{"id":25,"date":"2020-01-03T19:39:08","date_gmt":"2020-01-04T00:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pinkmedia.ca\/blog\/?p=25"},"modified":"2021-11-26T11:14:07","modified_gmt":"2021-11-26T16:14:07","slug":"tales-of-woe-wow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pinkmedia.ca\/blog\/tales-of-woe-wow\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Sparkle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The forecast called for freezing rain. It was a cold January that year. One of the coldest I can remember. I stood in the massive entrance of the Governor\u2019s Room at Liberty Grand<\/a> shivering, not sure at the time if it was the cold draft blowing inside from guests arriving one after the other or just nerves that overwhelmed me. As I look back now, I recognize it was the moment itself. I did it. The smiles, the buzz of happy banter,  the awe on faces and more importantly, the gasps on their lips when the pretty red-head unfurled and dropped over the dance floor in shocking delight and surprise. WOW factor achieved. I has happy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rewind to September. The client, a world-class publisher, whom I had the pleasure of working with on various even<\/a>ts <\/a>in past, was celebrating 60 years in the industry and wanted to mark this occasion in gratitude for its employees. This was no author dinner or book launch. This event was more important. It was to celebrate its people and their hard work and commitment to excellence over their 60 years. Just a fancy dinner, some music to dance, awards ceremony<\/em>\u2026 they said. We don\u2019t expect more than 350 guests to attend<\/em>\u2026 they said. The budget is limited<\/em>\u2026 the one thing they did say which was true. I accepted enthusiastically even with the challenging 3-month timeline. Hey, it was a diamond anniversary! There was sure to be bling and sparkle, and those who know me, know I live for both.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By November, it became apparent the executive team was struggling with opposing visions. Venue location was a hot topic. DJ or Live Band was another. Sit-down service or buffet-style foodie stations caused many heated discussions to escalate. My internal monologue was always the same at these meetings: time is running out, make the decisions for them, it\u2019s what you know so trust your instincts.  They hired you to get this done. They have their own jobs to do.<\/em> And so I did. Don\u2019t get me wrong, there was push back and a whole lot of fear in possibly failing to deliver an extraordinary guest experience. Every planner<\/a> battles this simple truth. But invitations had to go out, period. I had to tune out the noise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

December\nwas a blur. Venue secured, menu finalized with a compromise of sit-down dinner\nservice and dessert stations for optimal caloric opportunities. Why choose when\nyou can have both a DJ to start off the evening and help emcee the welcome\nspeeches, presentations and provide synched visuals onscreen, THEN open the\ndance floor with the Live Band taking center stage and pushing the party late\ninto the night? Done. D\u00e9cor? Well you know there was sparkle. Starting with\nshimmering tablecloths that swept the floor, silver-satin napkins cinched with\npolished rings and displayed over silver-rimmed chargers, sparkly\n crystals on tall candelabras topped with jewel-dressed roses. Simple,\nelegant and within budget. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wait.\nJanuary rolls in with a surprise or two or three. The guest list is now\npushing 500 RSVPs, isn\u2019t that great?! Many of them from our head office up\nnorth, we\u2019ll need to bus these guests downtown<\/em>. Ok, no problem. Oh, and\nwe should really capture the night in some special way, perhaps a keepsake\nphoto for each guest to mark the company\u2019s milestone<\/em>\u2026 You bet. I\u2019m on it.\n And!! Can we still add the WOW factor you suggested previously?<\/em> \u2026\nthey stared at me with excited anticipation. Of course I said yes! Everyone\nknows successful events need the WOW factor.  Live aerialist coming right\nup. Please let the venue be equipped to support the poor girl suspended from\nthe ceiling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And just\nlike that, the budget screamed uncle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I needed a\nquick \u201cfunds re-allocation plan\u201d and some big favors. Luckily, vendor\npartnerships are a superpower in this business. I was grateful for those\nrelationships then, and I\u2019m certainly grateful for them today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast-forward\nto 2020. Sitting here at my desk reminiscing by clicking image after image of\nmagical. It was pretty, that\u2019s for sure. But it\u2019s not why I\u2019m sharing my story\nwith you. It was a pivotal night for me personally and professionally. This\ncelebration marked me differently. Maybe it was the profound learning curve\nthat came with a high-profile event or maybe it was simply finding my voice\namongst the noise. I don\u2019t know. What I do know is that it gave me the\nconfidence to reach a little higher, expand our brand and align our core values\nwith a deeper, more human outlook to social connections. I was now securely in\nthe business of making people happy.  I found my sparkle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lessons\nLearned? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

EXPECT THE\nUNEXPECTED, THEN PLAN FOR IT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BE GOOD TO\nYOUR VENDORS. ALWAYS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The forecast called for freezing rain. It was a cold January that year. One of the coldest I can remember. I stood in the massive entrance of the Governor\u2019s Room at Liberty Grand shivering, not sure at the time if it was the cold draft blowing inside from guests arriving one after the other or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,19,17,16,18],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-anniversary","tag-banquet","tag-conference","tag-corporate-event","tag-gala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pinkmedia.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pinkmedia.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pinkmedia.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinkmedia.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinkmedia.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinkmedia.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinkmedia.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pinkmedia.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinkmedia.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pinkmedia.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}