Event organisers, I feel your pain…

Written by Jonathan Pagden

May 31, 2023

What’s the hardest part for an organiser of a glitzy awards event or large corporate conference?

The moment it starts.

Till now you’ve had hands-on every detail, you’ve known exactly what’s being organised at every stage and you’ve got on very very intimate terms with your master spreadsheet.

But now it’s time to hand it over to the experts you’ve brought in for exactly this purpose: and let go.

It’s the toughest thing to see something that ten minutes ago you’d have jumped in and fixed, but now the cues are coming thick and fast, there’s no time to do anything and you have to leave it to the show crew to deal with.

So you need to really really trust the people you’re handing it to, yes? Once the show goes live is not the time to discover your on-stage presenter isn’t wearing her glasses and can’t see the prompting screens very well, the stage manager has lost the list of who goes up and in what order, or the VOG turns out to be a wannabe breakfast radio DJ* who thinks the show’s all about them and won’t Shut Up And Get On With It…

I can’t help you with the first two, but here’s a certain way to avoid finding out your VOG has verbal diarrhea: one DM to me gets your event a voice presenter who adapts to the style of the event, gets the words from the script to the loudspeakers with just enough personality but not too much, and knows when to stop talking.

I wouldn’t be trusted with the Coronation, or the Lionesses with the Euros Trophy in Trafalgar Square, or all those awards shows, if I didn’t know when to Shut Up And Get On With It, now would I?

A good way to avoid that “I don’t know this person” feeling is of course to know the person: get your dates in their diary well in advance and every event turns into a ‘reunion’.

People who know each other’s style because they’ve worked together before will always add up to a better show, wouldn’t you say?

I’d love to get to know your style and for you to know mine – DM me, you know it makes sense 😎

#event #awards #voice #VOG #eventorganiser

*due disclosure: I have been known to present breakfast radio. But – and this is important – I am not in any way a ‘DJ’.