Have you ever watched that show Scandal? If you have you know all about Olivia Pope and her Gladiators.
If you haven’t – basically (minus some more salacious content) let’s just say she fixes stuff. In a BIG way. One of our favorite jobs as event planners – the one that makes most of the populations skin crawl – is finding solutions to insane requests. At EOE we make a game out of it. It’s almost more fun than it should be, and Nashville was no exception.
Event planning 101 will teach you that every well-organized event should include a run sheet that outlines what should be happening during each minute of the event. Whether a speech should run from 9:01-9:23pm, or food should be put out from 7:35-7:46pm, every second should be accounted for in order to remain organized.
In addition to the run sheets for an event, we keep tabs on our own “behind the scenes” run sheet as the craziest of moments go down. You may remember our version of this for our Nestle Waters event, and we’re back to let you in on the behind the scenes of our Nashville event!
Day 1: Travel Day
12:02pm: Repackage 72 vinyl records using paper towels. Yes, we carried these onto the plane to get them to Nashville safely. And yes, that bag was not the easiest to get up in the overhead bin.
8:47pm: Arrival in Nashville. Cindy tells rental car staff she ordered the Maserati. This lasted for an entertaining total of 5 seconds.
9:14pm: Cindy and Em decide to do a quick drive by of the venue since they had never actually seen it in person. SO MUCH TRAFFIC in Nashville due to a Blake Shelton concert (classic) that Cindy drops Emily off to secret spy on the location. Success. We’ve mastered the art of booking venue’s without ever seeing them. Now where is Cindy? Fast forward 15 minutes where Emily walks all over Nashville looking for the rental car and Cindy Kapp.
9:45pm: Bedtime. Big Day of prepping tomorrow!
Day 2: Prep Day
8:00am: Up and at ‘em! Time to meet with our hotel representative to ensure room drops and all accommodations are ready to roll.
9:01am: Time to gather 61 packages that were shipped to the hotel. Perfumes, Lotions, Cosmetics, Popcorn bag carrying trays, signature trench coats, you name it, the client sent it.
9:02am: Trying not to faint in the presence of so many amazing products from Burberry, Hermes, Ferragamo, and more. (enter praise emoji here)
9:30am: Starbucks run. Shocker.
11:17am: Cindy and Em begin assembling our attendee’s welcome cosmetic boxes! Special touches are what we’re all about. Each attendee deserves a perfectly assembled surprise for their arrival.
12:45pm: Em continues tying black bows on each and every special lunch menu. Cindy continues on the cosmetic boxes because, despite being a former cheerleader, bows are not her strong suit.
2:55pm: Realize there is no way we are going to get all this stuff from the hotel to the venue a mile away. Hello Mr. Mover Company? Please help.
Day 3: Event Day #1
8:00am: Setup day. Let’s get those movers and let’s get over to the venue.
The whole day consists of lots of moving, maneuvering, setting up, and stair climbing. By 5pm it’s time to get back to the hotel and get these party people on a bus.
5:30pm: Attempt to corral 60 people onto two different busses.
6:28pm: Emily works the crowd and chats with each team captain to find out what live karaoke song their group is performing (more on that later). Emily learns people are bringing smoke machines and confetti – all strictly prohibited in our venue. Emily then makes a joke out of it and asks the President of BPI North America if he has any live animals as part of this teams performance. Emily realizes she made a poor life choice. President starts to text her about getting live Elephants. This goes on for the rest of the evening.
10:07pm: Emily and Cindy pose in front of famous Nashville sign. Cindy attempts to pose Emily. Cindy fails.
Day 4: Event Day #2
7am: Event day is off with a bang – the party has begun.
12:07pm: Cindy runs to Toys ‘R’ Us to purchase an inflatable Alligator, Whole Foods to pick up medicine for a guest, and the fancy gift shop in the Omni Hotel for award prizes. All spur of the moment requests for our client are what we are hired to handle – and we must admit, we thrive off last minute challenges!
1:34pm: Time for caterers to pass out popcorn in the not-so-sturdy customized Burberry Bags, a few fall over in the kitchen, but no problem, we already made extra. Remember, Plan A is a luxury and a myth and we’re always ready for Plan B.
7:09pm: One karaoke team requests fake handcuffs and fake guns only 1 hour before karaoke is set to begin. Challenge accepted. Luckily, we were located in cowboy-boot-honky-tonk USA, but these items were harder to find than expected! After running down Broadway, Cindy eventually found them. Again with the last minute challenges.
8:10pm: Karaoke begins and the guests are having an absolute blast. High Fives all around.
And those are our highlights of behind the scenes craziness! Want an event where you can delegate the crazy? That’s what we do. Say Hi! RSVP@eastofellie.com