Plan Your Meetings

Event planning: Promising? Yes. Glamorous? No.

“Glamorous.” “Exciting.” A great job for the “young and the restless.” “A paid vacation.” If this sounds like the event planning industry to you, you must have been reading the rash of articles appearing in Glamour, Yahoo! and CNN/Money.com lately. But, those on the inside beg to differ: Event planning can be exciting, but it’s not always glamorous, and it’s certainly no paid vacation.

Jo Angela Maniaci, owner and chief strategist of Special Events Planning LLC in Minneapolis/St. Paul, points out that meeting planners spend long hours on their feet dealing with heavy lifting, soothing cranky sponsors and serving as a walking information center for attendees. She also notes that planners frequently work more than 40 hours per week, have to stay within strict budgets and handle risk management issues. “I once told someone that even though it may look like I’ve gained weight doing conference planning, it’s only because my skin has gotten a lot thicker dealing with all the back-seat drivers and complainers,” Maniaci said.

Whenever people refer to her job as glamorous, Angela Caraway, president of The Caraway Management Group Inc., says, “I laugh and smile … and then say ‘let’s switch jobs.’”

So, where does this glamorous image of event planning come from? Perhaps it stems from how planners are treated by industry suppliers. As a young hotel clerk, Caraway remembers a customer to whom the staff catered. “I often wondered what it was about this woman that had the hotel taking care of her every need,” Caraway said. “So, one day I inquired. She told me she was a meeting planner, and I was intrigued.”

“When I first got started in the industry, the perks were — and sometimes still are —feeling like a queen when I checked into the hotel,” she continues. “I thought, ‘This must be how the woman who introduced me to the industry must have felt.’ It’s fun to travel when all your planning goes the way it is [supposed to]. But, the moment something happens, it’s not as glamorous as you would like.”

Cheryl Heiks, director of communication and events for Lluminari, added, “Traveling occasionally is fun, but the glamour quickly wears off when you spend too much time in airports, lugging bags and boxes for events, and miss time at home with your family and friends.”

The fact that the career is forecasted to have a bright future in this uncertain economy also may be a reason for the rosy picture presented by the media. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the meetings and convention industry is expected to grow by 20 percent in the next eight years. Glamour magazine ranked “Event Planner” as one of its Top-10 Best Careers for the next decade.

Some college graduates hear “event planner” and think that means they only have to throw great parties. Obviously, that’s not the case. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics warns young professionals that convention planning can be a stressful, fast-paced job with long, irregular hours and a lot of physical work. “I tell people all the time that just because you planned a great backyard event doesn’t mean you are a great event planner,” Caraway said. “If you do not like changes on a whim, you will not make it in this industry.”

So, what advice does Caraway have for those determined to become a meeting professional? “Keep a great sense of humor and always have fun with whatever you are doing.”