invested in creating a great experience for
our attendees. I start at the RFP stage, writing a
narrative right through the initial RFP. I brief my
supplier-partners, sales and operations teams at
the pre-conference meeting, when I have a full
audience. On site, I spend some time with the
on-site manager from the venue and brief them
thoroughly on the story of the program.
In 2015, suppliers are on information overload—
we all are! The planning committee works so hard
to resonate with audiences but they don’t think of
being accountable for inspiring high performance
on the supplier side. I’m not their boss and they
will get it done, after all we’re paying them X dol-
lars are common preconceptions. For planners,
It is always worth my
time to tell the story
of the meeting and
make suppliers feel
invested in creating a
great experience for
our attendees.
Micki Lubek, CMP, has been
an event planner with
Scotiabank for six years.
She’s an active member of
MPI, having been nominated
Planner of the Year three
times and winning the
Meeting Magazine Literary
award this past March.
Scotiabank event planner Micki Lubek tells
the tale of creating passion and commitment
in your event execution dream team
By Micki Lubek, CMP
Talk it up
an event is the culmination of many months of
blood, sweat and tears. From the supplier opera-
tions perspective, an event is a regular day of work.
Sometimes, they execute multiple programs on
the same day. By breaking through and getting
their emotional buy-in through telling the story
of the event, I’ve seen teams perform heroic feats.
A successful event has an even happier-ever-after
ending when shared.
September | October 2015 | Ignitemag.ca | 45