Calm, Capable and Ready When It Matters – Event Industry NewsEvent Industry News
Live events are high-pressure environments.
That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s part of what makes the industry exciting. There’s a fixed start time, an audience waiting, speakers arriving, content changing and dozens of different suppliers all working towards the same moment.
But it does mean the people you surround yourself with matter enormously.
At Present Communications, that’s something we take very seriously.
We can provide the cameras, microphones, screens, lighting, connectivity and broadcast infrastructure, but ultimately all of that equipment is only as good as the people operating it.
And when you’re delivering something live, you need people who are technically excellent, who understand their role, who can think clearly and, importantly, who stay calm.
Calm is part of being competent
I think there’s sometimes an assumption that being calm means nothing particularly difficult is happening.
Usually it’s the opposite.
A good production team can have a lot going on behind the scenes without transferring any of that pressure to the client.
That matters.
The event organiser has enough to think about already. They’ve got delegates arriving, speakers to look after, sponsors, timings, catering, content and probably a senior stakeholder asking a question at exactly the wrong moment.
They shouldn’t also need to worry about whether the microphones are going to work or whether the livestream is healthy.
Our job is to take responsibility for that.
If something needs dealing with, we deal with it.
If a decision needs making, the right person makes it.
If the event changes, we adapt.
And ideally the client barely notices.
The team matters more than the equipment
I love technology. We spend a lot of money on good equipment and we’re constantly looking at new ways of doing things.
But I’d take an excellent technician with familiar, proven equipment over somebody inexperienced with the newest piece of kit every time.
Experience gives people judgement.
They know what actually matters.
They recognise when something needs attention and when it doesn’t.
They know how to communicate with a nervous presenter five minutes before they walk on stage.
They know when to speak up and when to quietly get on with the job.
And they understand that, particularly at a corporate event, technical competence is only part of the service.
The crew are representing us in front of the client. They need to be professional, approachable and pleasant to work with.
Nobody wants brilliant technology delivered by people who make the day harder.
Preparation creates confidence
Being calm on site isn’t about hoping everything goes well.
Understanding the brief properly.
Knowing the venue.
Planning the system.
Testing the equipment.
Briefing the team.
Making sure everybody understands what they’re responsible for.
Thinking about the audience in the room, the people joining remotely and what the client is actually trying to achieve.
We describe our approach at Present as reliable, resilient and trusted, and for me those three things are closely connected.
Reliable means the system does what it’s supposed to do.
Resilient means it has been designed properly for the importance of the event.
Trusted means the client knows they don’t need to spend their day checking either of those things.
That trust is earned over time.
Good suppliers make the organiser’s job easier
The best supplier relationships become very simple.
The organiser explains what they’re trying to achieve.
We take ownership of our part of it.
Of course there are conversations, questions and decisions along the way. Collaboration is important.
But ultimately our job is to remove work from the organiser rather than create more of it.
I think that’s particularly important as events become more technically complicated.
A relatively traditional conference might now include an audience in the room, remote presenters, livestreaming, live captions, simultaneous interpretation, recorded content, social media outputs and resilient internet connectivity.
The organiser shouldn’t have to become an expert in all of those things.
That’s why they have us.
Getting the job done
The title “Superhero Suppliers” makes me smile slightly because the best production teams rarely look particularly heroic.
There shouldn’t be people running around backstage dramatically saving the event every five minutes.
Usually good production looks remarkably uneventful.
People know what they’re doing.
The technology works.
The team communicates.
The client feels looked after.
The speakers feel comfortable.
And the audience gets to concentrate on the content rather than the production behind it.
There may have been a huge amount of expertise, preparation and decision-making involved in creating that experience.
But the end result should feel simple.
For me, that’s what getting the job done really means.
Not creating drama.
Not showing everyone how clever the technology is.
Just having a highly capable team, delivering excellent work, staying calm when the pressure is on and giving the organiser the confidence to concentrate on their event.
That’s the standard we try to deliver every time
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