We have an event coming up with 650 guests, two ballrooms seven floors apart, and two elevators that hold eight people each. Cocktails are upstairs. Dinner and the fundraiser are downstairs. Then everyone goes back upstairs for the after-party, because the dinner ballroom will be wall-to-wall tables, and we need somewhere to dance.
The trip after dinner is the one I keep thinking about. People will walk out of the ballroom and see the exit in front of them. We’re asking them to choose an elevator queue instead.
When you describe it that way, the obvious question is why we’d do this to ourselves. But these are the kinds of challenges you encounter when you’re producing an event, and part of the job is figuring out how to judo them into something that makes the experience better and more memorable. The awkward thing in the plan might give you something worth building around.
We’re still working through this one with the client, so the possibilities below are very much in development.
How do you know whether a venue’s logistics will actually work?
You need a realistic range before you can decide what to do. Otherwise, you’re making creative plans around a guess about how much time people will spend waiting. We may lose people on that return trip. We should be honest about that possibility while we work to give them reasons to stay.
Our instinct when we see an issue like this is to go straight toward it. None of us wants the elevators to be a problem. Pretending they’ll work themselves out won’t help the client.
We raised it early and devoted several pages of our presentation to the implications and possible approaches. It doesn’t have to be a deal breaker, but it does need attention while we still have choices.
Denise, an executive producer we’re working with, made a point that belongs at the beginning of this conversation: do the actual math. How many people can move at once? How long is a ride? Include the footsteps to and from the elevator. Work out what the timing looks like at maximum efficiency, then account for it operating less efficiently.
Can you change the plan instead of solving the problem?
The first thing we asked was whether we could eliminate an elevator ride. Cocktails upstairs, dinner downstairs, dancing upstairs: we can revisit those assignments. Changing where we begin, or what the dinner room can become, might save us a trip and give us something interesting to produce in its place.
Could we change where something happens? Start downstairs? Keep people in one room for more of the evening?
The dinner ballroom is full of tables, which is why the dancing is planned for upstairs. But could we flip that room with the guests still in it? Could the change be orchestrated, even theatrical, so that watching the room transform becomes part of the show?
I don’t know yet whether that’s workable here. It’s worth asking before we commit all our energy to moving people between the spaces.
Own the bus
For the friction that remains, we can look at everything available to make it good.
Think about the bus from a hotel to an off-site party. Most of the attention goes toward getting people onto it and over to the venue. That’s essential. You want someone to walk out, get aboard, and leave without sitting there forever wondering when you’re going.
But what happens on the bus? Can you play music? Use lighting? Make it feel like an environment that belongs to the evening? You’ve chosen a great party venue across town, and now you have a group of people traveling there together. There’s an experience available in that time if you take responsibility for creating it.
The elevator presents a smaller version of that opportunity. We could give people something to look at, something to engage with, a glass of champagne for the ride. We’re also considering how the invitation to move could work. Calling everyone at once creates a rush. Bringing people down in smaller groups could let an ambassador approach them personally, invite them along, and talk about the mission behind the event.
An ambassador could also make the ride part of a story. What if you met someone on the way up who gave you a reason to look forward to seeing them again? Could they begin a story that continues on the return? What about having someone sponsor the ride: for every person who rides back up to the party after, a sponsor will donate $XX up to $10K.
We’re exploring ideas like that, along with responsive and directional lighting that could make arriving in the next space feel like crossing a threshold.
These interruptions also give us places to think about the event in acts. The movement affects where the beats belong and when people feel they’ve actually entered the experience. We can work with that progression as we design the evening.
How do you earn an audience’s willingness to move?
When that works, moving around can feel like exploration. The audience starts to experience the changes of place as discovery, and the progression becomes part of what they enjoy and remember. You earn their optimism by giving them experiences that justify it.
Of course, you have to deliver on what you’re inviting people into. If we’re asking guests to take extra steps, we need to make those steps feel worthwhile.
An ambassador teasing a return trip gives us something to live up to. So does a room entrance designed to feel like the beginning of the next act. We need to deliver when people get there, and be good enough throughout the evening that they want to find out what comes next.
It Comes Down to the Audience
I’m curious to see how our audience responds, because there’s also something they bring that we can’t settle in a production meeting. Their expectations, their investment in the event, their willingness to participate, and the enthusiasm they bring to being together will all matter.
An event with a culture of joining in gives you something to work with. It’s much harder when people arrive expecting to be entertained without putting any energy into the evening themselves.
We can do the math, rethink the plan, and put care into every part of the trip. We’ll find out that night whether the people coming out of dinner are ready for another adventure.