Sunday, December 11, 2016

“So What if I Leave With Someone?”


Christmas parties. Or to be more precise, The Christmas Club/Association/Office Party.

Organising one of these when it’s not for your own family but a group of people that are thrown together because of being linked via work, hobbies or voluntary environments is not easy.

Not only have you got to find the right venue, theme and good quality food from suppliers who are not taking advantage of the Christmas ‘Good Cheer’ season, but you’ve then got to source the entertainment: music for a quick bop on the dance floor, possibly someone to say a few words, an entertainer to do a slot maybe? And then there’s the ‘Thanks to the audience’ slot. The customary part of giving back and letting your audience know what they mean to the host. A small part of the evening, but until recently, I didn’t fully appreciate just how much this could be a make or break.

While attending a Christmas Dinner as a guest, a local ‘Celeb’ was engaged by the club through their network, to pop along and hand out a few Awards to members of the audience. He’d been on the TV recently and a few of the female guests, a little intoxicated by the Christmas Spirit I suspect, were tripping over themselves to get the obligatory selfies with him.
All was going well.

The local ‘Celeb’ was enjoying the limelight and mixing well with the audience once the Awards were over. The Event Organiser let their hair down and joined in the boogie on the dance floor after first checking everyone all OK and doing the customary photo taking for the club album.

All running nicely like any other event.

Then, just as everything is going well, an argument broke out on the dance floor between one of the Event Team and a guest. Because I knew the Event Organiser and she knew my background, she called on me for assistance.

She told me that the local ‘Celeb’ had propositioned the guest to leave with him and go back to his place and could I help convince her not to go because she was married!

While I’m taking on-board the info, another guest interrupts to say that he’d suggested that she AND her friend leaves with him and what a slime bag he’s being to some other female friends of theirs. The Event Organisers response? ‘You can do what you want because you are single, she’s married and it’s not right for her to go – isn’t that right Cindy…..’

OK, going to a Christmas party and getting involved in someone else’s argument wasn’t my idea of a fun night off, but neither could I stand by and let someone ruin other people’s evening and event. That someone being the speaker!

You see, while the Event Organiser was concentrating on the morals of the problem, they’d forgotten the professional boundary line and if it had been crossed and by whom it had been crossed by. While we all want to protect our audience, you can’t police them. Unless they are doing something criminal or are about to physically hurt themselves; this means telling the 10 ladies who were trying to dance on the table to get off it, is perfectly acceptable. But telling them who they can or can’t leave with is their choice. Christmas Parties are notorious for it. However, the local ‘Celeb’ was engaged in a professional capacity to act on behalf, and as part of, the event and the team and therefore he should have been acting professionally while mixing with the audience and not ‘on the pull’ to coin a phrase.

The Event Organiser had missed this fact and once realised, felt she couldn’t approach him because of his local status and not wanting to upset him and the possible problems he could cause for her. So I did the deed.

Taking him to one side, pointing out that he is at the beginning of his career as a Speaker, there are certain professional rules and conduct and chatting up the audience while being engaged as a Speaker is a big no-no. I was rather surprised when he replied, ‘Why? So what if I leave with a lady? There’s nothing wrong with that!”

Ermmm Everything’s wrong with that!

Considering the recent allegations in the news about Celebs using their status to take advantage, this guy really thought it was OK to do the same. He couldn’t conceive of the possibility of someone waking up the next day and regretting anything or making allegations. All he considered was the ladies wanting selfies with him were really wanting to do more with him and was ‘up for a bit of fun’.

By this point, my polite, ‘let me give you some advice’ face turned into the ‘let me give you a dose of reality’ face. I think the penny dropped when I calmly pointed out that I wouldn’t trust you to mix with any of my audiences and wouldn’t be hiring him and because Event Organisers and Bureaus do talk to each other and share experiences, you are shooting yourself in the foot before you start because others won’t hire you for fearing the same’ seemed to be getting through. After all, bringing down any Event’s reputation and making unwanted sexual advances on audience members is many an Event Organisers nightmare. At this point, the realisation of his actions impacting his potential wallet earnings started to hit a home run as you could see his own self-importance look melt away on his face.

He ran back to his table as quickly as he could.

By this time, 3 other upset ladies had come forward telling the Event Organiser what had happened while the very drunken married lady was still trying to weigh up whether to leave with him or not.

Given the recent moments, you’d think the local ‘Celeb’ would make his excuses and leave.

Well, he didn’t.

Instead, he did what other newbies who believe their own publicity in his position would do: complained to the manager about someone telling him off.

Admittedly I did smile when I saw the manager making his way towards me and so decided to help him out of a tight spot…

You see, when newbie speakers in his position complain, they have worked out that they need to cover their butt so they can continue being hired by other event organisers. But instead of apologising and then behaving, he thought complaining and getting me to be in the wrong would be the best bet.

To him, the event was his playground – not work.

And I was the nasty, bad, lady who’d upset him. Only, he was the little boy who cried because someone had taken the cat who’s tail he’d been pulling away from him.

The Manager was relieved when I pointed out that the local ‘Celeb’ is hired by you and so in effect working for you and as such, should be following the same rules as any other of your staff member and hired help – which for him was not to chat up the audience and keep it professional and so duly went back and reigned in the roaming circle of the local ‘Celeb’ by making one of his team chaperone him for the rest of the evening until he left.

It occurred to me that when it comes to Christmas Parties and Award Evenings and After Dinner engagements where there is a free flow of alcohol, how many other events have been tarnished by unprofessional ‘Celebs’ taking advantage of dewy eyed audience members?

And how many Event Organisers have had the unwelcome job of having to mop up the fallout from one ‘Celeb’s’ indiscretion afterwards?

And because this Event team was fairly inexperienced and had inadvertently allowed themselves to be swept up in the awe of the local ‘Celeb’ gracing them with his presence, what if I wasn’t around to lend my experience and point them into seeing the reality of the problem?

Organising one of these types of events is hard enough and engaging someone you can trust to be professional when the audience is at its most vulnerable is vital.

Luckily the incident in this event was nipped quickly in the bud. But I can’t help wondering what could have happened if he did leave with someone and something did happen? Who would the legal eagles come after? And who would be to blame? Or would there be any blame and it just simply swept under the carpet putting the experience down to too much Christmas Spirit?

As I said at the beginning, organising one of these events is not easy.

I believe Event Organisers are the unsung hero and it’s about time they were given more freedom and more voice so they can do their job and continue protecting the event’s reputation and the audience’s experience without fear of reprisal from predators who hunt in these grounds.

Other Posts of Interest:

‘It’s the Celebrity speaker here, can you get me some of the White stuff?’

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