Organising a big event is a challenge for any company. Getting reliable speakers who can attracting an avid listening audience is the first step to success.. Filling the chosen venue with a suitable auditorium is also a hard job, and one for which one has to compete hard due to the profusion of events programmed every day in a city like Madrid.
But what happens once you get past these first three steps? The day of the event arrives and by the time you've called the event you've registered a number of guests that doesn't exceed two digits. You are relatively worried, because you have already foreseen that in this country everyone is late and you had it in your agenda. After a quarter of an hour of courtesy (or even half an hour in some cases), the event begins and it turns out that 30 per cent of the expected audience has turned up.
Between now and halfway through the speaker's speech, there is still a steady trickle of arrivals, with the resulting disruption for both the speaker and the audience already in their seats. Because, that's another thing, the first arrivals always occupy the seats closest to the aisles. It's the law of the event! Finally, the total number of attendees reaches just over 50% of the people who have registered. Has anyone stopped to think about the wastefulness of not attending something you have signed up for? The number of attendees influences the entire infrastructure to be hired: size of the hall, amount of food and beverages or merchandising, for example.
This happens every day in Madrid (and I suppose in the rest of the big cities in Spain). And the worst thing is that we admit it as a matter of course, as one of those differentiating characteristics (I don't know why) that we southern European societies have.
As for the specialists in organising this kind of events, I recommend that, if most of the audience is going to need devices to listen to the translation, they give them to them during the entry registereven if the intervention is not the first of the day. Recently, I missed an interesting conference queuing to pick up one of these modern devices (which didn't work in the end!). And if journalists are attending, please find them a place where they can work comfortably. Bear in mind that anyone using a laptop will probably need a power socket at some point during the day. And anyone taking notes on paper (don't laugh, there are still a few of us left) will need a minimum of lighting. At the same event I just told you about, some editors had to write in their notebooks under the light of their mobile phones. Lessons to be learned.
Cristina García Alonso
Consultant at Proa Comunicación
Cristina García Alonso
Consultant at Proa Comunicación