How to Overcome the Biggest Venue and Event Management Challenges
The number of new venue and event management challenges is always growing and shifting. Depending on your industry and region, you could have your own unique challenges as well. But there are still a number of common venue and event management challenges you can prepare for now.
1. Staffing Shortages
During the coronavirus pandemic, many events departments had to shut down. In-person events around the world were universally on hold, leaving the events industry in a rough spot. As a result of these shutdowns, it wasn’t uncommon for seasoned events specialists to retire early. This not only led to headcount shortages, but also resulted in a loss of irreplaceable knowledge in many organizations. Now that we’re a couple years removed from the pandemic, the event industry is still struggling with staff shortages. Overcoming this challenge: Staffing is a multifaceted issue, so there are multiple tactics you can apply.
- Work on improving your company culture and then promote it on your site and in job postings. This can have a dramatic impact on your ability to hire and retain employees, with 90% of professionals saying they research culture before accepting an offer.
- Cross-train your employees to ensure everyone in your events functions knows how to handle one another’s roles. This makes it easier to cover sick time, allows for more upward mobility and can help keep your team engaged.
- Leverage event and venue management software to streamline processes. With fewer hands and more work, minimizing inefficiencies is key. The right software can break down siloes, increase margins and reduce time spent on common event management tasks.
2. Software Demands
No matter what industry you’re in, software needs to handle more than before — deeper insights on event performance, ways to track utilization on rooms, tools for driving engagement, cross-departmental communication tools and more. Insufficient staffing, tighter budgets and increasing event complexity are also driving a universal need for better event and venue management software. Much like dated manual processes of yesteryear, a lot of software options out there are also getting outpaced by the speed of growth in events. Overcoming this challenge: The right event and venue management software makes all the difference. There are some vendors that are tailored to fit a specific industry or handle only a small portion of event management.
While finding the right venue management software is an in-depth process, there are a few quick tips to keep in mind:
- Don’t piecemeal your solution. Find a platform that streamlines all the event processes you’re struggling with.
- Look for a vendor with experience in your industry or niche, as this can help them provide better support and a tailored product.
- Run a credibility check and see if the vendor has positive reviews and a strong reputation.
3. Sustainability
Over the past decades, sustainability has become an increasing focus for many industries. Electric vehicles are taking off in the automotive industry, manufacturing businesses are utilizing solar and so on. Events are an area where companies are looking to become more sustainable too. Delivering sustainable events is easier said than done. Event planners typically aren't prepared to formally launch sustainability initiatives, let alone how to measure progress and deliver consistent results. Overcoming this challenge: There’s no getting around the complexity of events and the number of areas where sustainability-minded decisions can have an impact. However, there are steps you can take to start delivering more sustainable events this year and beyond.
- Develop a plan to break down sustainability efforts into categories so you can more easily focus your efforts and tracking.
- Don’t neglect the role of Corporate Social Responsibility and DEI efforts in sustainability.
- Audit your own internal processes and departments to make positive changes that better life for your employees. This can deliver a more engaging experience for employees and help your organization’s reputation as a responsible employer.
- Leverage sustainability software to streamline your tracking efforts and deliver tangible results that show your audience your commitment.
4. Risk and Incident Management
There is a growing focus on mitigating risks and safety concerns when it comes to large events. Every person that attends one of your events is trusting you to keep them safe. And whether you’re hosting in-person events, hybrid or strictly virtual, your attendees are trusting you to keep their data safe the moment they book or register for your event. Overcoming this challenge: Risk and incident management for events is a nuanced issue requiring a multi-faceted approach.
5. Complexity
Several factors have lead to increasingly complex roles for event specialists. As noted earlier, vacancies in event departments have led to current staffing carrying more burden. As events grow in complexity and size, the work needed to make them happen has increased and placed more on the plates of event specialists. tighter budgets make it more important to do more with less. This translates to more focus on analytics and reporting, which often falls on those in events department. Overcoming this challenge: Much like other challenges facing events, the methods used to help tackle increasingly-complex event roles also help with other matters.
- Cross-training employees will help improve operational efficiency and increase team collaboration. And as employees discover better ways to handle certain processes, they can share this knowledge and make everyone’s lives easier.
- Venue and event management software will also help with more complex roles. With the right platform, you can reduce the time your team spends on various tasks, foster communication between departments and ultimately streamline events as a whole.
