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Event management is no easy feat; there are so many moving parts that you have to consider especially if you’re organising a high-impact event or an event attended by a multitude of people. While the focus in many events is improving the attendee experience, there are few resources that address the burden that event organisers feel when they are faced with different issues that affect their well-being.
This is where emotional management comes in. It is a concept that means choosing how and when to express the emotions we feel. In the events industry, this is a skill that event managers must possess in order to go through the rigours of the event management lifecycle.
Stress vs burnout
A good place to start when it comes to emotional management is being able to assess whether what you are feeling is stress vs burnout. While stress is a common occurrence for jobs that require you to multitask and that demand different inputs (such as event management), a burnout is an altogether different manifestation of stress.
With stress, people are still able to see the end in sight although getting there can be increasingly difficult as time passes. A burnout, on the other hand, is a totally different state of mind. Once one suffers from a burnout, they are depleted of all emotional and mental energy and they would feel like there’s no end to their struggle.
If you are feeling stressed while organising an event, you have to take a step back and recognise that you need help. This is the first step to manage your emotions and know what to do next.
Know your triggers
Another way to address emotional turmoils is by knowing your triggers. Regardless of which stage of the event management process you are handling, you should know what triggers your stress and anxiety. Is it a deadline? Is it working with an overbearing boss? Is it your co-workers?
Once you get to the root cause of the issue, you are now able to make a logical plan to surpass or keep your negative emotions at bay. If you are stressed about a deadline, for example, you must observe all moving parts that may potentially affect your inability to deliver on or before the date. Try to make a project management chart and assign leeways for every activity and check out how a delay in any of this activity can affect your event as a whole. This way, you are not only able to anticipate any unfortunate incidents, you are also able to see things from a better perspective.
Set boundaries
Perhaps another common trait of effective event managers is the ability to set boundaries. Professionals who are in touch with their emotions not only know how to detect their triggers, they are also able to actively allay stress once they are subjected to it. Setting boundaries means knowing how to meet client expectations, achieving compromise, and asserting oneself when there’s a need.
A more basic example of setting boundaries would be knowing when to disconnect from work. Stop putting in the extra hours if there is absolutely no need for it. Instead, find ways to work smarter and do things more efficiently.
Sometimes you just have to take a step back
As long as you have done everything to the best of your ability, you also have to recognise that your efforts can only take you so far and that there will always be things outside of your control.
Let’s take into consideration events that had been affected during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020. Some of these events, such as the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, took months to plan out. Despite the efficiency of their organisers, these events still had to be cancelled to adhere to the health protocols of each country.
While this may have meant refunding customers who already purchased tickets or losing resources that can never be recovered, these are all growing pains that all of us must be cognisant of in this line of work. It is not the end of the world if you have to pause and let nature take its course.
Streamline processes using an event management software
In line with the previous point on working more efficiently, one way to reduce emotional stress while organising events is actually using tools that were created to make your life easier as an event organiser. The number of event organisers who’s never had experience in using an event management software is appalling. Some of these old-school professionals still use Excel sheets to manage their contact lists and some would still use rudimentary tools like Google Forms to let attendees register.
In the last ten years, we have seen great strides to make event management more palatable to organisers. There are now all-in-one event management software such as Eventscase that would allow you to take care of processes such as creating a registration page, supporting networking, setting up livestreaming, printing badges, sending emails, etc.
Wrapping up
Emotional management is absolutely essential for event managers to be highly successful in their craft. By knowing how to manage emotions and stress, organisers of events may also become more effective in creating experiences. As they say, you cannot give what you do not have. If you are not in touch with your emotions, it is unlikely that you are also able to connect to your attendees and improve their perception during events.
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