Here we go again…… the office Christmas party!!

It’s that time of year again, Christmas FM blaring in the office, mince pies in the shopping basket, a present list as long as your arm, let’s face it, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

This means a lot of things but one of them is the much anticipated Christmas work party. Nobody likes waking up with a dry mouth, a blinding headache and ‘The Fear’ , so we have come up with ten tips to ensure you don’t make career suicide (again) or have to face an embarrassing entrance to the office the morning after (again)! 


1.       Have a wing man
It’s always a good idea to appoint a wing man (or woman); this is your buddy and saviour for the evening, this person is solely responsible for ensuring you do not say the wrong thing, dance on the table, give your boss a lap dance, drink too much…the usual stuff. It’s also wise to decide before you’ve had 15 drinks what time you’re planning on leaving the party and also maybe arrange to share a taxi home (this can also be beneficial to ensure you don’t wake up in unfamiliar surroundings). 


2.       Strategic seating arrangement
Be careful where you choose (or get stuck) sitting at a meal if you’re having one or even in the bar or pub. You don’t want to get stuck in an intolerable conversation with your boss for the night that forces you to either nervously drink 10 bottles of wine or say something you’ll regret come Monday morning. Probably good to walk to the table in the middle of a group of people so you can be sheltered from having to give your boss sympathy laughs all evening! 


3.       No shots before your boss: One tequila, two tequila, three tequila….fired!!
Let’s face it, shots are never a good idea but we are human so mistakes happen! If your boss is knocking back the shots you’re sorted, take a big sigh of relief and head to the bar. The key is to always be more sober than him/her at all times! A handy tip here is to buy other people shots to make sure there is always someone more drunk than you. 


4.       Social media
We all know social media can be dangerous while sober but it can be disastrous with a few drinks on board. So if you’re prone to voicing your opinions via social media I would advise you to delete the app off your phone for the night that’s in it!  The last thing you want to wake up to is the vague memory of slating your Christmas party or the people at it….especially if they are your friend on Facebook! 


5.       Know your drink
Are you the type who knows red wine makes you cry but still drink it?? Don’t be that person!! If this sounds like you, do yourself and everyone around you a favour and stick to a ‘safe’ drink!! Again refer back to tip three; always make sure there is somebody more drunk than you!

6.       Don’t kiss the office ‘hottie’
Ok lets face it there’s always one!! Don’t let it be you this year, if you want to avoid the office gossip talking about it for the best half of next year keep your ‘sexy dance moves’ in check and don’t get too cosy with a colleague on the dance floor. It will be extremely awkward come Monday morning and thanks to iPhones there is bound to be photographic evidence. Again this is where your wing man comes in; he/she should rescue you before you get too frisky on the dance floor.  

7.   Try to stay on 2 feet
This one is especially for the ladies and their high heels…..try to stay on two feet, you will always be the person who fell doing Riverdance on the dance floor. That is all.

8.   Don’t call in sick the next day
If you’re unfortunate enough to have your Christmas party on a work night whatever you do make sure you get to work the next day. Do whatever you need to do to get yourself looking semi-decent and make your way into the office for a day of pretending like your fresh as a daisy! This is important for so many reasons; mainly for that fact that if you’re not there you will be the center of the gossip for the day! You can rely on your wing man here for an early morning wake-up call. 


9.       Divert the drama to someone else
If you find yourself in a situation where people are whispering about you the next day don’t worry about it, instead the sensible thing to do is make up a seedy and exciting story about two of your colleagues leaving the party together and sit back and enjoy!! 


10.   Give up!!
If you wake up the morning after your work Christmas party and find that your wing man abandoned you, you got stuck sitting beside your boss, drank ten bottles of wine, told him/her exactly what you thought of them, posted/tweeted your thoughts on various social media sites, cried on a colleagues shoulder, kissed the office hottie (or not so hottie for that matter), fell on your bum, threw up on the dance floor, and was too ashamed to venture into work the next day……sorry we can’t help you, you better get a new job!! Sure there’s always next Christmas!! 

Stage designs to blow you away

Brilliant Stages has designed and constructed the staging and spectacular suspended pyramid feature for Muse’s current tour, Second Law, which tours Europe until Christmas before moving to North America in January 2013.

Oli Metcalfe’s design for the Second Law tour incorporates a semi-circular stage with a straight leading edge, from which projects a full width fore-stage and thrust, and which is inset with circular polycarbonate panels housing lighting effects. Tech bunkers flank each side and a curved runway circumnavigates the upstage edge. LED panels and moving heads feature heavily in the Brilliant Stages’ design which needed to incorporate the necessary support and infrastructure to accommodate this.

The stage is surmounted by the original revolving drum riser which was adapted to accommodate 600mm high LED panels attached to its sides. Brilliant Stages increased the height by adding a rectangular base and infill corners, and created a framework into which the LED panels slide and are locked into position by the corner pieces.

