“Event professionals who want to succeed in any role related to organizing, planning or managing sports events will need to step up their game and be adept at the emerging trends in the events industry.”
Events are Changing
I’ve been working in sport on the sidelines at professional football games, on the pool deck at aquatic events and trekking from one venue to another at the Paralympics, Pan Am Games, Canada Games and Commonwealth Games for almost 30 years.
The event management skills that I needed back in the 1990’s are very different from the ones that I need now.
In fact, the job description of an event professional contains all kinds of buzz words that didn’t even exist when I was studying sports administration at Laurentian University.
Event professionals who want to succeed in any role related to organizing, planning or managing sports events will need to step up their game and be adept at the emerging trends in the events industry.
5 Trending Skills
Here are some of the key new skills that I think every up and coming event manager needs to have in his/her tool box:
#1 Understand Technology: I’m not talking about knowing how to go live on Instagram. I’m talking about how technology like AR, AI and VR can be used to enhance event experience or how to engage fans in online contests and promotions using digital marketing strategies or how to use event management software to be more efficient.
#2 Be Able to Make a Business Case for Hosting a Live Event: Using data to drive decision making is not going away anytime soon. Just ask my client, Sport Tourism Canada, who offers a service that measures the economic impact of hosting a sport event in a specific community.
Did You Know? According to Event Manager Blog, 76% of job ads currently on the market require event professionals to be capable of analyzing the business value of events.
#3 Know How to Measure Event Success: Gone are the days where we host events ‘just because’. Accountability is key and performance measures are a must. To learn more about how to effectively determine if your event was a success or not, check out my blog: 10 Ways To Measure the Success of Your Event . Knowing how to properly debrief an event with your team is also critical. Check out: Good Grief, Debrief: Confessions of an Event Planner.
#4 Deliver Event Experience: Expectations on the part of the event goer are higher than ever and delivering event experience is a ‘must have’. If people are not talking about your event before, during and after, you’ve failed. Millennials in particular are all about the experience.
#5 Manage Event Risk/Liability: We’re living in a time where crazy sh*t happens at events. Think Fyre Festival, the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas or the 2010 Olympics luge accident in Whistler. Being able to plan for and manage an event crisis is an important skill – even better if you’ve survived one and lived to tell the tale. I talk more about this in my blog: This Too Shall Pass: Surviving an Event Crisis.
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