How to Recover From Catastrophic Failure

Adam Courtney
Aug 23, 2017 · 5 min read

It was probably our busiest event of the year. People were travelling from every corner of Ireland to snap up a ticket for our upcoming Junior Cert Night at the Silversprings Event Centre. I knew the event had truly gone viral when I had a call come in from a group of teenagers wanting to come all the way down from Donegal to get a couple of tickets!

At this stage in my career I had four years prior experience running very large events, managing acts, looking after hundreds of staff and at the time was the marketing manager of one of Irelands top dog clubbing venues. I was certain I had everything under control and that nothing could ever go wrong.

Fast forward to the night of our event. I had called in extra security and staff to accommodate for a sold out crowd. Things were pretty routine at the stage - Sound? Check! DJs? Check! Security? Check! Staffing at all stations? Check! We were ready to go. Doors opened at 7pm and after about a half an hour I started to notice that the venue was almost full to the brim but buses carrying hundreds of teenagers continued to arrive. As our venue reached full capacity hundreds of kids with tickets were left outside. The scenes outside of the venue were pretty caotic. Picture hundreds of angry parents hissing and growling at the organiser of the event wondering why their daughter/son hadn’t been admitted entry. Yes, that was me in fact. If I was ever going to get a nervous breakdown or a fatal heart attack in my life, this night would have certainly been the night.

Outside of the venue.

To put a long story short, we came to the realisation that our tickets had been replicated hundreds of times over. This was entirely our fault as we should have put the proper security features on our tickets. The following weeks and months were followed by one million calls from reporters and journalists. My name was all over the newspapers and radio stations for “catastrophically failing”. A name and brand I had spent years meticulously building was tarnished in 24 hours. You know what they say — “You can spend a lifetime building your reputation but it takes a second to lose it”. I was well and truly experiencing this first hand.

How I moved on and sold out stadiums

Move on, plan your comeback and regain your customers trust

There was a point where it would have been easier to just throw in the towel and choose not to run any further events. My name was tarnished, but I knew I was good at two things — selling out events and putting on a great show. If I could just build my brand back up and throw one decent event, my name and brand would slowly regain its status. And thats exactly what I did.

First things first. Your customers trust is paramount. And the trust between myself and the people that were refused entry to my event was completely broken. To regain some sort of credibility I made it my business to meet with every single person who wasn’t admitted entry and not only gave them a full refund but also allowed them free access to our upcoming event (If there ever was any).

Venues simply wouldn’t work with me after the events that took place on June 18th (understandably), so I had to go knocking on the doors of almost every venue in and around Cork city. It was always the same story, “sorry we don’t run these type of events, leave us an email.” It was looking near to impossible to get a foot over the line.

The remedy came in the form of a text message from one of my parents - “I’ve found you a venue and its right in the city!” Later that week I sat with the owners of the venue, laying out the bulletproof plan for our event and everything was a go. Fast forward to three weeks later and we have just put on an outstanding night to a sold out crowd. Incredible reviews were coming in, word was spreading and we were back on the map.

Our events got so popular that we were forced to relocate to a much larger venue - Neptune Stadium, our current location, which was said to be “an impossible venue to fill”. I was actually warned off even trying to sell an event by local promoters because the venue was supposedly much too large to sell.

Pictured below is our most recent event at the Stadium, sold out to full capacity.

To put a long story short — I’ve been through hell and back in the event game, but something I have learned over the years is that people will always give you a second chance if you present the opportunity. Get over what happened, create a plan for the future and do everything in your will to execute.

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