What would you do?
I’m not going to beat around the bush. Without you even realising it, your event
organiser has probably just saved your company from an embarrassing, bad press,
client losing situation and you probably won’t even know.
Many organisers are faced with situations that can either
bring the company or themselves into bad press.
But more worryingly is the lack of support or understanding they get
from their own company and the business world at large and instead of sharing
information, they are left to deal with this as best they can and hope it
‘doesn’t come out on their watch’.
Don’t believe me?
Imagine: You have just spent the best part of a year, organising and
overseeing the task of arranging your company’s largest annual event. All Key personnel have arrived. All helpers
and crew are ready to sprint into action. All equipment, AV and everything else
is set up for the event to begin in the morning. The Celebrity has arrived, spoken to the CEO,
joined the team for evening dinner and now retired to their room to get ready
to do the keynote in the morning. With
the last checks done, it’s now your turn to turn in, leaving some of the team
members at the hotel bar enjoying the last of the night before the big day
tomorrow. And then you get a call. It’s from the Celebrity. Last minute changes to the speech? An issue that’s
arisen and they’ve got to go? Just wanting to thank you and find out if there
is anything else they could do for you?
No. It’s them asking you to get
them some drugs! And I don’t mean the
over the counter type either.
Your heart races.
What to do? Who to call? It’s the middle of the night….!
What would you do?
We all know what should happen. But the truth is scarier – the organiser is
left to deal with it and often won’t mention it to anyone apart from a select
few they trust.
By this, I mean they deal with it as in they either do or
don’t find the drugs – I’ve heard of organisers doing both and sadly for the
same reason – because they felt it was their job that’s on the line and the
event outcome being ruined.
And they had to make this tough decision on their own, with
seconds or only a few minutes to think.
Media is littered with Celebrities having indiscretions, but
hardly at a conference or at a named business event. Have you ever stopped to ask why this is? With over 1.29 million events running each
year in the UK alone, the only drugs that hit the media headlines are those
mentioned in Pharma events or a Celebrity indiscretion going to, leaving a
party or in a hotel!
To me, I think the answer is simple: instead of being
allowed to name and shame, the celebrity will use their high status and, often being
good manipulators, will use their social status and dominant personality to
intimidate and belittle to get what they want.
A great article by Jenny
McCartney on 5th November 2012 published in The Telegraph
highlights this and why people won’t say anything.
But then you have to ask, what would have happened if others
had blown the whistle? To answer this,
you don’t have to look too far: in the case of Oisin Tymon and his Celeb run in
with them asking for something that was impossible under the circumstances as
highlighted in the wonderful article in The Telegraph, by Victoria
Ward, 12th March 2015, the brand suffered and the Celeb was sacked
because of it going so very public. The public
backlash didn’t focus on the behaviour of the Celeb, instead it focused on the
messenger. And no messenger wants to be
put under that type of public pressure, especially when we have a bad habit of
demonising those who do stand up and call these Celebrity’s behaviour into
question.
Recently, I heard yet again of another organiser who
received, ‘The Phone Call’. For
guidance, they naturally turned to the person who they booked the Celebrity
through. It was then they found out they
were not the agent but a bureau, an intermediary. The intermediary didn’t know
about there being ‘a problem’ beforehand either….
I’d like to tell you how it was resolved in this instance,
but, seeing as the true agent didn’t tell the booker about the Celeb’s little
habit, and the booker won’t ever divulge who it is and neither will the
Organiser tell anyone else out of fear of backlash, I’m sorry to say the next Celeb
that you book might be them as this collaborative silence allows this behaviour
to go on.
And because this silence goes on, the next organiser who
books might well be faced with the same phone call and are forced into a
position to make that instant decision which could jeopardise your brand. It only takes one person to successfully
inform the public in a way they don’t get a backlash and like a house of cards,
it’ll all come out.
We are not that far away from that moment.
There has long been a need for openness and accountability when
it comes to booking speakers and personalities for events and it’s why we put
on our site. Iwantaspeaker.com, the opportunity for organisers to give Reviews
about their experience after working with the speakers. At first, we thought we did the wrong thing
when a few speakers who tried to register with our site said they didn’t like
the Review section, but, after a bit of research - it’s the being ‘Open and
Accountable and a fear of Reviews’ that’s keeping them away and more
importantly a fear of receiving Bad Reviews because usually it’s been
justified!
Good.
It means we are doing what we set out to do and those who do
sign up to our site will not be one of those Celebrities who will be making
‘that phone call’, and putting your brand at risk. What are you doing to make sure you are
hiring Speakers that won’t behave badly and more importantly, have you an
action plan and a support system in place for your event organiser should they
be put in this position? At least those speakers who have signed up with us are
happy to be Reviewed which means your organiser will not have to face one of
those dreaded late night phone calls….
Cindy-Michelle Waterfield
iwantaspeaker.com
trust –convenience – peace of mind
