MISSION: IMPOSSIBILITY

In the event planning industry there is a saying…”Anything that Can Go Wrong…Will Go Wrong – ON SITE!” In the event planning industry there is a saying…”Anything that Can Go Wrong…Will Go Wrong – ON SITE!” So, as a corporate event coordinator it is your job to make sure that all plans are as firm as a rock and of course have a backup…but what happens when something goes wrong and there is nothing short of a miracle that can be done to fix it? My co-workers and I found ourselves asking that very question a few short months ago! It’s early spring and as usual another flawlessly executed event was about to conclude, and we faced a huge problem; a force majeure. Was it an Act of God? NO! An Act of Terrorism? Probably Not! Was it an Act of War? You guessed it…No! So what on earth could have gone so wrong to make us squirm? So glad you asked! Well the short story is that the airlines did us in! In a matter of a few hours American Airlines had cancelled almost a thousand flights….and it seems that almost every one of our 350 attendees were scheduled to be on those flights the very next morning! The hotel was sold out, the CEO of the company hosting the meeting instructed us not to book tickets for anyone that were scheduled to leave before the conference finished, and ticket prices from other airlines were skyrocketing! So even though this wasn’t our mistake…it was now our problem! How did we fix it you ask? Well…we became travel agents at the drop of a dime and re-booked over 75 flights, begged for any late check-outs we could get and any rooms the hotel could spare! Needless to say…the fact that I am writing to you today proves that we lived through it, but this episode just confirms my reasoning for why everyone should hire an event planner, especially a Paragon Event Planner!