The finishing touches at stage level are made using B1 M1 rated black Regal satin drapes around the thrust, rear of the runway, and tech bunkers, with roll up panels for access to monitors and acoustically transparent fabric across the front of the bass speakers incorporated into the forestage.

This is not the first tour to bring such a centrepiece along with them, fans raved about the stage design at U2’s 360 tour.

 Lovingly dubbed the Claw by the band and the army of crew members needed to erect it on a nightly basis, the stage — anchored in the middle of the field — featured a giant 360 video screen, flowing silk screens and a light show that would make Pink Floyd jealous.

As Bono told Rolling Stone when news of the tour first emerged, the stage set up is "an engineering feat that creates this real physical proximity to the crowd."

Even as far back as 1987, David Bowie was leading the way in stage design for his Glass Spider tour. With a team that included lighting designer Allen Branton, set designer Mark Ravitz, and video director Christine Strand, Bowie’s Glass Spider Tour was all spectacle, including using scaffolding for multiple levels for the band and dancers and, of course, the 40'-diameter spider dominating the stage with its 15'-high inflatable body, not including the legs, which themselves held 20,000’ of colour-changing rope lights. It didn’t hurt the dramatic effects level to have Bowie descend from the spider’s belly in a chair, or the Flying by Foy rig that enabled the singer and dancers to rappel from various levels back to the stage deck.

Campaigns to catch attention

Everyone wants to be seen to be thinking outside the box, this is a term that has long since joined a list of clichéd expressions used to show creativity in marketing campaigns or events but what does it mean? The real focus should be less on wacky new ideas & more on having a lasting impression on your audience.

These days we can do more & more with design incorporating video mapping & large scale projections to create a 4D campaign.

To celebrate 10 years in digital and architectural mapping, Ralph Lauren created a giant projection to work across the flagship London & New York store fronts in 2010. Witnesses were treated to spectacular effects with 50ft models, racing horses and the like and even scented mist to complete the experience.

When Nokia launched their Lumia 800 phone towards the end of 2011 they decided to put on a show to remember. Electro music had just burst its seams & crossed over into the chart world & our radios with the explosion of Canadian DJ Deadmau5, Nokia jumped on the opportunity to incorporate him into their campaign ensuring they had a hold on a younger audience which had been previously lost to Apple.

The producer & DJ performed in front of London's iconic Millbank Tower to a backdrop of 4D visuals stretching the full length of the 120m-tall building

Most recently, Big Screen Media has created a flexible modular digital display walls using the latest LED technology where moving images can be built into various shapes & sizes.

Tony Gibbs Business Development Manager Commented

“This is like a dream come true for me I started my career in the late 80′s manufacturing  modular pole and panel systems, then moved on to large format  print, custom build and show organising and I was always looking into new ways of creating high impact visual graphic displays.”

Whether it's 2D, 3D or 4D, design hold a huge importance in creating memorable events. To see how you can customise the design of your event page you can check out our additional services & contact our design team to make your page really stand out or even just to make it identically match the branding of your own website/social media pages.

Krissie @ EventElephant 

Planning Your Event

Planning an event can be a stressful task, you have to take into consideration so many different points from coming up with a catchy name to assessing the risk value of your venue, here are a few tips to help you through.

Know your audience

The most important thing to note when promoting your event is your target  audience, once you have established the demographics of your audience you will know how to market to them, what mediums to use (specific radio stations/newspapers aimed at different demographics), what type of language to use etc.

Crowd Management

When there are crowds no matter how big or small there can be problems, you should have a clear floorplan displayed around the event to assist people, if it’s a seated event consider a table plan. We offer our customers scanners to easily manage crowds entering events, this will let you know how many people have come in the doors & eliminate counterfeit tickets. https://www.eventelephant.com/keyfeatures

Crowd management doesn’t necessarily have to be about ushering herds of people, if you are speaking at a seminar you don’t want your first few rows of chairs to be empty, here are a few tips to get your audience to sit up the front.

http://www.eventresources.com/caring-and-sharing-ideas-from-the-web/

Risk Assessment

This is vital for any event. Be sure you know the capacity of your venue, you don’t want your night being shut down because of overcrowding. Again, know your audience, if you have large groups of teenagers you may need to hire extra security. 

Themes

A good talking point to get your audience interacting. Also a great way to have people continue to talk about your event after it has finished. Here is a link to some fun event themes http://www.amerevents.com/themes.htm

Venue

Everyone wants to sell a huge amount of tickets but be realistic about your expected attendance, if you have a venue with a 10,000 capacity & you only sell 5,000 tickets it will affect the atmosphere of your event. People love the feeling of a more ‘intimate’ event so don’t be afraid to book something with a smaller capacity. 

