Musings of an Event Designer...

All right, you have an event coming up. You have your bases covered: Venue (check). Food and beverage (check). The invitations will hit the printer (or the inbox) next week. The phone calls to entertainment are in. Production companies are responding to the RFP. All that is left to do is figure out the details of design: the flowers, linens, and those crazy centerpieces your budget has you doing yourself. But what are you going to do? Pick a theme? Arabian Nights? Tropical Island? VEGAS (baby!)? Something generic but colorful? That trendy lounge furniture you saw in the industry magazine spread or at the last industry association event?

STOP! You have already gone too far, too fast and are about to cross the line near dangerous ground of bad event design.

Now I don’t mean bad design in that it will look bad or not work out or that the theme you choose won’t leave your guests with a general good feeling. But this column is about event design, and while I have the ability to voice my opinion out loud, I feel an obligation to share my vivid passion about the transformative power of great events that are the result of thoughtful and strategic decisions.

Great event design is not pricey, but purposeful. It is planned. It is strategized from the very beginning. It is not about picking this theme or that or jumping on the latest trend be it LED or lounge – both of which are established and old news.

How does one strategize event design? By asking the relevant and important questions necessary for successful event production. The movement of marketing is to the message and events must follow suit, coming to understand the significance of purpose, of place and audience. Design is the articulation of purpose; it is, at its best, a cohesive experience of each element of the event working in tandem and performing in harmony. Great event design requires the designer to understand the function of the event and expectations of its guests. It incorporates the message of the event to communicate with event guests. It understands its purpose and uses that guideline to create and innovate, to surprise and delight.

Welcome to Las Vegas

Ok, I will admit it: I am a Vegas virgin. So this trip for the 2009 Event Solutions/Catersource Conference will be my first adventure in the glistening city of big bright lights. It strikes me as funny that Vegas is one of those places you feel you inherently know, even without being there, thanks to a multitude of television shows an movies shot on location. The Bellagio fountains, the Casino floor, the Luxor hotel: all somewhat "iconic" images in my mind I should be sure to recognize right? The question becomes will the illusion of television be as good as the illusion of reality.

Off the plane at 11:04 PM and what is the first thing I see: slot machines. The wait for bags in the airport is an exercise in realizing just how BIG this place wants you to think that it is. Billboards tout top talent (or those who were once talent, but now have a show in Vegas). Jumbo trons blast entertainment options. And yet, there is something dated about these advertisements, there style and deliver hint at an inauthenticity. But what in Vegas is authentic, other than perhaps your experience of it. Is the city anything more than a vehicle to create whatever you want in? Just don't look behind the curtain?

My cabbie takes me on a ride (which how 10 minutes cost me $35...) on the highway past the strip. And there it is: the bright lights, the beaming building screaming for my attention. Despite their enormity, they look smaller than I had hoped. But more so, there is a lacking vibrancy to this place. Maybe it is the lack of business in this economy at this moment - but the lights, the signs, the buildings themselves seem of a decade ago. Plaster casts trying to be exactly what they are not: real.

So now I wait for a burger which should arrive by 1:00 AM I am promised. The walls of my room are paper thin, cause I can hear the conversations clearly of my neighbors next door. The Las Vegas Hilton in my first impression lacks a luster I was hoping for. Again, for the third time tonight my environment feels dated. Only two hours here and I feel disillusioned already. Like my last trip to Disney World, when I hoped on the "It's a Small World" ride. Then again there was something nostalgic about that ride. And Vegas feels nostalgic too. But can something be nostalgic the first time around?