I Am An Event Professional
I am an event professional. I previously called myself an event manager, event coordinator, event planner, and event producer, but I now opt for event professional because that is what I am — a professional working on events. I use this title with great pride. Some people may do this line of work as a means to an end, but I am in it for the long haul, and I’m here to tell you why.
My journey may be like the one you want to take, or perhaps you’ve been on a similar journey and would be happy to know you aren’t alone. I never formally studied event management nor hospitality nor project management. The closest I got to this line of work in university was a business management minor while majoring in…biology. Wild, right? So, how did I get here?
After an entry-level event hospitality job in London for the 2012 Olympics, I went to work in China for someone who I met while in a pub of all places. He, a pharmaceutical company owner, was looking to hire someone young and adventurous who didn’t mind working abroad. After beginning my pharmaceutical job in Shanghai, utilizing my science degree, and working on varying projects from organizational change to product development projects, I worked on my PMP certification (Project Management Professional). I found myself, though, loving going to work when I was helping the Internal Operations department plan our many events — exhibitions, conferences, seminars, annual galas, and even team building. Each year, I took more of a lead on each event, managing the budget and timeline, and I finally switched jobs, careers even, to work full-time with an agency we had previously hired for a gala execution. Everyone thought I was having a crisis. Who switches from the pharmaceutical industry to the event industry? I heard all of these questions — What is that? Do you plan birthday parties? How can you make money doing that? Why are you wasting your degree? Why did you leave a stable job with excellent benefits? What do you really do?
Four years after moving full-time to the event industry, I still do not regret my decision. It is stressful at times but the most rewarding work I’ve done (more on that later). Since the change, I’ve studied for and obtained a Master’s degree in Operations Management, renewed my Project Management Professional certification, and planned and/or worked on more than 75 events for over 10 sectors. Working in this industry, you can continue to challenge yourself and elevate your ambitions and quality of work. I am honored when I tell people what I do, and the beauty of this industry is that it changes each day.
So what is it like being an event professional? What if you can be someone new everyday? What if you can change your job each week? What if you can pick up transferable skills, be a part of a special community, and not only know you worked hard but also experience the end result? I can, and you can, too because, in a nutshell, this is the event industry. Sometimes I ask myself, though, does the event industry exist or are we, as professionals, simply purveyors of experiences moving between so many different industries? It’s up to you, really, how you answer that, but I often consider myself a member of multiple industries especially because of reason #1…
1 Flexibility — Do you feel like you have too may interests? I do, and I always have loved “too” many things whether it is painting and working with color and ideas, decorating my home, playing a sport, watching fashion shows, learning about science, making to-do lists, organizing “stuff”, investing, and traveling. Being an event professional grants you flexibility to work in different industries — sports, fashion, healthcare, media, film, education, real estate, technology, food and beverage, consumer goods, and weddings. Being an event professional grants you flexibility to work alone and in a team, dependent on the current task and your working status as a freelancer or full-time employee.
Being an event professional grants you flexibility to work within different concentrations for each event whether it be transportation, creative direction, logistics, human resources and leadership, project management, finance, audio visual, production, and entertainment, and more. You can be an assistant on one event or the leader on another. Being an event professional grants you flexibility to control your own schedule if you opt for the freelancer route, working long 12-15 hour days hard during peak spring and autumn seasons while taking it easy in other times of the year.
2Community — You belong to a community when you enter this industry and build a network with vendors, organizers, agencies, and helpers. You start to recognize people at different events. You find out how small this industry really is. Working long hours and/or late into the night, laughing, and crying with your team builds the team itself better than anything else. That’s why community is a major word I use when describing what I do.
It wasn’t until I moved into this industry that I started meeting a lot of people — venue owners, hotel managers, security protection teams, builders, musicians, artists, photographers, writers, and more. I found myself saying, “I have someone who can do that”. Tight budget but need good quality production? I have someone who can do that. Event in another country and need someone bilingual? I have someone who can do that. Required to have 1,000 canvas tote bags with a logo on them? I have someone who can do that. Besides meeting the vendors, I made new friends with whom I shared a hotel room over a two week event, new friends with whom I worked with until the middle of the night, new friends with whom I met onsite in the production office while we ate pizza, and new friends with whom I helped move boxes.
I am a firm believer that if you make genuine connections with other event professionals, doors will open to opportunities from referrals, manageable costs, and good memories, to name a few. You build your network, and if you reward yours, it will reward you in turn.