If you are hosting an event with EventElephant you can avail of our marketing service, our marketing expert will assess your event page & give you personalised tips & advice on how best to get the word out. Check out our website to see how easily you can set up your own event page & sell tickets online. www.eventelephant.com 

Krissie @ EventElephant 

Want your event to go Viral? You need a creative approach

Here are 6 quick steps to create a viral buzz around your event:

Target your event at an active on-line community 
Get in touch with an online community that can help in supporting your event. Involve them in the creation process of the event. The event will succeed online, because it was started online.

Have high quality speakers at your event
When it comes to the speaker at your event, get the really big names. The people who attend, present or participate will determine the learning and networking opportunity

Make the content available and shareable
Emphasise the quality of your content and make it readily available to everyone.

Have a wow factor. The concept needs to be uniquely innovative
To achieve virality you need to be innovative. You need to get to know all of the new concepts out there and keep on top if these. Do not go with what has already been done before.

Co-create the event marketing
Cocreation will ensure commitment. Getting others involved through social media can be very powerful and will spread word of the event much quicker and even further.

Use social media offline
To encourage offline-online interaction you will need to invest heavily on technology.Learn more about NFC and RFID and the capabilities to stream offline interaction on-line.

We'd love to help you create a buzz around your event. Drop us an email and book yourself a consultation with our Event Management expert. 

Some information taken from http://www.eventmanagerblog.com

We're giving away FIVE Samsung Galaxy Tabs

Yes, that really is 5 Samsung Tabs. And you can be in with the chance of winning one.

We've decided to open up our Grand National sweepstake to all Event Organisers this year. And what better prize than a sleek and sexy tablet for all your technology minded event lovers.

The rules are pretty simple:

• Sign up to EventElephant and create your first event with us
• Once you've done this, we'll give you the name of a horse running in the Grand National
• If your horse wins, you win the Samsung Galaxy tablet

If your new to EventElephant - you can find out more here
If you're already using EventElephant - you can find out more here

We're giving away some fun spot prizes too. If you 'Like us' on Facebook we'll keep you updated on the prizes.

If you've got any questions, drop us an email: marketing@eventelephant.com

Are you Pinterested?

I like to keep myself abreast of all new marketing tools and technologies - there's a lot to choose from these days...some good, some not so good.

I've been hearing a lot about Pinterest recently. I've been doing a bit of snooping and I started to wonder if this new social media site can be used for events too.

Pinterest is a pin-board style social photo sharing website. You create and manage theme-based image collections. You simply share your photos and if anyone likes them, they follow you.

Surely you can promote your event this way and drum up a bit of interest? It's attracting around 11 million unique visitors a month and those visiting spend on average 100 minutes on the site compared to 19 minutes on professional social networking sites. Worth a try, don't you think?

Have a read of this article I found which should give you a bit more information on Pinterest.

What's your thoughts? Is this the next big thing or just another social networking site?

A fun new way for people to connect at a large event

We made some new friends recently at mobile app company called People Hunt. It's such a great idea we couldn't wait to share with our social world....

It's an ice-breaker game that allows you to network with like minded people at large events. This is how it works...

• People Hunt asks you some questions to create a persona for you
• It will then find a target for you based on mutual personality factors
• Connect with the target and swap stories
• Collect connections with all sorts of different people at the event

What a fun way to speak to people that you wouldn't normally. It's also a good way to meet new business contacts, get objective feedback and even make new friends.

Try it for yourself at the next event you run.

How to get attendees to take the front seats at meetings

I recently joined a fab Event Management group on LinkedIn called Event Planning and Event Management. There are loads of really interesting conversations going on which gives a fascinating insight into what everyone is talking about in the Event industry.

I stumbled across a really fun conversation entitled: If you have 500 attendees and they all want to sit in the back of the meeting room, what creative ideas do you use to seat them up in front?

Here are some of my favourite responses...

If you've got a buffet, put the food near the front. You'll find that people will want to have the first pick of the food.

Make the front area, the VIP area. People like to be made to feel like they're important.

Put whoopie cushions on the seats at the back.

Turn the seats at the back to face the back wall. In their confusion people would go to the front rather than turn the chair around.

Put a big sign up to say that if you sit in the first several rows you will be given a raffle ticket and put into a draw to win a prize.

Put signs up on the last few rows stating that people should sit there only if they want to be called on during the presentation.

Ask the last 5 rows to stand up and move to the front.

That's just a few of the comments. Why not have a look yourself for some inspiration.

Interesting event articles

I've been trawling through the internet this week getting up to speed on what the latest news in the Events Industry is. Here's a list of my favourite news and gossip:

Ever stopped to think about organising an event during windy conditions? Read this blog to get some tips on how to cope.

Do you run conferences? Check out this guide to IT requirements when setting up your next conference.

Or do you run Exhibitions? Check out this cool app.

Facebook launch the new 'suggested event tool'. It's caused a bit of a stir. Good news for Event Organisers?

Happy Reading