Logistics in Event Planning and Management

1. Introduction

Nowadays, events are very popular and occasionally happen very often around us as the people emphasize on the leisure activities, public events, celebration, education and entertainment and also marketing strategy and business purpose such as trade fair, produce lounge and promotion. The community groups and individuals are interested by the events for their own interest and business. Event can be defined as participation of the group of people to enjoy or attend for corporate goals or individual benefits.

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2. Event Planning

Event planning focus on the planning process of a specific event such as conference, Christmas function, fashion show, wedding or antique fair, to achieve it targeted objective and goal. The tasks of the event planner include choosing a venue and destination for the event, creating event design and layout, researches, arranging the food and beverage, decoration, and also entertainment. Coordination with the event personal and supervising the whole project are also the part of the role of the planner. The elements of the planning process include objectives, planning, organization, implement and divestment. Event planning deals with a lot of organization and community and the event managers who can handle the pressure and work hard have to communicate with them for the effective planning. Actually event planning is time consuming and a lot of works. Event management is made up of a number of management areas including planning, leading, marketing design, control and budgeting, risk management, logistics, staging and evaluation (Bowdin, Allen, O’Toole, Harris, McDonnell, 2008).The project management is very vital to an event as it is the purpose of creating the unique event. It is not only about how to develop the event but also the impacts of the event have to be recognized for recent issue and future. The impacts of/ to event have to be take into account. Social, cultural, political, economic, and logistic and environmental issues are the part of the impacts.

An event focus on a specific purpose and it has own mission, objectives, policies, and structure to achieve effectiveness and success. A special event such as wedding or other significant occasion held once in a life time and it should be perfect for the best memory. In every event a clear statement of purpose, vision and mission should be provided. The organizing and planning of the event should be control by quality management such as procedure and system. Creativity, innovative and challenge should be summed, so that the reputation and image of the event planning of the company would be positively effect and in the future, the more opportunity will come over.

2.1 Analysis of events planning

The experiences of the event are very important to guests, hosts and even to the public. After developing the idea how to create the concept of the event, analysis of the event planning should be take place to understand how this event meant to the people and how to get the positive perception from them. Now the guest’s experiences and every single detail have to be considered because those single pieces impact the event positively or negatively. First of all operation should strongly focus on the service which is very important to the people.

3. Operational Management

The main target of every event project approach to be qualified operated within the targeted budget, handling the product to the organizer or hostess and at the same time getting the customer satisfaction and getting good reputation. Once the event is start, if any mistake which can harm to the company’s business, won’t have a chance to redo it. The stages of event operational management include analysis stage, detailed planning, implementation and delivery and performance evaluation (Tum, Norton and Wright, 2006). The review analysis from the previous event and performance evaluation help the internal and external analysis according to set the mission statement, so that the operational manager can perform the planning process. In the context of an event involves decision making concerning with the type of event, destination, location, venue, timing and programs that will make the unique or special event. An organizational structure will be created after following the decision to proceed, through the delivering event. The structure can be varied according to the different event life cycle progresses and supported elements to the organizational structure are staffs, workforce, culture and ethical issues.

Financial management is also the part of the operation and it includes budgeting, costing, pricing, accounting and also the cash flow management.

Information management- information acquisition, distribution and control,
Time management- activity architecture, schedule development and schedule control.
Stake holder managementt: client and constituency relations,

3.1 Space Management

3.2 Logistic Management

Logistic is part of the process of event planning and it involve the detail organizing of goods, equipments and people and deliver the output to the customer which meet the customer perception and satisfaction. It can simply say the involvement of communication, flow and supply (Bowdin, Allen, O’Toole, Harris, McDonnell, 2008).

Timing is very vital to the event as it has the specific plan and program during the event, so that the operation of the staff should be under control by the banquet manager. For example the staffs need to know when to present the food and when to clean up. The operational manager should take the responsibility to make sure that the timing of clean up and tear down should be done in timely manner. The cooperation of banquet manager and event planner should work together for effectiveness of timing.
There are some points that should consider setting an event staff’s schedule. For example, staff scheduling is not only assigning the staffs the work to be done, but also increasing the efficiency at lower human resource cost. The usage of staff and time slot also has to be balanced, so that the manpower will not be waste and it manages cost effective.

4. Risk Management

The issues of the risk management is very priority to a event and the event manager have to be aware of nature of risk and risk factors that can affect to a specific event prior to make the many decisions. To be managed a unique event; the manager should have the knowledge and understanding of risks very first moment of event organizing. For example, when brainstorming the event design, risk is very considerable to avoid the potential negative outcome and image of the hotel or company. Actually the risk management is under process when the project is start, design and organized. Risk can be the positive or negative outcomes that may associate with people, property, finances, systems, environments and image.

Risk management is the purposeful recognition of and reaction to uncertainties with the explicit objective to minimize liabilities and maximizing opportunities using a structured approach and common sense rather than avoiding the issue. The goal of risk management include the protection of assets, to minimize legal and financial liabilities, to control potential loss property manage growth and to operate responsibly.

The focus area of risk management includes legal and ethical responsibilities, health and safety loss prevention, emergency preparedness and good decision making.

Eg. risk

• Injury or death
• Property loss or damage
• Reduced revenue, capacity or capability
• Resource availability
• Increased demand
• Loss of goodwill or reputation

The company conference is the assembly of people of the purpose of exchanging information debate or discussion, consensus or decision. The risk factors of company conference might include the people property, or propriety information that must be protected.

Proper contracting with hotels and other suppliers to achieve an acceptable balance of protection and risk for both the hosting organization and the service provider.
Antique fair – theft o the products on display and the display equipment.

Christmas function

Social and life style event such as wedding reception – the most common risk are related to the inexperience of the organizer, often unaware of the scope of responsibilities associated with event management and or under pressure from a client with unrealistic demands.

Fashion show – un lunerable to financial instability and non- professional management. The emphasis on getting consumer attention can sometimes lead to potentially dangerous activities or tactics.

Nature of risk and risk actors are varied event to event and there is no risk free event. It has to be manage in order to achieve the ibjective of the event and the goal of the risk management.
(Silvers, 2008)

5. Health and Safety Management

Event operation staffs should be well train to perform perfectly and follow the SOP of the hotel with safety awareness. Some staffs can work very first to set up the table and room but they sometime ignore the things which can occur the hazards. For example a staff drops a glass and breaks are not clean effectively clean, it can harm to the guest or the staffs which is bad image to the event. But to prevent this, observation to the set up before the event start is very essential to create the safety hazards.