3Reward — How rewarding is it being in this industry? Events have been around for millennia — kings’ and queens’ coronations, graduations, world championships, high school football championships, world exhibitions, global leadership summits, and more. Our greatest memories, after all, are not that time we bought something, it is most likely an event whether it is on a grand scale, such as the Olympics, or a baby shower for new parents. And who exactly planned and managed all of those? Someone did. We, the event professionals, did. Providing memorable experiences is a massive reward.
The 21st century, and especially the last decade, has seen a massive shift in consumerism to experiences. Experiential marketing exists for a reason. As more and more people focus on experiences rather than things, we cling to our phones and scroll through Instagram, full of stunning photos carefully curated by experiential marketers. We either see what we have missed or reminisce about what we experienced. Event professionals understand this well. It is not only the need to impress people with a good experience in the moment but also to impress those that aren’t there with stunning visuals distributed to the masses. We can say that we provided something special and saw the end result, and that is very rewarding.
(And yes, there are perks as well — backstage access, behind the scenes information, meeting interesting people, eating the leftover food, working in nice hotels, and taking home the extra good bags to name a few.)
4 Skills — If you want to grow and expand your skills, this is the perfect industry. Event professionals nurture transferable skills and gain new knowledge everyday. We stand by on the side of a stage and watch a lighting and sound director do their thing. We hear the graphic designer explaining how certain colors evoke different emotions and why others show poorly in photographs. With experience, you see what registration method is most efficient or call a show and learn a new event technology. You are exposed to event technology in lighting, sound, visuals, audience engagement apps, and registration software.
This is a good industry for those looking to change careers or for entry-level event professionals to gain experience, and grow your skills. Servers in a restaurant can serve at a banquet and eventually become a Banquet Manager in a 5-star hotel. A customer service representative can get a side-job managing registration at a small conference. A former athlete can study sports management and become a volleyball tournament director — people in my network have done exactly that.
Eventually, everyone can find a niche that suits their skills the most whether it’s working with numbers, talking to people, creating proposals, designing graphics, or calling a show. For me, it’s overall project management and event hospitality programs because I like lists, numbers, and talking to people (I like to say I embody Southern Hospitality). And later, if you choose to, I believe it is easy to transfer these skills to another industry because we are constantly learning, constantly sharing knowledge with others. This industry allows you to see your own potential.
5 Respect — This is a respectful profession whether others know it yet or not. For all of us who have chosen this line of work, it is time to demand the respect we deserve because we already respect each other. We work with a lot of money, tight timelines, BIG brand names, VIPs, significant life moments, quality and safety assurance, and more. We problem solve, we stay up late, we stretch the boundaries of our creativity, we create an atmosphere to stimulate our senses. We are multi-skilled people.
Certified project managers in the event industry are gaining more and more recognition. A Project Management Professional certification, to name one of several, was once a certification for those working in IT, healthcare, engineering, and R&D. When I tell people that I am a PMP, some look at me and ask what that is. They ask about the meaning of the initials behind my name. Those questions are dwindling, I’ve noticed, over the last couple of years. In fact, I’ve encouraged other event professionals to also work towards a certification.
I also get asked why I chose an Operations Management Masters degree. I like to call Operations Management the science of business. Technically, I can work in engineering because of it, but I like to apply this science to the creative industry — my post-graduate studies taught me about human resource management, safety, quality assurance, leadership, decision making, creating layouts, efficiency, determining cost, completing financial reports, finding the critical path in the timeline, and more. Do all of those things apply to managing an event? Yes, they do. It’s why I respect people in this industry.
Now you know why I am proud to be an event professional. It’s the overall reward, the skills, the community, the respect, and the flexibility. Last month, I was a finance manager working on a million dollar event budget and itemizing it to include labor, materials, time, and more. Last week, I was a creative director, creating a proposal both visually and intellectually interesting. Yesterday, I was a human resources manager, training a group of other freelancers and volunteers for an upcoming event. Today, I am an accountant, creating invoices and making sure money is paid out to suppliers.
Tomorrow, I can be someone else in a different industry, because I am event professional.
Laura Yarbrough is an American event management and event hospitality professional and a certified Project Management Professional who loves travel, art, golf, fitness, and drinking bottomless cups of coffee and Red Bull. After a year in Peru, another in Connecticut, and seven years in China, she continues to work on international sports, corporate, media, luxury, and private events in the U.S., U.K, and China while splitting her time between her Leeds, U.K. and Arkansas homes. She is a sports, travel, and fashion enthusiast and just recently started writing a novel based on her travels and the friendly faces she has met along the way. Connect with Laura on LinkedIn and discover more about her work, Laura Yarbrough Events. Follow her on Instagram via laurayarbrough_events.
