Why Communication Skills are Needed for Event Planning

National Event Planner Interview
A national event planner must be equipped with some serious communication skills in order to thrive and be successful. As Rob Hard has shown, successful event planners must have excellent verbal and written communications. When I asked an acquaintance who is a professional in the field why this was so, the answer I received was telling: “Because when you’re in charge not only of coordinating the event, the planning, the organizing, but also of bringing it all to fruition, you have to be a communicator. You’re basically like the director of a tent-pole film: everyone is looking at you for guidance, for answers, for direction. You have to be able to step up and give all that.” In other words, a national event planner has to be able to communicate a vision, a reality, a plan, a method, a schedule, a template, a means of operation, and a strategy in order to pull off the event. Without the ability to communicate, the event planner is lost.
Event planning is also about networking, and as National Event Pros shows, the greater one’s network of professionals, the more likely one is going to be able to produce the show that clients want. The reason for this is that networking is the bread and butter of event planning. For instance, one must be able to surround himself with other professionals in order to get the event underway: it will require staff, a safety team, entertainment, and so on. If one is not connected to such a network or in touch with all the different crews needed for any one given event, the final result will be lackluster. A national event planner must be connected to other working professionals who are ready and willing to be available. In this sense, an event planner is like a talent coordinator or a play maker: one has to know what plays are possible, who to go to for this or that, and when a plan can be executed. This takes not allow communication skills but also immense planning skills. When I asked my acquaintance what the second most important skill of a national event planner was, he answered: “Networking. The ability to network. The ability to get people on board, signed up and ready to go.” What the interviewee revealed was that networking and communicating are essential elements of event planning—but of course so too is the ability to plan. When I asked about planning, the interviewee answered that of course the ability to plan, to be original, and to strategize was important too—but there are always people who can help with that. “It’s really about getting the right people around you to help you solve the problems,” my acquaintance said. In short, being an event planner does not mean that you alone are responsible to solving all the problems and planning the entire show. What you are responsible for, however, is overseeing the process from start to finish and making sure the right people are there to help see it through.
In conclusion, I learned a lot about event planning from my research and from my interview with an acquaintance in the field. What I wish I had done in my interview process was to ask for more detailed stories to help illuminate some of the responses I received. For instance, upon reflection I realized I did not get enough anecdotal support for the ideas that the interviewee gave. In the future, I would ask interviewees to elaborate by prompting them to tell a story for illustrative purposes. For instance, I might have said in this interview, “So I see that communication is absolutely necessary. Can you give me an example of how this might be true? Or tell of a time when a planner failed to be communicative and what happened?” Using these type of follow-up questions can be very effective in gaining good details to help make the interview all the more meaningful.
Works Cited
Hard, Rob. “What Does an Event Planner Do?” The Balance, 5 Mar 2017.
https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-an-event-planner-1223579
National Event Pros. “Celebrate with Confidence. https://nationaleventpros.com/