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...

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…