6.7. Contingency Planning for Events
Heather Beecroft
As we’ve learned in this chapter, just like with projects, when planning an event, it is important to always expect the unexpected! When working as an executive administrative assistant – it is best practice to always have a backup plan in place when planning meetings, events or even when planning your workday. Murphy’s Law is the concept that ‘anything that can go wrong will go wrong. It is really the idea that anything that could go wrong should have a backup plan or a contingency plan.
The video below is a very clear example of what goes wrong when an event is not properly planned, and no contingency plan is in place.
Video: “Fyre Festival co-founder speaks out: Took a ‘big risk’ and failed” by ABC News [6:05] is licensed under the Standard YouTube License.Transcript and closed captions available on YouTube.
Categories to Include in a Contingency Plan
It can help to create categories to group the challenges you are trying to anticipate because some of the solutions may be the same for a variety of problems. The list below is high-level, and there are many more issues to consider when planning an event. As with any event or project, the plan should be customized to the event or project it applies to.
- Man-made Disturbances
- Strikes
- Street crime
- Riots
- Kidnapping
- Terrorism
- Natural Disasters
- Blizzards
- Earthquakes
- Fire
- Flooding
- Heat wave
- Tornado
- Technological Problems
- Audio-visual issues
- Power failure
- Computer malfunction
- Health/Medical Emergencies
- Pandemics
- Heart attacks
- Heat stroke
- Personal injury
Remember, in 2019, no one would have thought to plan for a pandemic when organizing an event, but fast forward to today, if you do an internet search for “event planning contingency”, almost all of the top results are related to pandemics/COVID-19.
Access to Alcohol
Access to alcohol is taken seriously at public events because it comes with added liability. As the event planner, your job is to be highly aware of the laws surrounding the provision of alcohol to guests. Make sure that you ask about alcohol service and consumption when you are planning the event (does your boss want to have alcohol available), and decide on a venue. It’s important to understand local laws – so make sure you know how to find them.
It is recommended that those serving alcohol be ‘Smart Serve’ trained.
The best choice is to have trained professionals serve alcohol to guests. Generally, this is taken care of by the venue, as they are usually the party responsible for holding the liquor license. In all cases, if alcohol is being served at your event, make sure that the contracts you sign with the venue and catering providers are clear about who is responsible for serving.
“9.4. Contingency Planning” from Essentials of Project Management by Adam Farag is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
