Event managers

Principles⁠

One event, one place⁠

The proposal, the run sheet, the crew, the suppliers, the invoices and the email all belong to the event. Anything kept beside it will be the version that is wrong.

Status is for other people⁠

A status is how a colleague knows whether to act without asking you. Keep it on the event and keep it current, and the questions stop.

See the season, not just the day⁠

Running one event well is a skill. Running twelve at once is a visibility problem, and it needs a board across all of them.

Write the decision down where it happened⁠

Notes and correspondence attached to the event are worth more than a searchable mailbox. Context should not need reconstructing.

Suppliers are part of the plan⁠

What you booked, from whom, at what price, and whether it is confirmed. A supplier held only in someone's inbox is a risk on the day.

Late changes have a price⁠

Scope changes after agreement are change orders. Handling them as edits is how margin quietly disappears between the proposal and the invoice.

Practices⁠

Open one event and see all of it⁠

Signed, paid, staffed, what is outstanding and what happens next, in one view rather than five tabs.

Work a board across every event⁠

A plan board spanning your whole calendar, so a clash of crew, room or supplier is visible weeks out.

Save the views you actually use⁠

This quarter, unconfirmed, awaiting payment, mine. Save them once and stop rebuilding the same filters.

Attach your standard checklist⁠

Apply a task template when the event is created, with due dates relative to the event, and assign owners as you go.

Book suppliers against the event⁠

Record supplier bookings with their prices and update them in place, so the cost side of the event is as visible as the revenue.

Keep the correspondence with the event⁠

Log calls and emails on the event and draft replies from it, so the history belongs to the job rather than to a person's mailbox.

Duplicate the event that worked⁠

Annual events do not need rebuilding. Copy last year, move the dates, adjust the numbers.

Update in bulk when things move⁠

Change status, owner or dates across a set of events at once, for the weeks when one decision affects twenty jobs.

Price the change, then send it⁠

Turn a late change into a priced change order that flows to the invoice, so the extra forty covers are billed rather than absorbed.