Event Planning Tips

Unusual Events that Might Need a Planner

Event planning is always an exciting and diverse career, even though planners may find themselves organizing a pretty standard array of events. You will most commonly be hired for things like weddings, large business meetings, holiday parties, and celebrations for things like birthdays, engagements, or retirements. Every once in a while, however, you might get the opportunity to work on something a little out of the ordinary. Unusual events give you a chance to practice adapting your basic planning skills in order to accommodate unique circumstances and exciting people. Here are some unique events that planners might be lucky enough to encounter!

Fan conventions

If it exists in popular culture, there’s probably a fandom for it! Many fan culture groups organize events during which admirers of a particular TV show, musical artist, comic book, person, or thing can meet up, network, and enjoy their interests together. These conventions can range in size, from local parties for specific, little-known comic books, to huge weekend long national conventions for bigger trendy pop culture staples like The Walking Dead. The bigger the event, the greater the need for an event planner! It might not happen often, but you could find yourself organizing vendor booths and meet and greet spaces for thousands of people dressed like zombies, super heroes, or cartoon characters! Conventions like these will test your ability to adapt basic event elements to an unusual theme.

Pet birthday parties

Most event planners have organized birthday parties before, but not everyone gets the opportunity to plan one for a furry guest of honor! Pet birthday parties, at least to the scale that a planner is needed, probably aren’t the most common type you’ll be asked to do, but they’re not unheard of either. Particularly for high end clients in wealthier areas of town, planned parties for unconventional reasons are a more common occurrence. You might be asked to organize a park picnic for a dog whose owner refers to him as her baby, or a backyard celebration for a very elderly cat whose family want to show her a little extra love for a landmark age. You’ll be tasked with adjusting the features of a standard birthday party to fit your client’s unique needs. What about food options for guests of all species? Which types of animal friendly decorations could you feature? This is definitely an opportunity for fun twists on a classic party!

Divorce parties

Why not turn a negative experience into a reason to celebrate new beginnings? You’re much more likely to organize engagements or weddings, but divorce parties are hardly unheard of and are gaining popularity. Which types of uplifting party elements can you include to keep the mood celebratory? You’ll be challenged with choosing a venue, foods, and décor that set the kind of atmosphere your client is hoping for by throwing such a party. Make sure you know whether your client is aiming for fun and flirty, calm and friendly, or something else so you can help them make their unusual event successful.

Unconventional competitions or sporting events

Planners who get to organize an entire sporting event or tournament are already gathering unique experience and practicing different skills than usual. Those who are lucky enough to plan an event for a more unconventional sport, however, are in for a particularly interesting planning process. You’ll be catering the event, venue, and other elements to the activities taking place and the crowds attending, which might be a challenge depending on what the sport or competition is. Imagine how the planners had to adapt elements of conventional sporting events for things like the World Beard & Moustache Championships, the Canine Freestyle Dancing Championships, or the Shin Kicking competition at the Cotswold Olimpicks, a series of unusual sporting events held annually in England!

Unique local festivals

Festivals come in all shapes and sizes and are always fun to both organize and attend. There are some festivals, however, that are particularly unconventional! Planners hired to organize festivals will generally practice certain types of planning tactics, but for really unconventional topics of celebration, you might have to be prepared to adapt. What types of vendors and supplies might you need on hand if you were organizing the Avon Heritage Duct Tape Festival in Avon, Ohio? What services would you make sure to have available on site if you were hired to plan a festival like Nalukataq, an Alaskan festival where participants use a blanket to toss each other as high into the air as they can? Planning unconventional local festivals definitely parallels with the tactics you’d used to plan any summer fair or winter gala, but they also present a unique challenge, possibly unlike anything you’ve ever planned before!

Average events with unique themes

Sometimes even a traditional event, like a wedding, can be an exciting challenge if the clients have chosen an unusual theme. You could be tasked with planning a wedding that has all the elements of a regular ceremony and reception, but with customized features to fit their unique twist. Perhaps you’re planning a wedding for a bride who wants to be married underwater dressed as a mermaid? This ceremony will naturally require you to organize things a little differently than your traditional church wedding! Events like this let you practice your foundational planning skills, but also enable you to develop new skills and have fun trying new things while you work.

Prepare yourself well!

In order to be successful at organizing unconventional events, you’ll have to make sure that you master basic planning tactics first! The most skilled event planners are those who can organize a beautiful traditional event one day, and adapt the planning process to put together something exciting and unique the next! Either way, you’ll find yourself in a diverse industry that keeps things interesting.

If you’d like to learn more about the kinds of exciting events that planners might encounter, check out the different courses here at QC Event School!

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