Wrong Way… Go Back!

Some helpful tips to use when a decision is made that influences multiple aspects of your event.

* Communication about all elements of the event is imperative. Extract as much information as you can from hierarchy and make sure you are all on the same page.

* Ensure everyone is advised of the changes, even those who you may think do not need to know, you can guarantee they will need to know.

* Negotiate deals with your venue/s. If they can transfer the deposit to another date. What costs have been incurred to date at the point of cancellation.

* Check your T&C’s in detail, you can guarantee if the venue is professional this information will already be included in the booking form.

* Rework your budget and include the details of cancellation.

* Never burn your bridges with venues, you will at some stage need to use the venue again.

It is extremely important to get the ‘buy-in’ of your team to assist in cancellations. Putting together an event is a series of parallel tasks, however deconstructing an event in half the time it took to book it requires on most occasions more than one person.

Be sure to not demean the company or client who has made the cancellation decision to anyone. Your mood is picked up quickly by your team and colleagues, it also sets precedence for your team to react in the same way with future changes/ cancellations. It can be poison for your team moral.

Event cancellations, whilst stressful and frustrating also provide you with experience and training in other areas like crisis management, delegation skills, emotional empathy for your team/ others involved in the event, and can assist you in building better relationships with your team, colleagues and venues just by taking the initiative to solve the issue  faced in your stride and lead by example on how to dead with such situations.

Sim G