Event Management 101: 5 Ways to Become More Creative in the Next Week

Event management is simply one of those professions that almost every uninformed individual thinks they could perform seamlessly. In truth, however, event management takes knowledge, experience and, most importantly, creativity – a combination of traits that not everyone is born with and not everyone can assemble through hard work.

Naturally, everyone can throw together an event, but in order to make it awesome through-and-through, you need to delve deeper into the subject in question – event management is more than just organization and decoration.

1. Experimentation breathes innovation

Every single creative reaches a point in their life when they want to branch out and do something different. Why? Because they simply want to try new stuff. Does this make professional sense? Yep – taking a different approach to event management might just set a new trend.

Sometimes, learning to unlearn is the key here, and this is not easy – human beings are creatures of habits, so it takes focus, time and dedication to try and take a new professional approach. This calls for getting out of your comfort zone; after all, this forces you to expand your consciousness and, therefore, inspires growth.

Try organizing meetings outside of the office environment, or invite people from various teams to join you during brainstorming sessions – a fresh mind can help develop a different approach to a problem.

2. Broaden your network

Meeting up with the people that are in, or closely related to the event management profession can be very helpful, but it can quickly turn mundane – let’s face it, complaining about work-related problems is always relieving, but rarely helpful.

Expand your friends circle and get to know people from completely different professions: web designers, programmers, musicians, actors - they are all faced with their own problems and take different approaches respectfully. Diversifying your problem solving tactics related to event management might provide you with excellent solutions.

3. Be open with the people around you

Encourage them to embrace change and openly challenge your way of handling things! The fact that a certain tactic might have worked in a variety of scenarios doesn’t mean that it’s always the best solution. Give every idea a chance, no matter how weird it might sound to you – we tend to get stubbornly attached to our way of doing things, which makes us blind to its downsides.

For example, consider your openness to new things: would you be down with organizing an event on a cruise ship if it’s not really your area of expertise? Giving organizing conferences and meetings on cruise lines a go can lead you to branching out – which is a pillar of business success. Seize every opportunity!

4. Question everything

There is a reason why creatives always question everything: curiosity is the foundation of progress. Never accept the world for what it appears to be. Go out and attend events that are seemingly unrelated to your area of expertise, there is a whole lot to be learned out there!

5. Connect the dots

Always look to join the dots together – this is the essence of finding insight and inspiration from one area and applying it to something else. It is amazing how obvious things that we’ve missed can be when looking at them in hindsight, which is why it’s essential not only to learn from your mistakes, but also to learn how to spot them. For instance, every event manager collects event attendee data, but are you also using it to help generate ideas for your next event?

Expanding your creativity is a perpetual hunger that needs to be constantly fed with new ideas. For an event manager, no matter how much you think, it’s all about hard work and grind. In truth, creativity can be found everywhere – in unrelated events, through shuffling meeting locations, by inviting different people to your meetups, in encouraging those around you to challenge you and in questioning everything. You should always be on a mission to expand your event management creativity!